Hearing the Voice of God
Many people write to me asking for my help. I wish I could help everyone who asks, but since I am just one person that is impossible. However, I pray about each request asking God what he would have me do in each situation. God answers me in a tangible way that is unmistakable. He promised me he would do this because this ministry is his ministry not mine, and I am to do only what he says.
God knows satanically ritually abused persons are desperate for help and most cannot find it. However, he has a plan. I believe the day is not far off when Jesus Christ himself is going to come to each abused person and sovereignly minister to them like he did to the Gadarene demoniac. (Please see my article on the Gadarene demoniac on this site.) This is what I believe the ministry of his presence that accompanies me will do for groups of people in the future.
In my ministry at this present time, I feel that I am a catalyst. My function is to bring the presence of God to the abused person so they and the Holy Spirit can interact with one another. I cast out demons and help guide prayers and renunciations, but the presence of God is supernaturally with us. This is why the name of this website is His Presence Online. When the time is right, God will send me forth to minister to groups, and his presence will do the work. I say this in hopes that it will bring hope to each person who has sought help and not been able to find it.
With this in mind, I thought it would be good to write an article sharing what I have learned about hearing from God over several decades of seeking his voice. The way he speaks to me has changed through the years, and I hear more clearly now than I ever did, but ultimately I want to hear his audible voice. I believe that in these difficult and uncertain times, hearing God will be one of the most valuable assets anyone could have.
When I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1972, it was such a profound experience that I expected at any moment to hear God audibly speak to me. It had been a desire deep in my heart and I would sometimes lie awake at night listening to hear his voice.
That was decades ago. I have only heard his audible voice twice. Each time he just spoke my name and called me by the name my friends and family call me—Pat. That isn’t much, but it was just enough to let me know I have another set of ears apart from the ones on each side of my head. This other set of ears is in my chest! Yes, in my chest! I heard his voice as clearly and distinctly as I have ever heard anything with my natural ears, but it was coming from what must have been my heart which is in my chest.
Be that as it may, there are many other ways God can speak to us that are not an audible voice, and yet we can get the message quite clearly. In this article I would like to share some of the many ways I have learned to get a clear word from God in hopes that it will help others learn new ways to hear him. Things we have depended on all our lives are beginning to crumble all around us. Deception abounds on all sides. How can we know the truth other than hearing directly from God for ourselves? This is what he wants for us but we must seek him for this. As the Word says, “Seek and ye shall find.” I am convinced that our very lives are going to have to depend on our ability to know and hear from God—and this ability must be cultivated.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Seeing God is closely associated with hearing God because both have to do with knowing. When we live a life according to God’s mandate to “…love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself” then our heart is a place where Jesus wants to dwell. Out of that dwelling can come forth clear direction and understanding for our life in any situation.
The point I want to make here is that God often is directing us, giving us instructions, and we don’t even know it. As my husband and I look back over our lives we are amazed at how God directed us when we did not know it. Somehow we wound up in the right place at the right time after having made decisions that determined the course of our whole lives. We thought we were making the decisions but it was actually God directing us. We just didn’t know it at the time. However, we both had hearts that wanted God. Out of that kind of a heart, God directs even when we don’t know it. We call this the providence of God.
Not only does God direct us, but he directs people and circumstances around us. God can make seeing eyes blind. (If you have ever read about Corrie ten Boon’s time in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, you will remember that when she was being checked into the camp and the guards were patting down women as they entered, Corrie had a small Bible in a bag hanging around her neck by a string. The guards checked the woman on her left and the woman on her right but walked past Corrie as if she didn’t exist.) God can make stingy hearts give. He can open up a way before us when there was no way. “Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters— a pathway no one knew was there!” (Psa 77:19).
In 1977, five years after receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I came to the conclusion that prayer should not be just a monologue but more like a dialogue. It made sense to me that God was as eager to talk to me as I was to hear from him. But how was I to hear?
It came into my mind that maybe after I prayed I could ask the Lord if he had anything to say to me and then wait to see if he might give me a scripture address—chapter and verse—that I could look up and see if it might apply to what I was praying. This proved to give amazing results and I began to fill up journals with things God said to me in this way. This only happened after I prayed for perhaps half an hour or more. I never heard an audible voice but it was just a thought. I found that if the thought came immediately after I asked him if he had anything to say to me, it was from the Lord. If I had to wait awhile for something to come into my mind, that was from me. Just by way of example, I would like to share some more memorable times this happened.
I was praying about the skin on my face being so very dry, and it seemed nothing I put on it could relieve that uncomfortable dry feeling. Immediately the address Ecclesiastes 7:1 popped into my mind. I looked it up and read, “A good name is better than a good ointment.” I knew Jesus had spoken this into my mind but it wasn’t exactly the answer to my problem. A week later a friend of mine from church brought me a sample of moisturizer that was exactly what I needed. God had heard and shortly later he answered my request. Many Christians don’t realize that Jesus is interested in every little detail of our lives, but he is. Whatever we are concerned about, he is with us in that concern and wants to help us.
