0004 Ten Ways that God Speaks pt.1

Have you ever wondered if God is actually speaking to you?

Many believers wrestle with that question. Some expect God to speak in dramatic, supernatural ways, while others assume He only speaks through Scripture or through church leaders. But what if the real issue isn’t whether God is speaking… but whether we’ve learned how to recognize His voice?

In this episode of the Passages Podcast, Brittany and Eric begin a powerful conversation exploring ten ways God communicates with His people. Drawing directly from biblical examples, they examine how the Lord has spoken to people across history and how those same methods still apply today.

For many people, the idea of hearing from God feels confusing or even intimidating. Some wonder if what they’re sensing is truly from God, while others fear they might simply be imagining things. This discussion helps bring clarity by anchoring each example in Scripture and showing how God communicates in both dramatic and quiet ways.

In this first part of the conversation, Brittany and Eric explore four of the ways God "speaks":
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Angelic visitation – Moments when God sends a messenger to deliver guidance or revelation, as seen throughout the Bible with figures like Zacharias, Joseph, and Cornelius.

Rhema word – When the Holy Spirit speaks directly to our spirit, bringing timely insight, conviction, or direction in a specific moment.

Logos word – God speaking through the written Word of Scripture, which provides truth, correction, wisdom, and guidance for daily life.

Dreams and visions – Powerful moments where God reveals insight, direction, or understanding through images, impressions, or encounters while we sleep or during quiet moments.
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Throughout the episode, Brittany and Eric share both biblical examples and personal experiences that help illustrate how these forms of communication can unfold in real life. They also discuss an important question many believers ask:

How do you discern whether something is truly from God or just your own thoughts?

By examining Scripture closely and slowing down to unpack what the Bible actually says, this conversation encourages listeners to develop greater spiritual awareness and confidence in their relationship with God.

If you’ve ever felt like you struggle to hear God’s voice, you are not alone—and you are not broken.

Sometimes we simply haven’t been taught the many ways He communicates.

In this episode, Brittany and Eric discuss:

• Why many believers feel unsure about hearing God’s voice
• How God communicated with people throughout the Bible
• The difference between Rhema and Logos words
• Why Scripture remains the foundation for discernment
• How dreams, visions, and impressions can carry spiritual meaning
• Practical ways to recognize when God may be speaking

These four examples are only the beginning.

In the next episode, Brittany and Eric will continue the conversation by exploring six more ways God communicates in everyday life.

If you’ve ever asked the question “Is God speaking to me?”, this episode will assist you in recognizing His voice in ways you may have never considered before.

Because sometimes God isn’t silent, He is just speaking in a variety of ways we've never realized.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:21

