Blog Archives
Learning to Hear God’s Voice
Whenever someone tells me they want to draw closer to God, one of my first questions is about whether they know how to discern God’s voice. Learning the language of the Spirit is like learning another language – it takes time and practice! You can pray all day and fast and read Scripture, but there has to be two way communication in order to build a RELATIONSHIP with God. It cannot be one sided!
In fact, I remember when I was a child and someone said from a pulpit that Jesus was our best friend and we should talk to him all day long. In my mind, my reply was, Well, He better talk to me too! No one talked about hearing from God so I didn’t say what I was thinking for fear of being labeled disrespectful. I guess most people just assumed it was a one way thing – you talk and God listens. I remember when I started to hear from God and I told my dad. He said, That’s preposterous! God only talks to holy men in the mountains. He was raised Greek Orthodox and there are special mountains where the priests go to hear from God.
Guess what? God still speaks! And you can know when God is speaking to you. Did you ever notice that almost every story in the Bible revolves around someone hearing from God? It’s important when God speaks to you and you should write down what He says! It also means He talks to a lot of people so why wouldn’t He talk to you too? 😊
If you want some step-by-step instructions, here is a course I can recommend to help you get started.
Developing a Close Relationship with God: A Simple Method – link to course
If you need encouragement and hope to develop a close relationship with God – that’s what this course provides. If you took the course, you’d learn how to focus so you can pay attention to God without distractions. You’d also learn to recognize His voice and become familiar with the different ways that God communicates. You’d practice recording what God has said to you each day. This would give you confidence to take action on what He tells you to do. That’s quite an adventure! Lastly, you’d have a new appreciation of what it means to really TRUST God.
It’s very short – like 15 minutes a week for 4 weeks. And it’s not expensive. You can listen to it while you drive or even when you exercise. It provides simple exercises to help you interact with God.
Recently a reader of this blog sent me this message about the course:
My husband and I just completed this course. It is concise and we feel so comforted and confirmed that our personal experiences with God are true! At our church, no one shares how they communicate personally with God. I learned by asking God to help me discern which voice is His, which voice is mine and which voice is the enemy (or accuser). This course gave us confirmation of our experience with Holy Spirit.
It is very important to learn how to tell the difference between God’s voice, your own voice and the enemy’s voice. If you need help with that, read this post: God’s Voice vs Other Voices: How Can You Tell the Difference?
If you have learned to hear God voice already, please comment on this post – that way we can all learn from each other!
Here are some related posts that might also help you:
How to Remove Blocks to Hearing God
Why Can’t I See or Hear in the Spirit?
Rainbow Circle of Light 🌈
I had an amazing encounter with God this week and I’d like to share it with you. I was with a group of intercessors when we had this experience together. It was life-changing – it shifted my perspective about our purpose on the earth.
As we were waiting on the Lord after taking communion, we saw ourselves sitting on the ground in a circle inside one of the chambers of the Father’s heart. It was like a cavern with soft lighting. There was a strong sense of peace and safety there.
The Lord brought to our minds the story of Moses when he turned aside from his day-to-day life and observed the burning bush. The Lord used the burning bush to get Moses’s attention and then he had an encounter with God. It was the light of the fire that got his attention.
I looked at the people sitting in the circle and we each had different colors, based on the frequency of who God is in us. First I saw a light blue light, then a purple light, and somebody else had a green light. Our brightness was increasing, becoming bolder, revealing more. It looked kind of like the light in light sabers. There was bright light in the center, but the glow around each light was different shades – blue, green, purple, etc. I also saw colors in the air around us, crackling like lightning.
Then we stood up and took each other’s hands and we became this rainbow circle of light. When our lights combined, one beam of light shot straight up like a spotlight. It was HUGE compared to our individual lights.
We saw this happening around the world as other lights were also rising up. The amount of light was increasing all over the earth as more lights appeared and were getting brighter.
We received the insight that when the light gets brighter, it reveals things – darkness can no longer hide. It becomes obvious what is not real, what is not true. This light reveals truth – what’s real and good and perfect and beautiful. The Light exposes lies, and the darkness flees.
Darkness has to flee in the face of all the colors of the truth.
We are the sons and daughters of the light, with all the colors of the rainbow becoming the beam of God’s love and truth from His heart.
We started singing, “This huge light divine, we’re gonna let it shine!” 😁
Then we were reminded of the story of Moses and the burning bush again. We realized that we can be a visitation to other people that don’t know God yet!
We carry the tangible sense of His presence, His peace, His joy, His love. They don’t know it’s going to happen until we encounter them, and something touches their heart and they turn aside. We just carry that presence, that goodness, that touch of heaven and it’s like the burning bush. It gets their attention.