Another time I was feeling burdened over a college course I was going to take towards a Masters in Counseling degree. I had finished the first course and the books and video (this was pre-Internet) had arrived for the second, but I was really struggling over whether or not to do it. After talking it over with the Lord, the address Ecclesiastes 12:12, 13 came into my mind. I opened my Bible and read, “There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body. When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.”
I have heard from God in this way probably hundreds of times over the years. However, I believe most people are afraid to try this for fear it won’t work for them, but you’ll never know if you don’t try. For me it required a time set apart for God alone when no one could interrupt. I had a goal of praying at least half an hour before asking a question and expecting an answer. When one does this faithfully day in and day out, half an hour flies by and an hour is soon required for all we want to talk over with Jesus. Jesus wants to speak to us, but we need to know if we are going to hear from him, we need the commitment of giving him “top billing” for our time and attention.
The more we hear, the more we are expected to obey. To hear and not obey is dangerous because “That servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.” With this in mind, I believe hearing from God often runs parallel to our spiritual maturity. However, children sometimes hear from God because of their innocence. Satanically abused persons often hear from God because the veil that separates them from the spiritual realm is often torn away during satanic rituals. Unfortunately for them, the premature opening of the veil (intended to come only with spiritual maturity) also opens them up to demonic manifestations and torments.
God Speaks in Dreams and Visions
In the beginning of my spiritual journey I didn’t think much about hearing God through dreams even though I had had recurring spiritual dreams around the ages of six and seven. I wanted Jesus to speak that way, but it didn’t happen much at all. But the day came when I began to seriously ask God to speak to me in dreams and made sure I had a special notebook and a pen nearby so if I awoke in the night from a dream, I could immediately write it down before I forgot. The Lord must have been waiting for me to ask because after this he started giving me spiritual dreams quite often.
Over the years my journals that were filled with scriptures from God and accounts of my spiritual dreams became quite numerous. It has been fascinating to go back and read some of those old journals and see how the things God showed me then have actually come true.
I have only had a few visions so I have very little to say about them from experience, but they are an interesting topic to research.
God Speaks Through His Presence
(The following is from my book, This Mortal Puts On Immortality.)
Rev 4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.
We cannot help but read this verse and imagine it according to our own earthly understanding. I know what a trumpet sounds like. I can imagine words spoken with a voice that sounds like a trumpet. Trumpets are usually loud and can be piercingly high. It almost seems a little scary that one could hear something like that speaking out of another realm. I would imagine heaven having harps and soft flute sounds. However, the kind of hearing John is describing here has nothing to do with our natural ears. This is entirely new. This is spiritual hearing that doesn’t require a certain language, e.g. English, French, German, etc. be spoken. This language is perceived in an entirely different way because it is “like a trumpet.”
When we look at the Greek word for “trumpet,” sal’-pinx, we find it is defined as “through the idea of quavering or reverberation; a trumpet.” The key here is found in the similar words of “quavering” and “reverberation.” Webster’s Dictionary defines “quaver” as “tremble.” Tremble denotes movement back and forth. Reverberation also has to do with back and forth movement made by sound waves in the air. When I describe my experience of going through the open door, you will see that it involves repeated, undulating movement although the movement is not fast as one would expect in the words “tremble” or “reverberation.”
When I went through this door on February 11, 1997, and experienced this feeling of movement, I received a message that was as loud and piercingly clear as a trumpet blast and yet absolutely silent at the same time. I knew that Jesus had come to me in a special way and I knew I was deeply loved. No specific words reached the tympanic membrane of my ears, and yet I had never understood anything more clearly in all my life. And this voice of a trumpet has never stopped talking to me in this silent language since the beginning of this experience in 1997.
My Experience
On February 11, 1997 a close and very prophetic friend of mine had, in my presence, a vision of Jesus and me together in a lovely meadow. We were sitting on a large rock talking. Jesus reached down and touched my feet and said, “These feet will never touch the earth again.”
I had no idea what that meant.
That night as I was lying in bed all relaxed and waiting for sleep to come, I began to feel a very pleasant, rhythmic, tingling sensation in my feet that worked its way up my legs and spread out over my entire body including my arms, hands and fingers in just a few seconds. I immediately related it to the vision earlier that day where Jesus touched my feet and said they would never touch the earth again.
Due to the things the Holy Spirit was showing me in his Word, I was aware that I had not only a physical body but also a spiritual body that I would live in when I no longer needed my earthly body. I knew this spiritual body was with me but was in a dormant state as though asleep. As I felt this gentle, wave-like movement deep inside, I knew I was feeling my spiritual body being awakened. Because it started in my feet, I immediately identified it with my friend’s vision. I knew Jesus had touched me in a distinct and heretofore unknown way. It was a personal and most wonderful experience which is difficult to describe. The feeling has never left but has only intensified. Because this was and continues to be a spiritual experience, it is difficult to describe in words. Now I understand why so much of the Bible is written as allegory. There would be no other way to explain spiritual things except by relating them to natural things we understand.