To get us off to a good start, I want everyone listening to quietly answer this for themselves. How does God speak to you? Through the Bible, through your feelings, through other people, through supernatural moments? Here's the real question. What if God's been speaking, just not in the way you were looking for? It's possible that you've been missing his voice. Eric, I lead a women's group. We meet weekly, and at times some of them struggle, wondering if God is actually even communicating with them. I was excited to see this podcast topic today because we can get a straight answer on the 10 ways that we've found God speaks through scriptures and how he speaks to people in general.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yes. Well, that's true. And I I was guilty in times past of sort of dictating to God how he needed to communicate to me. And uh I didn't realize that I would not deliberately be that arrogant, but it was kind of under the radar. And I th I I could just see him saying, Okay, you're so smart, you you figure it out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And I feel like sometimes that's how he deals with me. It's like, oh, because you know, as I've I've just used my mind and analytical abilities over the years for other purposes in business and in life, and maybe it's sometimes to my detriment. But sometimes you superimpose that on your relationship with heaven, with the Lord, and it can be uh could be uh unproductive, let's just say. So uh yeah, I can uh I can empathize with the women in your women's group that they may not be, you know, am I really hearing from the Lord? And there are, we've identified ten ways that the Lord speaks, believe it or not. And um so some people demand that he speaks through scripture, or they demand that he speaks through a pastor. Uh and and if he doesn't speak that way, well it can't be God.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So we want to sharpen people's, here's that word again, acuity, their their willingness to to dial in on these different ways that the Lord speaks and to be comfortable with him and to not require that he has to speak one way or another. That's religion, and that's we don't want to we won't do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Right. God is the God of relationship, not religion. So he's not looking for you to check off the boxes, but to have conversations with him. So it sounds like what we're really talking about today is not whether God speaks, but whether we've actually learned to recognize the way he speaks. Scripture shows us there are many ways that the Lord communicates, some really dramatic, some, you know, very, very quiet. So let's go through some of those 10 ways. Of course, we're gonna anchor them in scripture as we always do. And let's start with the first one we noticed. I think this is so interesting because I love to see now a day um how he shows up versus where he did in the Bible. So the first one would be angelic visitation. Um, we talk about this with um visitations like with Zacharias, with Joseph, with Cornelius. I know that um you had especially liked it's Luke 1, 13 through 17, where Gabriel speaks to Zacharias. Let me uh read these verses here and let's dive into it. So Luke 1, 13 through 17, but the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before him in spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. So this was an angel just popping up. Hey, how you doing?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Yeah, not an everyday experience, let's admit that. But very dramatic, and I appreciate your reading that um that entire presentation, a speech that Gabriel made. Uh, but but what some folks may not know is that the the phrase he will turn uh he will go before him in the spirit and power power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. That phrase actually is how the Old Testament ends, Malachi. Uh uh in Malachi at the end, it it's speaking about that that the hearts of the children will be turned toward their fathers and the fathers to their um to their children, lest I smite the earth with a curse. So God is threatening a curse at the end of the Old Testament, 400 years later, after Malachi, here comes uh Gabriel speaking to John the Baptist's father. And so I just want to make a connection that you know, if we're not, we say, wow, this is what does it mean to come in the spirit of Elijah? That's what was quoted at the end of Malachi in the Old Testament. So now the point about this is here's an angelic visitation. Again, not an everyday experience, very dramatic, very powerful. And yet, are we prepared if that even happens? Okay, we may not hear big stories about that anymore. Uh, as frankly, some people might keep it to themselves because they're afraid of being called a lunatic. But that that you know, if the Lord chooses to communicate that way, that's his business. Okay, and uh Zecharias doubted, of course, that uh Gabriel, Gabriel's quote that he said, You're gonna have a son, because you know, Zecharias and his wife were up there in years, okay. They were they weren't young spring chickens. So, and so he kind of cast some doubt upon that, and Gabriel then said to him, Look, since you've doubted that, you're gonna be mute, unable to speak until this boy is born. And when he was born, he declared the boy's name and he told this whole story. So a lot of drama, you know, back in in the in the uh gospels, but I'm just saying it is one of the ways that God speaks. And then there's there's these other quotes you just mentioned a moment ago. Um in Matthew 21, behold, an angel of the Lord uh appeared um to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife. He's tell he's telling Joseph, hey, you can take this young girl, she's pregnant, don't be afraid, because um she's gonna she's gonna be give giving birth to the son of God, for goodness sake. Right. Okay. And then, of course, in the in the book of Acts, Cornelius, as you mentioned, also has a vision uh of an angel of God.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

So now I've heard a lot lately. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts, and this just popped in my head. There has been times where, you know, they say that angels walk among us sometimes. You never know who you're entertaining, type of things like that in the Bible. So I had a situation earlier in my life where I was stuck in a very, very bad situation, wasn't going to be able to get out of it, like physically, stuck in a room. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this black man just walks through the door very, very large. Like he had to duck to go under the doorframe. And he looked at all the men that were in the room and he looked at me and he said, get out of here. And he let me leave. And I'd never seen him in my entire life, never seen him again, don't know where he came from, didn't see him in the house. Would that be considered like an angelic visitation?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Um, most likely. So that's interesting. I'd never heard you say that before. So um fantastic story. And again, there'd be skeptics who doubt that. Did that really happen? There was a real man, not not, and you've you've kind of blended the spiritual with the real. But uh but I I take you at your word, you know, if you've said yet, he said get out of here. Now I'm I'd be curious about what happened to the rest of the people if you were in a troublesome situation. Uh, were you being threatened?

