The number one skill I want my kids to have when they leave my house is how to discern God’s voice and to do what he says. Discerning and then being obedient are two different things. I tell them all the time, it’s not school stuff, it’s not performance, it’s not music, it’s not any of the things that we can measure on the outside that the world thinks is important. I tell them all the time, you need to be able to hear God’s voice and to let the Lord drive your decisions. 

So a couple ways that we block God’s voice. One is hardness of heart. If you have hardness of heart, and it is just rock solid in there, usually we’re very angry and there’s some sort of lack of forgiveness that’s happening.

Maybe you don’t forgive yourself for your past behavior. Maybe you haven’t forgiven someone else in your life for some conflict or a grievance that you have, and a super sneaky one is that you haven’t. Forgiven the Lord. And you might say, God is perfect, and he never sins. That is correct. The forgiveness formula of letting something go and making peace with it is for you and not for him. 

So when we forgive the Lord, we’re not saying, Lord, I forgive you for the mistake that you made. It’s more like. I’m sorry that I was holding this against you, like kind of I release you. Please release me of this. It’s like we let go of this tether that’s between the two of you, but again, it’s not because God was wrong. The forgiving God really is for you to let it go and to process out in your body. 

So hardness of heart and lack of forgiveness, it’s almost like just a form of. Headphones, like if we were to put you inside a glass that allowed you not to hear things, God is still speaking to you, but it’s so hard to hear it because you have kind of blocked your ability to hear the Lord with this hardness of heart or lack of forgiveness.

The second one is that you are asking God something, but you’re scared of the answer. So it’s almost like you are praying and trying to discern something, and then you stick your fingers in your ears and you go. Because you don’t wanna hear the answer.

Sometimes it’s just genuinely something we don’t wanna do.  Recently a friend of mine, her family really discerned that they were being called to move to a different state, and they loved living here. They did not wanna go, but it was so clear that the Lord was asking them to do that. So I imagine that there was a part early on when her and her husband felt like maybe they were gonna be asked to go move.

And it would be so easy to say, Lord, should we move there, la, la, la, la and cover your ears, because you didn’t wanna hear that. The answer was yes. And so you may be asking the right question, but you’re plugging your ears because you don’t want to hear what he has to say. 

And generally this comes from not believing in the goodness of God. So we wanna challenge that. We wanna go, are you scared to ask God? Direction here because you don’t believe that he is good if we believe that he’s good. And he always has the best plans for us. And even if he asks us to do something that is hard or scary, we feel okay. We’re like, this is okay. He’s calling us to go. He’s calling us to do this. 

So check in with yourself about whether or not you’re praying with your fingers in your ears and whether or not you’re really and genuinely, truly open to what he has to say. And if not, just kind of kick up. Like, do I believe in the goodness of God. 

Another way that we’re blocking God’s voice is we give him option A and option B, and we say, Lord, is it A, or is it B? And we don’t give him room to say, darling, I love you so much, but it’s option C and I can’t tell you that because you’ve only given me the two boxes to check. 

So we do that all the time. In our humanness, we have a limited amount of options that we can perceive and understand. We don’t understand how big God is and that he can do anything. And so we come and we say, you know, check yes or no, whatever the two options are. 

And so he’s having a hard time telling us option three because we’re so primed to only hear one of the two options. That is another way that we are blocking God’s voice. And then I think the last way, and this one’s a little more subtle, not necessarily blocking, but it might leave, lead to your confusion, is when God says it’s up to you.

So the example I always use is if you’re praying and you’re like, Lord, should we buy a Toyota Sienna or a Honda Odyssey minivan? And you’re trying to decide between those. And the Lord is kind of like, Hey, this just doesn’t matter. Like you can be the saint that I want you to be. Either way, you can choose either one, and you’re not getting a strong read. 

It’s because both of them, for him, are fine. Both of them lead to your sainthood and so you’re not necessarily feeling a strong this one or that one, and it’s because he says, Hey, either of these are fine. 

This version, which is, hey, it could be an Odyssey or a Sienna still feels kind of positive. You kind of feel like, okay, I could go either way. Whereas the is it option A or isn’t option B and the Lord wants you to have option C? That one for me still feels like unrest. 

There’s like something unresolved. I can tell that there’s like something in between the Lord and I. Like there’s a block and he is trying to get something to me and I can’t quite receive it. This feels very subtle, the difference. But I will just tell you, one of them feels like a square peg in a round hole. And one of them feels gentle and it’s not strong and it’s not clear because it is up to you, the Odyssey or the Sienna. It doesn’t really matter. And you can do either one of those.

So those are the four ways that we block God’s voice. We want to be women who discern the will of God do what he tells you. I just think that is such a beautiful scripture passage. Do what he tells you, but you have to ask him. And if you’re asking him and you’re not getting a good read, it may be because you’re blocking him in one of these ways.

All right. I am praying for you. Please pray for me and have a blessed day.