There are some people walking on the earth right now that are literally just glowing with God’s light like a high wattage light bulb. There are other people who are not glowing with that light. Maybe they have a little bit of light, a little bit of truth, a little flame inside of them and when they encounter somebody that’s glowing, it encourages the light in them. It makes it easier for them to see things more clearly, to see what’s good and what’s not good for them.
Those that are carrying that bright light, it lights up wherever they go. And wherever there is light, there is greater clarity, truth, understanding and all kinds of good benefits. Because when you’re in the dark, you don’t know what to do. But when somebody who has the light walks in – all of a sudden you can see clearly!
Wherever we are positioned geographically, we are shining with that light, and the people that encounter us, encounter that light. And it’s not just geographically, but also relationally, because we have friends and family in other places, and when they interact with us, they interact with that light.
It’s not something we DO, it’s who we ARE. We are glowing through our union with God. He’s in our heart and we are in His heart. You can’t help but shine, even when you are having a bad day. 😉
Thank you, Lord, that we get to be You on the earth, representing Your goodness, Your love, Your truth. What a privilege!💕
✨✨ Shine, Jesus, shine, fill this land with Father’s glory! ✨✨
Have you ever seen yourself as a pillar of light on the earth? Which color do you think you radiate? (It’s probably more than one.) Can you imagine someone encountering God when they encounter you like Moses did at the burning bush? 😲
Feel free to share your thoughts below – I’d love to hear what you think about this. Did it shift your perspective like it did mine?
Remember: You can’t help but shine, even when you are having a bad day. You light up the world around you, just by being you! 💗🌈 😊
How to See in the Spirit
Last night I was in a prayer meeting and one of the ladies (JC) asked how she could see in the spirit. Often when we would pray together as a group, someone would say what they saw. This was challenging for her. She did not see things in the spiritual realm and didn’t know how to develop this ability.
Before we started praying, I briefly shared some things with her. This morning I received a message from JC saying,
Thank you for your tips on how to connect my hearing sense with my seeing sense. It was so good for me – I experienced some breakthroughs (she gave examples). Thank you so much, I am blessed! Glory to the Father! Thank Him for letting me move forward little by little.
Here are the things I shared with her – in case they might help you too.
First, what is your strongest sense? Do you see, hear or feel? Most of us perceive the unseen realm of God’s kingdom by one of these senses. I’m primarily a feeler. JC said she is primarily a hearer.
I encouraged her to focus on what is already comfortable for her – hearing. Then when someone else describes what they see, imagine that scene in your mind and see if the Lord will let you hear something that relates to what the other person is seeing. Imagine what you are hearing. This helps to connect the two senses.
Don’t focus on what you can’t do – focus on what you CAN do. Then share it with the group. Even if it seems very small or insignificant. What you focus on will grow. It also validates it for your mind.
Our mind (natural man) often questions what our spirits perceive. Our mind is used to being in charge and interpreting the world around us based on our 5 natural senses, right? So when you start using your spiritual senses, the mind tries to jump in and take charge. It often questions what you are perceiving and tries to convince you that you are wrong or stupid or even crazy. It creates doubt (the opposite of faith).
When you express what you are sensing in the spirit, it feels like a big risk. You risk being seen as foolish or sounding crazy. But guess what? When you say out loud what you are sensing, it validates it in your mind. It makes it easier to accept, which builds your faith and opens you up to sensing even more! It is honoring the Lord by honoring what He is showing you.
As you do that, your senses get sharper and they begin to work together. As JC practiced last night, by focusing her listening skills, she suddenly got visual pictures! She told me that some of the things she saw seemed impossible. But she told herself to accept it. After she did that, someone else in the group would describe the same thing she was seeing – confirmation! She was ecstatic! That meant she wasn’t crazy or just making things up (which is what the natural mind wants you to think).
Saying out loud what you are sensing brings it from the unseen realm into the seen realm. It brings it from the kingdom realm into the natural realm. It connects the two realms in our natural reality which makes it feel or seem more real. It IS real, but our minds often discount it because it’s from the spirit. This teaches our natural mind how to receive and accept the things from the spirit.
Here’s another exercise you can do to practice seeing:
- Look around the room you are in. Then close your eyes and imagine the room. Look around it in your mind’s eye. How much detail can you see? Practice this a few times until you can clearly see as much detail as possible.
- Ask Holy Spirit to show you where to look in the room. Focus on that area with your eyes still closed. Ask Him to show you something from the unseen realm. Wait and see what He shows you. Then ask Him to explain what you are seeing and He will.