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yes, very much so. Yeah, they had surrounded me in the room and there was no way out. Absolutely no way out. What happened?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Did they just get paralyzed all of a sudden? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yes, which was mind-blowing because there was five of them compared to this one man, and for some reason he just struck the fear in them. Like their whole faces, everything, they just stopped.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Well, that reminds me of a story about Jesus, who was able to walk right through a group of uh hostile individuals as well. So uh what a what a report that is. Uh well, thank you. That's I had not heard that before, but it's inspiring to hear that that uh we have another modern day version of the angelic visitation.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

So yeah, it just popped in my head when we were talking about it. So interesting.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

So he can definitely come in forms of angels, um, in your dreams, things like that, letting you know, hey, and these moments are really powerful. They leave no doubt that God has spoken because they could happen no other way. But scripture also shows us that most of the time God doesn't speak that loudly, at least nowadays, typically. He speaks in kind of a more quieter way.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Um, one of those other ways that he speaks is the Rhema word, which is when the Holy Spirit speaks directly to our spirit. And more often, you know, God they say is a still small voice, he speaks personally, quietly, and directly um to us. You've shared with me in the past how the Lord has spoken to you, kind of like through what I know we talk about, like the oxygen covenant. Can you share that with us?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Certainly, I can. Uh, the uh to get a little bit of a definition on a ramor word, you know, uh that's that's speaking about revelation is is the idea that it's like a light goes on and it makes sense out of a situation. So there are aspects of a rhema word, usually they're kind of short. Um there's it's timely, it affects it's it's it's uh something can be applied to a situation that you're in right then. It's poignant, uh, there's it's irrefutable, it's subtle, you know. So God doesn't make things up, he doesn't lie. He's um he and he doesn't come to hammer you over the head. So Rhema is a Rhema word, R-H-E-M A, is sent to to um to inspire us and to give illuminated truth, like a biblical logos word truth. But to go back to your question about the uh what I call the oxygen covenant, uh I was just sitting in my conference room one day, just minding my business and doing some work. It wasn't a holy moment, there was no prayer going on. And all of a sudden I felt this presence and and this and I felt the words being spoken into my spirit. Uh, and it was um very clear. It says, from now on you're to treat resources the way you think of oxygen. And I'm like, that's enough to cause some confusion. I said, What? And it wasn't like whipping around looking for someone. I I knew I was sensitive enough to know that that was the Lord speaking to me, even though I was confused by the comment. And he repeated, from now on, I want you to treat resources the way you think of oxygen. And I'm like, What what does that mean? And the question and his response was uh how badly do you need oxygen? I said desperately. He said, How often do you think about it? I said, never. And then he finished by repeating the first sentence that from now on I want you to think of resources the way you think of oxygen. And I got to thinking that, you know, when I go over to someone's home, I don't take an oxygen tank, I don't inquire, do you have enough for me, or should I go to a store and buy some? There's an assumption that a desperately needed resource is in full supply, in the superabundant supply. There's no no question about it. And so if we could translate that over to um the idea of of resources, meaning financial resources, and we could make an assumption that they will be supernaturally supplied at the moment of need. That takes a great deal of faith, and I'm not here to say that it's a perfect system or may not apply to everybody, but this is a rhema word for Eric, okay. But what all I'm encouraging is that we all need to be tuned in to say um has the Lord ever spoken to your spirit like that? Okay, I know one time um he he told me that I I got into a verbal battle with somebody and uh I didn't like it, and I was basically challenging the Lord and saying, How come you let that happen? And he's he said, You came up out of the grave to defend yourself. In other words, Eric, you defended yourself. He didn't allow me to defend yourself, defend you. And so it it's like where I'm taking you, death to self is the is the standard. So that's what Jesus did, that's the model, and this is what he's encouraged us to do is to adopt his approach uh to handling difficult situations.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

So yes, I enjoy the scriptures that go along with this as well, because scripture, and anytime we can get scripture to back things up, that's the only way we go. So, like John 16, 13, it says, However, when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth, or he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come. So he's letting you know, he's gonna give you that insight, that wherewithal, that discernment, is what I, you know, hear from this, to know what to do. Even in Romans 8:16, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. He's just constantly reminding us, hey, I'm here, I got you, pay attention. Um, Revelation 3.20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he will with me. He's basically giving us an open invitation.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

