If you’re like me, there have come moments in your life when you experienced struggles, setbacks, or a lack of clarity in your direction, that you asked yourself, “What does God want from me?” You might have asked this question in different ways — “What is the universe telling me?” “Why am I experiencing this? What am I meant to learn?” — but whatever way that you personally ask this question, I believe the answer is always the same.
“God asks only that you ask for the voice of God to be heard.”
This is, in fact, the exact answer that was given through spiritual teachings that were revealed to my parents decades ago, and that became the foundation for the work that I was eventually led to do. But if you look deeply into various religious and spiritual practices around the world, you can see a universal truth in this answer. In most practices, you are encouraged to be present and listen, to clear your mind, and to find a level of acceptance with what is (even if you desire something better) so that you can hear that still silent voice within you. When you do these practices, it’s not always necessary that you ask in words to hear God’s voice. You will ultimately hear it nonetheless.
You’re encouraged to move beyond thoughts, feelings and perspectives, and see the enlightenments that happen by doing so. You’re encouraged to seek God because in the seeking, you uplift yourself to a higher potential. This higher potential is God’s prayer for you to steadily reach. You’re encouraged to practice being aware each morning and throughout each day of where your life is talking to you. The moments of happiness, peace and joy that you can give thanks to; the moments of struggle or challenge that call you to look beyond yourself for the answer or a clearer direction. It is becoming increasingly aware of the meaning and intention behind the symbols that present themselves in your life and in your dreams.
“Ask and the voice of God will begin from within, you will hear and dream messages.”
How You Hear God’s Voice
Unlike in movies where clouds rumble and a thundering voice can be heard echoing from the sky, God’s voice is heard more subtly. You might hear it through an inspired thought, an inner knowing, or an event that happens out of the blue (or a person comes across your path) and you become aware of the significance of that event. You might hear God’s voice through your dreams. It can come in the form of symbols, overarching themes and interactions that you have in your dreams. Or it can be a direct spiritual encounter that you experience while in a dream-state.
The same holds true for both your sleeping dream or your waking dream (your daily life). And in both “dream” states, you are creating and learning, and also receiving messages through stories and symbols. To find meaning in these stories, symbols, events and circumstances that, in part, represent ways of hearing God’s voice, you’re invited to interpret what you experience not by what others think they mean, but for the love behind and within the experiences — good or bad. You’re in a continual process of coming into a greater awareness of your place in the house that God is building within you. Your experiences in sleep, and in your daily life, are ways of guiding you to this place.
The good news is that you don’t have to know right away what it all means. You can simply appreciate the messages for the love behind and within them. When you have faith that within you exists a piece of the loving light of divinity, you open yourself to connecting with this inner light and allowing God’s voice to be heard.
In your moments of awareness, in silence or in prayer, you’re able to move beyond simply surviving your day-to-day ups and downs. You’re, instead, able to find a clearer flow in your life. You’re able to see “problems” not as problems, but as opportunities to seek and live out solutions. And only in the focus on solutions can you hear God’s voice most clearly.
There is a significant difference you experience with this shift in perspective — you go from living in “survival” mode (where your focus is on what is not going right), to living in “solutions” mode (where your focus is on where things are going well and on what actions you can take toward a solution). When you ask for the voice of God to be heard in your life through grace and ease, you find that as you go through your day, taking care of whatever, or whomever, you need to, you feel a harmonious flow or stillness in the background guiding your life.
It’s been my experience that when you make the effort to answer this question, “What does God want from me?”, and ask — whether consciously within yourself in your quiet moments or as you take note of your daily life and nightly dreams, you inevitably hear the voice of God. And in doing so, you also realize that whatever problems that may arise in your life, the answer is always in you.