I did this exercise with a friend and she saw an angel in my living room. Sometimes people have told me they see other things with this exercise like a portal or an item like a sword or a tree.
“A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting our response to His Presence. This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality.” – A. W Tozer, The Pursuit of God
Let me know what tips have helped you to develop your spiritual senses. Comment below so we can all learn from each other. When you do the exercise I described above, please share what you saw. If you see anything dark or scary, ask Jesus, “Where are You in this picture?” Then focus on Jesus and watch what He does. 🙂
More posts that can help you see more clearly in the spiritual realm of God’s kingdom:
The Pain Is Gone! 😲
A few nights ago I was on the phone with a older Christian woman. She mentioned that her knees had been really hurting in the last two weeks and that her legs were very stiff. She has had leg stiffness and knee pain every day for the last year, but although she has been exercising and losing weight, the pain was getting worse not better.
We were both puzzled by this. As we were discussing what she could do to alleviate her pain, I had a sudden inspiration. I asked her, “Have you considered blessing your body each day?” I had heard a friend share this idea last year – the power our words have on our bodies and how we need to honor the body God gave us.
She said, “Yes, I could do that. But I suddenly realized that I need to repent for the way I have not always taken good care of my body in the past.” She started praying right then and there, “Father, I am sorry for not always taking good care of this body you gave me. I am grateful for the way this body has served me and allowed me to do so many things. Please forgive me for times I have misused it.”
Then she began to bless her body and suddenly she saw Pain as a spirit that was tormenting her. So she said, “Pain, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus! Go!”
She finished her prayer and we continued to talk.
Then she stood up to see what was the result of her prayer. She was shocked! She told me, “The pain is gone! Wow!! Thank you, Lord!” Then she sat back down and we talked some more. Then she decided to walk around. Again, she was incredulous, “There’s no more stiffness in my legs – they are SO loose! This is amazing!! Thank you, Jesus!!” 😲😍
It was so much fun to hear her joy! She had been in pain every single day for over a year. Can you imagine how freeing it must have been for the pain to simply leave?
“You know, if someone else had asked me to pray for their body because they were in pain, I would have probably prayed like that for them. But it never occurred to me to pray for my own body that way. Thank you for encouraging me to do that,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Thank you, Lord, for bringing that to mind! I think that’s part of having compassion on ourselves in the same way we would have compassion on someone else,” I replied.
The Lord has been talking to me lately about anticipating His goodness. What does it look like? Can we train our minds to anticipate a good outcome instead of worrying about bad things happening? He has been challenging me to reach out and grasp His goodness. Sometimes it feels easier to have faith for someone else, but right now, He wants me to pay attention and do this for myself. It’s a form of self-compassion – learning to receive His goodness toward me.
What areas of your life is God challenging you to anticipate His goodness toward you? Sometimes we need to start with repenting of Unbelief in His goodness in order to open our hearts up to receiving more from Him. I know I do. Lord, what do you imagine for my future? In what ways is Unbelief in Your goodness holding me back?
Please comment below – your insight might inspire someone else to open their heart to receive more of God’s goodness today!
Share this with a friend who needs to hear it! 💗
Book Review: My Descent into Death
My Descent into Death by Howard Storm is a very inspirational Near Death Experience (NDE) story about an American college art professor who has a medical emergency while traveling in Paris, France. I love reading books about another person’s experience of life after death in the heavenly realm. Unfortunately, Howard didn’t start there. He was an atheist when he died and experienced something terrible – something I hope you never see or hear in your life. I won’t go into detail – no spoilers here. But fortunately, a song from his childhood came to his mind – Jesus loves me. He sang it in pure desperation, wondering if he could ever escape this hellish place he found himself in and guess what? Jesus came to him!
The rest of the book is full of inspirational and unusual insight. Remember, he didn’t know Jesus when he died so he had no preconceived religious ideas (or not very many). So he asked a LOT of questions of Jesus and the angels – the answers he received provide some powerful truths we could all benefit from.
For instance, when Jesus told him that he needed to go back to earth, Howard was very reluctant and asked why he had to go back. He was experiencing such love and peace as he had never experienced before – you can imagine why he didn’t want to come back to earth. Jesus’ answer to him was unique.
You can save the world.
I don’t think so. I’m nobody and I’m not going to save the world. How could I save the world? Howard replied.
You are to love the person you are with.
How will that save the world? Howard wondered.
When you love a person, they will love the next person they meet, and they will love the next person they meet, and so on.
I don’t know if I can do it.
You can do it because we will help you. (“We” meaning Jesus and the angels who were with them.)
Howard was also thinking of his family – his wife and two children. Jesus told him he had to return to finish the job he had.