I love, I love just the thought process of that. And then Hebrews 4 12. For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, spiercing even sorry, piercing even to the division of the soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You know, you've got to explain this to everyone because I love the way when you talk about this. How the sword just divides.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yes, it's like a a scalpel in a surgeon's hand. Uh they they're they and even with what today they can do laser surgery and and become so and do minute cuts to separate, let's say, typically a cancer cell from a healthy living cell. And so they need to be very clean because they're looking for clean edges, as the expression goes, to make sure that they got all of the invading cells out of the body of that individual. And so, but the word of God uh is sharper than any two-edged sword. It divides between our soul, we have a soul, mind, will, and emotions, and we have a spirit. Okay, when we when we uh accept Jesus as our Savior, he then sends the spirit of truth to live up inside of us, and that spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, becomes a an ambassador, a connector between heaven and earth. It's a it's like a modem that communicate our communications are carried to heaven, and heaven's communications are carried back to us, and we have this open, great relationship, hopefully. And so, but we can sometimes our emotions can override our the spiritual truth. Sometimes our intellect can do that, sometimes our will. I want to make my own decisions, I want to be my own man or own woman. And so uh, but the the word of God is useful. I just had this happen to me in the last 24 hours where I was told by God, give to them that ask of you. Okay, that that that um phrase that that uh that logo's word was inside of my and the Lord activated it so that there was a uh an ability for him to communicate with me so that my soul, mind, will, and emotions didn't get in the way of what he wanted to communicate to me. So that's that's the power of uh of receiving a rhema word, uh usually very instantaneous, usually right on time. And people can be um become sharper at discerning it if they uh if they allow that and don't fight it off and say, well, that was just that was just a momentary thought. That doesn't count. No, it might have been God speaking to you.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah, I I love the way that you describe that. So I always love when you share. But I do have a question when it comes to Rain Award. So when I first started really studying the Bible, I would read the Bible, I would feel like I would hear maybe God say something, but I was like, no, because that aligns with what I was thinking. And that was that that had to be my own thought. And, you know, maybe it was telling me something really positive in a really negative situation, and I maybe believed that I was wrong, but I felt like God was telling me I was right, and I could not decipher what's my own thought versus what the Holy Spirit could be telling me. Is there any help to that? How do you decipher the two?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah, good question. Um, there's there's different ways. One is scripture will never contradict itself. So if you hear something and it seems out of line with another Bible verse that you're familiar with and that you're aware of, um no, he's he's not gonna he's not gonna authorize you to be um you know to use some Old Testament uh story about getting vengeance, you know, but that because then he says vengeance is mine, says the Lord. So he's he's not gonna activate some some story back in the Old Testament where uh they had some bloody battles back then in the day. You say, see, that justifies what I want to do to this enemy of mine or this adversary.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

No, but he's he's not gonna you know that's one thing. Secondly, uh it's really good if we recognize those who have spiritual uh authority in our life or spiritual input, and we get to um it it's you know the um the word is saying those you that you though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. And uh meaning there is such a thing as a spiritual father in somebody's life. Uh it can be the biological father, but sometimes if that person's not available or is not a strong believer, then God will um protect an individual by providing them someone who is available. Now the the thing about it is, is how do you know that it's a spiritual father? They have the right to speak into your life uh and without pushback, and that we we can listen, we can inquire, but at the end of the day we receive. So I have a person like that in my life, uh Don Coleman, and you know, we can we can have some fellowship around some things from time to time, but at the end of the day, I uh I need to yield to, I feel like it's my decision, need to yield to um his point of view. And I I trust, how what do I do? I trust that the Lord, he is accountable to God for the condition of my of my life, my my well-being. And so that's another thing that you can do is to have such a person like that, and to and to, even though they might say, I recommend that you not do it this way, I think you should do it a different way. We might not like it, it doesn't feel good to our flesh, but it it it really um it serves us in the long run. So other people can verify the scripture itself will not contradict itself. Uh there are sometimes that there are circumstances. I want to be careful about that, because the even the enemy can cut uh cook up some circumstances that say, see, see, uh there's there's proof. Um, that's something that that the enemy can do against us. So there are a variety of ways that we can validate that. We can go into more of that another time.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