I will attempt to describe the feeling of the spiritual body being awakened by Jesus. It is a very gentle, slow rhythmic feeling almost like a deep massage but it doesn’t touch the skin. It is deep inside and it gives the feeling of being deeply loved. Every fiber of my being feels loved. It is like bobbing up and down on a raft resting upon gentle waves like one would experience in a bay perhaps or one of the Great Lakes. Ocean waves would be too strong. These are gentle waves. They never, ever stop…not for one second. I cannot tell my physical body from my spiritual body because my whole being feels this wonderful sense of God’s love and quickening. It is deeply relaxing and comforting.
I know I am never alone because I am able to feel God’s love at all times. It is a most wonderful and amazing experience and a necessary one for what we are about to experience as the Antichrist spirit begins his overt attempt to take over the world. No matter what is going on around us, this knowledge that we are loved and we are not alone never leaves.
It also brings an understanding that we have entered into the supernatural realm. Things will never be the same. Part of us has risen above the earthly realm (“These feet will never touch the earth again”) and heaven is very near. This is the realm we will need to live in as our world crumbles around us.
We know by this event that we are in the end times. So far as I know this is not something that was experienced by the saints of bygone years. This is a new experience and one reserved for this particular time in history. It is part of the events of the return of Jesus for his bride. God never does things the way we think he will. This experience came as a total surprise to me.
After this awakening, Jesus began to communicate with me by touch many times throughout my day. If I am thinking something that he wants me to know is from him, I feel his presence descending on my right shoulder. This can also mean Yes. By way of example, several years ago we needed a new bed. Through this sense of touch while I was researching online, Jesus had directed me to a certain store in our area. When we arrived there, the salesperson encouraged us to lie down on any of the mattresses in the showroom to see which one we liked best. At one point as we were trying out this certain one, the presence of the Lord came upon my shoulder and I knew it was the mattress for us. It cost much more than we had intended to spend, but God’s direction was definite. It has been the best mattress we’ve ever had. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but in the long run we are saving money because we bought quality that is living up to our expectations.
There are many different kinds of touch the Lord uses to speak to me in accordance with my thoughts and actions. In this way he warns me about things, confirms things, keeps me from saying something I shouldn’t, tells me No, comforts me, reassures me of his love, and lovingly directs my life in many ways without usurping my free will. It is not uncommon when I am reading Scripture, for the Lord’s presence to come on my shoulder for a certain verse that makes it a personal message for me.
Here is an interesting account of God telling me No that happened several years ago. For my daily exercise, I decided to walk up the dirt road near our house. My husband and I usually do it together, but he was busy with something else so I was going to do it myself. As I started up the steep incline, I got a severe pain in my groin. I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous. I’ve walked up this road many times. There is nothing wrong with me.” But the more I persisted the more intense the pain became until I knew I could not walk up that road. I then went on a trail in our woods that still went up the hill and had no pain whatsoever. However, no one could see me and I was on our own private property. I was beginning to think it was not safe for me to be on that road.
That night I had a dream that I had been kidnapped from that road and taken to a city someplace where I knew no one. I had no phone and no way of contacting anyone for help. It was a terrifying dream, and as a result of that dream combined with my experience of pain earlier that day, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt I am never to walk up that road alone. We live in a remote area and if someone tried to harm me in any way, I could scream and no one would hear me.
God knew I wanted to obey him in regards to daily exercise, so he set up something for me that was totally unexpected and something I would never have thought of. My primary care doctor (a Christian who shared the gospel in every class) invited me to take part in the free taekwondo classes he and his wife taught. I attended these for over three years and worked my way through the white, yellow, green and purple belts before C-vid hit. This is not only great exercise but I also learned many ways to defend myself should I ever be attacked. I do these forms and maneuvers in my living room every day. It keeps my body limber and my heart healthy.
I know I have shared a lot of details here, but I want people to understand there are many ways God can speak to us. However, he also wants a relationship with us and hearing him is often predicated upon how much we have done to develop this relationship. Lukewarm Christians who have placed a relationship with Jesus Christ low on their priority list will probably have great difficulty hearing from him. It’s not that he doesn’t want to speak, but that they haven’t prioritized their relationship with him. Those who fervently search for him will be like the five wise virgins. They will hear when the Lord calls and will enter into whatever he has for us at the time of his return. Those virgins who had not made the preparations by having oil in their lamps, missed the Lord’s call. His words to them were, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” Virgins in this parable definitely represent Christians. Nothing could be worse than hearing the Lord say those words to you.
I have also written this to say to those persons who have requested my help and been turned down that there is hope. I believe God is preparing persons even now who will minister to survivors in power and love such as we have never seen. These persons will be filled with the Holy Spirit and will minister even as Jesus ministered. I am also in preparation for this. In the meantime, I hope my books, articles and videos will be helpful to those who are suffering as well as those who are being prepared.
