People don’t hear from God because they don’t recognize His voice.
You’ve probably heard this old story. It had been raining for many days, and a man was stuck on a roof. As the waters rose, the man faithfully prayed for God to save him. As the flood levels began to rise, a rowboat, then a speedboat, and then a helicopter all came to save him. He refused help from all and drowned. Standing before the Lord, he asked why God hadn’t answered his prayer for safety. God gave him a puzzled look and replied, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more did you expect?”
What are we listening for? What do we expect God to sound like? Some of us want writing on the wall, or a ground-shaking thunderbolt. God has never chosen to speak to me like this. He can if He wants to; after all, He is God. But I have never, personally, heard Him speak this way.
It amazes me how often Christians, women in particular, have a hard time hearing the voice of God, yet are more than open to listening to messages of defeatism, failure and poor self-worth that come from within. They have listened to these messages for so long that they no longer recognize them as lies. For some of us, these are leftover inner recordings of negative messages we’ve been told by our parents throughout our lives. For others, a negative thought may have been embraced from a traumatic emotional event.