I like it. Well, thank you. I really I enjoy hearing the differences there. So we know so far, angelic visitation, rhema word, which is the spirit speaking directly to your spirit. Now, sometimes even though God speaks directly to our spirit, he can never separate his voice from his word. One of the primary ways that the Lord speaks to his people is through scripture itself, which we call Logos Word, which is God speaking through scripture. Um, let's talk about Logos Word here. I know that you you have so many ideas here, but let's go through 2 Timothy 3.16, where it says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Another verse that we have is Isaiah 55, 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Wow. Wow. That's just you just can rest in that. My word, so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return void. It's in other words, it's going to be profitable. It's going to return and have a return on investment. Okay. So this is why I recog uh recommend that people just hide God's word in their heart. This is this is what what we're we're we're told in um in Psalms 119. David wrote, I word, your word have I hidden hidden in my heart that have I not sinned against you. So going back to your Isaiah passage, this having the word um built up as an inventory inside of our hearts, it can be pulled up by the Holy Spirit at any given time, and and it will prosper us. It will accomplish something. It's it's what Isaiah is saying, it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. So when we have it memorized, when we have when we meditate upon it, then the Lord can reach in and pull it. Now, if we haven't, he can always give us a word if he you know that we haven't read or anything, but it's so much easier if we're familiar with it, if we're comfortable with it, and that's what David is saying, that I've hidden it in my heart, meaning I've I've memorized it and I've and I've personalized it. So Isaiah's verse is so poetic and it's so gentle. Uh it shall not return void, it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. I mean, if we just rest in that, it gives us such great hope, such great encouragement. Yeah. I just recommend that phrases like this are something that people should just read and memorize.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Yeah, no, I enjoyed the next two verses as well, though, because it reminds me of something that happened to me. So Psalm 119.105, your word is a lamp into my feet and a light unto my path. And then Psalm 119.11, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. When they talk about your word have I hidden in my heart, I remember hearing this so much as a little kid. And, you know, hide the words in your heart and they're gonna come when you need them. And I always thought, what in the world are you talking about? And I went to Christian school my whole life and I was like, I have no idea what's going on. And then I remember it was probably last year, I was walking through the store, I was walking through Walmart, and then I needed to buy some things for my kids, and I did not have the money to do so. And at first, my brain was like, okay, how are we gonna make this work? Where are we gonna get this from the and I was thinking of all the resources, right? We use our own brain for resources. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the verse popped in my head, but my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. And I stopped dead in my tracks. I remember I was on the coffee aisle. I literally don't drink coffee. So I was looking at the coffee and I was like, What? You will supply all my needs. What am I doing? What am I doing? Why am I running all these scenarios through my head? God, show me how you're gonna supply it. And he did. He came out of nowhere and gave me money from somebody that just was being nice to me and sent me$90. And I was like, What? How does this work? How does this happen? And that's that instantaneous supply that you were talking about before. But because the words were hidden in my heart when I was a kid going to Christian school and me having to memorize them for a grade, that was able to come up in my spirit and go, hey, these are the words you needed to know for this moment.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yes, yes, that's what a beautiful story. And so the value of it is like if you have a a pen in a drawer and you just keep it there, you may not use it that much. You don't open the drawer that much, but just when you you need a pen, you can pull it out and and apply it. You've hidden the pen in your drawer, you've hidden the word in your heart. And so it's a resource that you can pull out at at any given moment. So that's um that's how this thing applies. And it there's there even though there's some 33,000 verses in the Bible, it's really great to just go ahead and uh and just begin memorizing passages and don't worry about um intellectual understanding of them. You know, the Holy Spirit will bring meaning to them uh at the point where they're where they're needed.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Yeah. We talked the other day how the Bible speaks truth from Genesis to Revelation, and we are always trying to twist it, and a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Um, I know you spoke about like choose you this day whom you will serve when we talked about it the other day, and how we live in a you know a rel a relativistic society, right? Um, where truth is made up kind of on the spot, and we try to redefine everything when the word tells us what the truth is.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Really, certainly does.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

I love how we we have something to go to.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

