You and I were made for connection. It is profound to think that Yahweh revealed Himself right from the very beginning as an “us”. Let us make man in our image. Some thousands of years later He would reveal how the spirit that hovered over the waters, the angel of the Lord, the Son of Man that Isaiah saw, the anointed one promised from long ago, and the spirit that fell on Saul and David causing them to prophecy were manifestations of distinct persons in Himself. Namely, Jesus made it abundantly clear that He was one of these three distinct persons and yet one with and within Yahweh God. Christians, hundreds of years after the invasion of the kingdom of God on earth began through Jesus, began to refer to this three-person-ness of Yahweh as a “trinity”.

My point in all this is that God is community and connection right from the start! My favorite place to “see” the trinity is at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus the Son goes to be baptized by John the Baptizer and the Father speaks from heaven while the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove—three distinct persons and yet still one God. God is community within Himself—somehow and in some incredible way. If I tried to define God any more, I’m sure I’d get it wrong and He’d just lovingly correct me someday on the other side of heaven.

The mystery is deep and profound, but God’s self-contained community is not all He is after. We have hint after the hint in God’s love for us that shows He is not satisfied without humanity being involved as well. God loves you and I and that was proven through Jesus.

What does this love lead to? What is the end goal? I propose that I don’t know! Anyone who claims to know with any definition is probably missing it somehow. No eye has seen, no heart has conceived of what God has planned for us in His goodness!

One thing I am willing to hazard a guess about however is that God wants to speak to us. I firmly believe that God is willing and able to communicate with us tiny humans. Imagine: God knows the number of hairs on your head, but He doesn’t want to talk to you. That’s ridiculous! Why would He keep track of such insignificant things if He didn’t have a divine love and care for you that shapes how He interacts with us?

Jesus confirmed God’s concern for each individual by teaching the crowds that, yes, you humans are more valuable than the birds of the air. Jesus said that our heavenly Father knows about each sparrow that falls to the ground. It’s like God attends the funerals of each and every bird that dies, and yet, just think how much more valuable are you to God than a whole flock of birds!

If God values you and I so much, He is certainly willing to interact with us. I believe that this interaction includes speaking to us. David had a particularly interesting quality about him that we don’t get to see in so much detail in many other bible figures. David often asked God what he should do and God answered. When David had an idea in his mind, we would bring it to Yahweh God. 2 Samuel 2 contains one of these conversations:

David asked God, “Should I move back to one of the towns of Judah?”

“Yes,” Yahweh replied.

Then David asked, “Which town should I go to?”

“To Hebron,” Yahweh answered.

Lord! Speak to me like this! David even got to ask clarifying questions! Can you imagine!?

I want to tell you today that I believe God is still willing to speak to you and I today. Jesus taught that not only does He speak to us, but that our ears can work. Sometimes we get to a point where we believe that “of course God could speak, I just can’t hear Him with these ears and these senses.” Jesus disagrees with you! He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

If Jesus’ sheep hear His voice, then Jesus speaks. If Jesus speaks, we can hear Him. If we hear Him, we can follow His leading!

Imagine if your mom gives you a phone call on a number you and your phone don’t recognize. You answer and you hear the person on the other line introduce themselves without stating a title or name. Would you recognize that it was your mom? I hazard that in most cases we would recognize our own mothers after a few sentences or so because most of us have spent significant amounts of time with our moms. We know what she is like. We know her inflection. We know the words she uses and how she speaks to us.

What if your mom’s sister were to give you a call and begin to introduce herself as your mom. Would you be able to tell that something was up? There might be something strange said that would tip you off. Perhaps the sound of the voice would be just ever so slightly be off. I would probably say, “mom, are you feeling okay today?”—maybe she’s just sick and that’s why her voice is sounding funny today.

We know our mother’s voice because we have spent time with her. We have listened to her voice for many years and could pick out her voice within a crowd of hundreds. We would know the special way she speaks to us because of our history of being together over many years.

I submit to you that it is the same with speaking to God. When we first begin to know and believe that God speaks, we can begin to ask Him questions in prayer and expect that He will give us intuitions, ideas, pictures, words, feelings, and anything else that us humans can experience in response. We may initially confuse God’s speaking for something else like the prophet Samuel did when God first spoke to him. It wasn’t until the fourth time that God spoke to Samuel that Samuel had the training from Eli that pointed to the true source of who was speaking. Samuel heard the voice of God, but thought it was someone else.

Only God knows how many times we have “random” thoughts that are actually God-thoughts. God also knows how many times we have thoughts that are not from ourselves but rather from a deceiver trying to make us think we are just an awful terrible person. As we begin to realize that not every thought we have is wholly our own, we can begin to discern the voice of Jesus, the voice of the Father, the voice of the Spirit, the voice of our enemy the devil, the voice of our sinful nature, the voice of our redeemed nature, the voice of that burrito from last night, etc.

Jesus tells us that He speaks and that we can hear and listen. It is a process to learn to discern. Just like learning to hear our mother’s voice, we can learn to recognize the voice of God.

I have been on the journey of discerning His voice over some time now. I’m confident I get it right sometimes because of the fruit. I’m also confident that I get it wrong sometimes. In fact, I am comfortable if perhaps I’m always getting it wrong—although I really don’t think that is the case. But perhaps just maybe I am fooling myself somehow someway. If I am just thinking my own thoughts and mistakenly attributing them to God, that’s okay. I can tell Jesus even today that “to the best of my ability, I thought you said X, and I obeyed.”

What joy it gives me just to write that sentence! Yes, I thought Jesus said to do this, go there, say that, and I did it! Without faith, we cannot please God. And a faith without action is dead. God will work all things for my good in the end.

My prayer for you is that you would begin and continue your journey of trusting God in conversation. Listen for what He is speaking to you today. I dare you to try to discern. I double-dog dare you to step out into what you think He tells you with obedience. If you do it with love, outdoing one another in honor, and filled with humility—even if you get it wrong in your discernment this time, you will have lived genuinely trying to connect with and obey the one who speaks and who truly cares for you.