You have a job to do, which is to take care of the people God needs you to love. You were born to love these people. This is the job that you were created to do.
I LOVE this idea, don’t you? You have a job to do – to take care of the people in your life. Whether that’s your spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, etc. But it’s not “everybody” in the world – just the ones you are with – the ones you speak to, live with, visit or see each day. “You were born to love these people.” What a simple, yet profound concept.
I took my mother to a doctor’s appointment recently and as we were leaving, the doctor turned to us and said, “Take good care of each other.” That hit me with such powerful simplicity. Yes, that’s what we are called to do – every single one of us. Just take good care of each other. 💗
Reading Howard’s life story is very encouraging – his NDE completely changed his life. You can imagine what it might be like going from being a humanistic atheist to a man of faith who had actually met Jesus, face to face! How he changed his life and the differences it made in those around him is contained in the book and I am so glad! Often NDE stories end with the person waking up in the hospital, but not this one. He describes what life was like for him and how long it took to physically recover as well as process his supernatural experience. And the life choices he made afterwards profoundly changed the direction of his life and family.
He said something very powerful toward the end of the book,
Living life with faith is infinitely more rewarding than living without faith in God. Having faith gives one courage to do things one would never do, and the patience to endure the unendurable. Faith gives hope when you haven’t a clue how things will turn out. Faith gives joy when everything is bleak. Life with faith in God is so superior to life without faith that I recommend anyone to seek faith above all other things.
– Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life
Thank you, Howard, for sharing your story with us. We need encouragement when things look bleak in the world. We need that courage, patience, hope and joy. And most of all we need Love.
As Howard learned to apply his faith, he was amazed at how much good he could do to help others. He said,
“There is nothing we couldn’t do if enough people listened to God.”
I believe it! And as my previous post described, Jesus is already drawing people together to bring restoration to the earth. They WILL be listening to God, whether they realize it or not! 😁
If you’d like to read Howard Storm’s book, you can click here to find it on Amazon.
Do you have a book you’d recommend? Please post the title and author’s name below in the comments. I love finding good books. Thanks to Andrey in Poland for recommending this one!
Angel appears – Zaps my laptop!
Guess what happened to me the other night? An angel zapped my laptop!
I was in a Zoom meeting with several other people, waiting on God to see what the Lord would show us about Himself and His kingdom. As we did, different members saw us together with Jesus in a garden. Then a door opened and a company of angels started marching out. They were full of Light.
Someone saw Jesus talking to the angels and assigning some of them to each of us. We thanked the Lord for sending them to us, to assist us in establishing His kingdom and His will in the earth.
Suddenly I sensed a very strong presence of an angel right there in my office. He was standing directly in front on me so I turned my head toward him to discern why he was there. Here’s the screen shot from the Zoom meeting. That’s me in the blue shirt with the beach scene behind me, turning my attention away from the screen.
Suddenly my computer started making a LOUD alarming sound that wouldn’t stop! I have never heard a computer make that kind of continuous sound before. I tried pressing the Esc key and then I tried pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but it didn’t respond. The screen was frozen and so was my mouse, so I held down the power button until it shut off.
What just happened, I thought. I was sensing a new angel here in my office and suddenly my laptop is freaking out!
I tried to restart my laptop but it was very hot to the touch on the bottom so I shut it down again to let it cool off. I rejoined the meeting on my phone and found out I wasn’t the only one who had experienced problems. Another member of the group also suddenly had tech difficulties and had to shut down her computer and rejoin the meeting using her phone. She also mentioned problems with the sound.
As the meeting continued, I tried to calm down and refocus my attention on the Lord. I asked Him about this new angel. I heard, He is here to serve you. And I saw gold glitter in the space where he had been standing.
The next night I was working on a painting in my office and sensing the angelic realm around me. It was getting late, so I took the dog out for a potty break before heading to bed. As we stepped out the front door, I saw a round rainbow around my front lamp post.
The rainbow was a perfect circle of red on the outside and I looked to see if I could see all 7 colors – they were not in rings, but more like looking inside a crystal prism. They were sparkling and winking and moving, especially the yellow and green. It was so bright and beautiful! I pulled out my phone to try and capture the effect, but it was fading and the phone could not see all the colors I could with my eyes. I noticed the air was cool and very moist. I blinked several times, realizing that seeing this effect was probably not “normal”. Was it the water vapor in the air refracting the light from the lamp post? I looked at other nearby lights on the neighbor’s houses. None of them had this rainbow effect. But the light from them was in a star pattern and they were also twinkling and moving. It was wild!
When I looked back at my lamp post, all I could see was the star pattern. I tried to capture it on my phone’s camera and you can kind of see what I mean.
