So, if I can’t hear God’s replies when I pray, how do I follow His will? How do I obey Him and grow in Him, since I’m not getting any clear directions? And because I have given my life to Him, I also know that He has given me His Holy Spirit-because He said so. But I know He is real, and I know He loves me-as I look back over the years, I have seen myself and my family grow in unexpected ways as we walked with Him. I myself, at least, have not really had any supernatural encounters with God. Instead, we are given and marked by the Holy Spirit from the moment we first believe in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14).ĭo we always feel the Holy Spirit at work? Probably not. He didn’t say that we’d only get the Holy Spirit if we had enough faith, or if we prayed the right prayers. Jesus promises us that the Holy Spirit will always be with us (John 14:17). From the context of this passage, and of other related passages, we know that the advocate here is the Holy Spirit. On His final evening, Jesus told His disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever-the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17). I had been reading the Gospel of John recently, so that’s where we went first. Here are four truths we discovered from the Bible that you might find helpful too: I shot God a quick prayer for wisdom and guidance, and asked May if she would like to look at a couple Bible passages with me, hoping to encourage her that God does speak to her and work in her life, even if it looks different from her friend’s life. When she didn’t hear God, she concluded that she did not have enough faith, or was not praying hard enough-that she was somehow lacking.
May thought that more faith would enable her to hear God speaking to her.
Apparently, since I had been a Christian for longer than she had, she expected I would have the maturity to hear God speak aloud to me. “I’ve never actually heard Him with my ears,” I told her. “Do you hear God speak?” she suddenly asked me. This friend had encouraged her, telling her that if she desires it enough, if she prays hard enough, she would hear God speak too. I asked her what she meant, and May told me about her friend who could hear God audibly speak to her. Do you think it’s because I don’t have enough faith?” We were talking after church, and May suddenly asked me, “I’ve been praying to hear God speak, but I still can’t hear Him.
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