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4 Ways to Hear God’s Voice: The Theater of Your Mind
God wants to
speak to you in a way that you will understand
Jermaine
and Rebecca Francis
You have already been hearing God’s voice
more than you realize.
Even if you already thought you were hearing
God, I promise you can hear Him even more!
The process of learning to hear God’s voice
is simple.
Which came first, an object, or the object’s name?
It’s not a trick question. The object came first.
When Adam named the animals, he looked at
something that existed and found language to communicate its existence.
.
Hearing God works the same way. He gives us meaning in our spirits.
.
Hearing God works the same way. He gives us meaning in our spirits.
That meaning can come in a millisecond, and
yet it can be full of what feels like hours or days’ worth of content. That’s
because of a couple of things.
The first and most
important reason for this is that God’s Spirit is eternal, and the depth of His
communication to our spirit is unfathomable: “How precious also are Your
thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them,
they would be more in number than the sand…” (Psalm 139:17-18 NKJV).
The other main reason that a second of
revelation from God seems to take minutes or hours to understand and or explain
has to do with the way our minds work.
Our conscious minds process 4,000 actions per
second. You read that right — per second!
And our nonconscious minds process 4,000,000
actions per second. This is the unfathomable, complex way God designed our
minds.
So, when God drops one second of revelation
from His Spirit to our spirit, it’s no surprise that it can be translated into
sentences, paragraphs, and even books’ worth of words.
When combining the supernatural with the
natural brilliance of our minds, it’s possible that one second of revelation
could equal anywhere from 4,000 to 4,000,000 words.
Of course, 4,000,000 would be a bit of an
exaggeration, but you can see that the math is at least 4,000 times the content
per second of revelation.
In order to translate Spirit revelation into
words, we first need to know how we’re processing the revelation through our
minds.
We receive the revelation by our spirit. We
do not receive it in our minds. We do not need to understand the revelation.
We do not need to have prior knowledge about
the revelation. Revelation comes from God’s Spirit to our spirit regardless of
our minds.
But there’s a caveat. We need our minds to
make sense of, meditate on, communicate, and apply the revelation.
Let’s add this disclaimer before we continue.
Whatever revelation you receive must be biblical.
If you see and hear anything that goes
against the Bible, reject it. In social media terms — unfriend it, delete it,
block it, unfollow, report it. Don’t connect with it at all. God never
contradicts Himself.
.
The Theater of the Mind
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The Theater of the Mind
Did you ever notice how sometimes reading the
book is better than watching the movie?
Or did you ever want to create something
artistic, that you could see so clearly in your head, but by the time you draw
it or construct it, it was not much better than sticks or stick figures?
What happens in our minds can be much richer
than what happens in the natural world because of something called “the theater
of the mind.”
The theater of the mind is the culmination of
colors, shapes, sensations, smells, sounds, movement, multitasking, and
backstory that exists in our minds. Our parents called it our “imagination.”
The phrase “theater of the mind” comes from
radio jargon.
When people used to listen to stories on the
radio, the “actors” found ways to verbally create a theater for listeners to
enjoy in their minds.
This is not to be confused with the
contemporary New Age discussion of self-hypnosis that has recently highjacked
this phrase.
The theater of the mind explains why when you
have a dream, you can say that you “somehow knew” where you were or to whom you
were talking, even though it was never directly identified in the dream.
The theater of the mind contains indirect
information that adds richness to the experience.
When God speaks to our spirit, we can
experience much of that revelation in the theater of our minds.
1) Sight
Sight is the first aspect of the theater of
the mind. This is our “mind’s eye.”
In your mind’s eye, you can see the red solo
cup sitting to your right, with a sweat ring around the base and half full of
ice-cold water.
How did you see it, when all you are looking
at it is a white page with black words printed on it? You saw it in your mind’s
eye.
Let’s call this your mind’s eye rather than
your imagination so that you get comfortable thinking of images you see in your
mind as valid.
Unfortunately, because we have called it our
imagination for so long, many people who are seeing things of the spirit are
clearly seeing from God — but they think they’re just imagining.
Let’s understand this to be any visual in
your mind’s eye, anything you can “see” other than with your natural eyes.
This could even include seeing a word, just
like if I asked you right now to see the name of the street you live on.
Scripture examples of seeing include the
following:
“And Elisha prayed,
and said, ‘Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened
the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of
horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17 NKJV).
“And he said to me, ‘What
do you see?’ So I answered, ‘I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits
and its width ten cubits’” (Zechariah
5:2 NKJV).
“Then God spoke to
Israel in the visions of the night, and said, ‘Jacob, Jacob!’ And he said, ‘Here
I am’”
(Genesis
46:2 NKJV).
“Then I turned to see
the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands” (Revelation 1:12).
2) Sound
Sound is another element of the theater of
the mind.
Do you ever have a discussion in your head?
This is the sound in the theater of your mind. When you have a discussion in
your head, the entire thing may be in your own voice.
Or occasionally, you might think something
that your parents used to say, and you might think it in the sound of your
mother’s voice.
Sound also includes tone, inflection,
intensity, and pitch, which is how you might be able to tell whether something
said was sarcastic or supportive, harsh or gentle.
“You will always be mine” could sound
endearing, romantic, apologetic, or like a stalker, all depending on how it’s
said.
Scripture examples of hearing:
“Now the Lord came
and stood and called as at other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel answered, ‘Speak,
for Your servant hears’” (1
Samuel 3:10 NKJV).
“Also I heard the
voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I
said, ‘Here am I! Send me’” (Isaiah
6:8 NKJV).
“And they heard the
sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees
of the garden”
(Genesis
3:8 NKJV).