Energy shifts things in the natural realm. The angel appearing in my office definitely shifted something and freaked out my laptop. By the way, it’s fine now – I’m writing on it right now with no problems. Energy was also shifted in the rainbow effect from my lamp post. Light was being refracted, but why could I only see it around the lamp and not any other lights? It reminded me of the scripture in Revelation 4 where it says there’s a rainbow around the throne of God that sparkles like an emerald.
I’m hoping to get more information about this experience, but for now, I just wanted to share it because it’s not every day that an angel’s appearance zaps your computer! Has anything like this ever happened to you? Feel free to share in the comments below.
By the way, here’s the photo I tried to take of the rainbow circle of light around the lamp – you can see the circle, but not the colors. It was so cool to see the colors! 🌈
I Googled this effect, it’s called corona phenomenon. Sometimes you can see it around the moon at night. Here’s a photo someone captured of a corona around a light post. That’s what mine looked like!
Walking by Faith – Amy’s story
Here’s an example of what it means to follow Jesus.
Amy works at Best Buy, an electronics store chain. She used to work in real estate selling homes several years ago, but took a break after she had a car accident. During her recovery, her husband suddenly died of a heart attack. Without her husband’s financial support, she needed a job – fast. She felt drawn to work at Best Buy and did very well there – she became a “pastor” to the people she worked with and often had opportunities to pray for them and help them find hope. This job provided a much needed sense of stability to the sudden roller coaster of her life. She’s been there for almost three years now.
A few weeks ago, she began to feel the Lord directing her to go back into real estate. She was a little hesitant because it had been so long and she was used to getting a regular paycheck from Best Buy. It would take her out of her comfort zone. She told the Lord, “If you give me a listing to sell a house, I’ll resign.” Someone called her and asked her to list their home for $650,000 (USD).
However she still had doubts. What if she didn’t get any more listings? What if she couldn’t pay her rent? A friend in real estate told her that right now is a seller’s market which means it is hard to find properties that are for sale (new listings). Plenty of buyers, but very few people are selling. This discouraged her and made her wonder if she really should quit her dependable job.
As she pondered it, it dawned on her that with just 2 real estate listings she could make as much as she made all year with Best Buy! This gave her courage to step out. So she said, “Yes, Lord, I am willing. I will turn in my resignation tomorrow.” That night a woman she knew called her at 1:30am. The woman had been looking at a particular house she wanted and it was suddenly listed as available for sale. She asked Amy to write a contract for that house immediately – at 2am she completed the contract and sent it in.
The next morning the agent that had listed the house was shocked. Who writes contracts at 2am? She had to find out so she called her. Amy explained how much this woman wanted THAT particular house and had contacted her in the middle of the night. The agent explained that she had only listed the house for a few minutes last night and that the house was not available right now. However she said she would talk to the owner and get back to her. Within a few hours, she called back and said, “We’re not going to list the house to the public, but we ARE going to work with you and the buyer who really wants this house.”
That was the listing she needed. Praise God!
That morning she went to Best Buy and turned in her resignation, giving them a two week notice. Two days later a coworker invited her to lunch with some friends of his (a couple). She had met these friends at a previous event and felt prompted to go. They had a nice lunch and she went back to work. A few hours later, the woman called and said, “We are moving out of our condo and we want to buy a house. We want you handle the real estate transactions for both properties.”
That was a third listing! And she would represent them in a fourth listing when they bought a new house!
But wait, it gets even better. 😃
She wanted to have her own office, but did not have the means to rent a place. A lot of agents work from their homes, but she knew with family obligations, she would prefer to have a space to focus just on business.
The next day, a business associate from her past called her. He said he was having a lot of trouble doing business in his country due to COVID-19. He asked her if they could build a partnership where he could do business in a city near her and she would represent him. He told her, “Find an office we can use and I’ll pay half of all the expenses.”
Yes! In less than 1 week, she got three new real estate listings and she now had the means to get her own office! She also would have even MORE business as she partnered with this colleague who would send her clients who were looking for real estate in her area.
She said, “I had been waiting on God, but as I stepped out to walk by faith, I felt like He had been waiting on me! He had all these people lined up, ready to bless me with business – and here I was afraid to step out. He is a good, good Father.”
This is an example of what it means to follow Jesus – to step out in faith, obeying the prompting in your heart from the Lord, even when you have no idea how it will work out. It means taking the risk that God is who He said He is and that His plans for you are always good. ❤
Do you have a story like this that you’d like to share? Please post it in the comments! Or you can write a guest post for this blog. We’d love to hear from you. 🙂
Discernment of the Supernatural Realm 