Sometimes people ask “How can I know that I am hearing God correctly?” There are a lot of ways to answer this question. We can talk about ways to test what we have heard from the Lord. (We cover this in week 3 of the Listening to God course). Or, we can also talk about our hunger for certainty and how this desire for certainty opposes a walk of faith.

But I have frequently found that behind the general question is a specific, unhappy experience. The person has asked the Lord a question, thought they received an answer, acted on it, and then things have turned out badly. The person is left feeling confused. In this newsletter, we’ll talk about how to process such an experience.

How to process a confusing experience

Here are some thoughts on how to move forward in such a situation.

Photo by Sherise Van Dyk on Unsplash

1) Describe what happened

Often, what is not needed is a general answer to “How can I know that I am hearing God correctly?” What is needed is a way to process the painful experience.

The first step in processing is to tell exactly what happened. If you are processing your painful experience with someone, you can explain the whole situation: the underlying event, what question you asked God, what answer you received, what action steps you took, and what finally happened. If you don’t have someone safe and wise to process with, you can describe all this in your journal.

2) Describe your emotions

When something goes badly, we may feel like we are a failure. Or we may feel angry at God. Or we may become dismissive and say, This life of trying to hear God’s voice doesn’t work for me. I’ll go and backslide for a while. (OK, maybe we don’t say that, but we might give up on trying to follow the Lord so closely.) Most of these emotions are signs that we are withdrawing from our relationship with God—exactly what the enemy wants. Identifying your emotions can show you whether you are withdrawing or not.

3) Ask the Lord how he views you

You may be surprised to find that the Lord is not judging or condemning you for your failure.

4) Ask the Lord how he wants you to move forward

We often want God to explain the whole situation in detail. We want him to tell us why things turned out the way they did. Sometimes God does explain things, but not always. Normally, the only thing we really need to do is take a single step forward. You can say to the Lord, “Lord, this is the situation I am in. What is one step forward that I can take?”

Does this make sense? Let me know what you think.

Photo of man sitting on the ground by Nathan Cowley