“Did any people ever
hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard,
and live?”
(Deuteronomy
4:33 NKJV).
3) Sensing
Sensing has to do with how something feels in
the theater of your mind. Sensing may be informed by the other elements, such
as sound and sight, but it can also stand apart from them.
You might have an interaction with an old
friend in public somewhere.
You could get that sensing from their body
language or how brief their answers to your questions are, but you could also
get that sensing without any other input.
Sensings are sometimes called a “gut
feeling.” These aren’t necessarily emotions but rather feelings or sensings
that give us information.
A sensing is where you might identify, for
example, whether a purple cloud-like presence in your dream was positive rather
than negative.
You may not have any other point of reference
for that weird, dreamworld image, but your gut feeling about it gave you the
sense that it was good.
We often get a “sense” about situations and
people in the real world. Sensings in the theater of the mind work the same
way.
Scripture examples of sensing or feeling:
“Then Jesus was led
up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1 NKJV).
“In the same way, the
Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but
the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who
searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes
for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27 NIV).
Verse Concepts
“If we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25 NKJV).
“Immediately the
Spirit drove Him into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12 NKJV).
4) Knowing
Knowing is an interesting aspect of the
theater of the mind. Knowing includes backstory that is never explained.
Just like in the dream mentioned earlier — when
you knew where you were or to whom you were talking, without it being mentioned
in the dream — knowing is information you have without any direct source.
When you “know” in the theater of your mind,
you often can’t explain why you know.
This kind of knowing is hard to defend. It’s
similar to a sensing, except that it usually doesn’t even have an emotion or
inclination to support it.
All you have is the thing you know that you
know, even though you don’t know how you know it.
Scripture examples of knowing:
“This is what we
speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the
Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words” (1 Corinthians 2:13
NIV).
“But when He, the
Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak
on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet
to come”
(John
16:13 NIV).
“And when Jesus went
out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and
healed their sick”
(Matthew
14:14 NKJV).
One time we had the early flight out, but by
the time we boarded the plane, our airline app notified us that the flight was
delayed thirty minutes.
Instantly, I just knew it was delayed much
longer than that.
We waited thirty minutes, and then the flight
attendant announced it was delayed another thirty minutes.
Again, I had an instant feeling that it would
be delayed much longer. I told Jermaine, and we decided to get off the plane.
We booked the next flight, which was at noon!
We were not going to make our first speaking engagement that night if we took
the noon flight, but somehow, I knew it was best.
We left the airport and went to breakfast.
When we returned to the airport at 11:00, we saw our original plane, with all
the passengers still on board.
That flight didn’t take off until 11:45, with
announcements every thirty minutes that it was delayed another thirty minutes.
If we hadn’t had the “knowing” that this
flight wasn’t going anywhere, we would have waited on the tarmac, without air
conditioning, for more than four hours.
It’s such a little thing, but to me, it meant
a lot to be liberated to have a lovely breakfast with Jermaine rather than a
sweaty wait in an airplane seat.
There was no evidence for the knowing, no
emotion with it, and certainly no logic, but I’ve had enough of those knowings
to learn to recognize they’re more than just a random thought.
That is what will develop in you too when by
reason of use you train your senses to know what God is speaking to you.
A Quick Test
Let’s start by figuring out some of the
easiest ways you identify what God is saying to you.
You could identify what God is saying in any
or all of the ways cited: sight, sound, sense, or knowing. But at least one of
these ways is probably easier to you than the others.
We all think in the theater of our minds, but
we all think most comfortably in at least one of these ways.
This is where we get the idea of learning
styles: auditory learning versus visual versus kinetic, and so on. This is how
you process information.
So, we’re going to take a simple test to
determine at least one way that you comfortably process information.
Remember, God wants to speak to you in a way
that you will understand.
He’s not trying to overcomplicate it, so we
won’t either. Let’s assume that God wants to speak to you in the easiest way
for you to process the information.
Are you ready for the test? I’m going to put
the test at the end of this paragraph, and I don’t want you to read on until
you’ve finished the test.
Take enough time to pause and answer the
question before accidentally reading on. Here is the question: What is your
name?
Did you answer the question?
Great, you answered the question! I don’t
need to know your name — though you can email me and I’d love to chat about how
this went for you! I asked your name so that you can think the answer.
Now let’s examine how you thought the answer.
Choose the one that is most true. Did you:
____ See your name in your mind’s eye, as if
it was written down on something?
____ Hear your name being said, such as in
your voice when you introduce yourself, or your mom’s voice calling your name?
____ Get a strong feeling about who you are,
maybe your qualities or a sense of pride?
____ Immediately know your name, without any
clue where the knowing came from?
Each answer represents sight, sound, sensing,
and knowing, respectively.
You may have had more
than one of these as a reaction to the question, “What is your name.”
If you had more than one, that’s okay and is
quite common. If you don’t know which one was your reaction, it was probably
the last one — knowing.
Now you have a real-time example of how the
theater of your mind processes information. You already know your name, but you
had to think your name in reaction to the question.
Similarly, when you receive revelation by the
Spirit of God, you have it in your spirit, but you will have to think about the
revelation using your mind to convey it effectively to other people, or even to
continue to meditate on it yourself.
Jermaine and Rebecca Francis
Jermaine
and Rebecca speak worldwide teaching and activating believers to hear God’s
voice. Jermaine is the author of Break Up with Defeat. Rebecca created a course
helping first-time authors write Holy-Spirit inspired books that build the
Kingdom of God. She is also the author of Thx! The Secret to Being Grateful.
They are staff members at Christian International under the leadership of Dr.
Bill Hamon.
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