It's absolute versus relative, relativistic. Uh I I'm I'm comforted by having uh absolute truth at my fingertips. And again, I this is what I've been I've been saying about my background. I just was tired of relativistic truth. That's not truth. That's that's just making things up as we go along.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Right. And we have truth right in front of us. So we have gone through um angelic visitation, very exciting. Rhema word, which is a spirit speaking directly into our spirit, logos word, so God speaking through scripture. Now we go into a fun one. I really like this. So scripture grounds us, it stabilizes us, it gives us language for God's voice, as we just heard. But throughout the Bible, we also see that God speaks to us in ways that go beyond the written pages. Sometimes the Lord speaks to us through images, impressions, or encounters that come while we sleep or suddenly appear in our mind. Um, let's talk about dreams and visions. This is one that I get a lot. So this is exciting to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Sure. Well, Daniel um is legendary for that. And if you have that passage, Daniel 7, chapter 7, um, just the first um three verses would be great.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yes, Daniel seven, one through three. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions in his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke, saying, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and the four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So look at what it says. Then he wrote down the dream. I think that's instructive in uh in the second sentence of 7-1. He wrote it down because at the moment it may not make total sense.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

But what happens is we we write it down and then um contemplate it, look at it again, maybe run it by someone else, and suddenly meaning starts to r arise in it. Again, a rhema word can come where we take the the vision and then the Lord puts meaning, adds meaning to it uh for our sake. Um so this is uh one more way that the Lord speaks to certain people. Uh I you know, I know that sometimes I'll wake up at four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning, and uh there are solutions. I can't say it's a vision, but in it it's um but it's a solution. You know, my brain is quiet enough that I feel like the Lord gets in there and starts wiring up solutions, whether it's business, relationships, you name it. And uh I'm I'm just grateful and I'll I'll then get up a couple hours later and I'll write down what it what it was that was uh that was said. And my gosh, it's just it's just so beneficial. It it re it uh it's it prospers in the thing for which it was sent, as we said a minute ago. So this is one more way. Again, I would not have I might have been dismissive about this years ago because oh that's just a that's just a dream, that's just a uh a night vision. But no, I I believe now that the Lord can speak through that means and I want to be sensitive to that. So I recommend that's one more way that people could be uh of um ready to ex uh receive from God's um willingness to communicate with us.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Yes, in Acts 2 17, it says, And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. You know, this has happened to me several years ago. I was just in my room, I was making my bed, not doing anything, not praying, nothing. And all of a sudden, God came to me, showed me a vision of me standing in front of women speaking, and he told me, quit your job, you're going into ministry. And as soon as I heard it, it was like a knife to my heart. I was like, this is what I'm doing, but I had no, no idea why, no reason, no, I wasn't living right. I wasn't doing anything right in my life. So I was like, I think I'm losing my marbles. But I felt so convicted about it that I decided to quit my job, and that's what I was going to do. And I remember the specific vision of seeing the faces of the women. And the way they were looking at me was not, oh my God, she's got just these wonderful words. It was she's got something that I need to hear. And I was like, God, I don't, I don't know what I could possibly have to say to these women. There's nothing good that's coming out of me right now. And he's like, you ding that, it's not about you. I'm gonna give you what to say. And I had women come to me after that, random people that I'd never met in my life that said, Hey, start a women's group. You're gonna be a speaker, you're gonna do this. And I'm like, this is wild. But he has made that come to pass. So I wonder sometimes, again, like I said earlier with reading the Bible and how do you know it's you versus something else, when you have these things happen, how do you discern whether a dream is spiritual, emotional, or just simply mental processing versus what God's telling you to do?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, well, don't rush it. Uh, in other words, give it time to simmer. It's almost like when you're making uh a stew or a soup, uh, you put your in some ingredients together, but you don't serve it five minutes later. It it needs to simmer and the ingredients unfold, and and so there's there's one thing that comes to mind that uh uh you know, unless it's an immediate, like we've been talking about Jesus immediately needed to respond to a storm or immediately needed to respond to a demonic man at his feet. But the so there are times, but that's usually for highly mature individuals. I don't think the Lord would would have tested you back in the day with a need to immediately respond, but he did deposit something in you and into your spirit, and uh you held on to it. And then as then later, as you become more mature, more attuned to his way of speaking, you begin to see validation of uh of that. So there are various things that the Lord has sp spoken to me, and you just wait sometimes and you'll see validation. Uh then again, he does he does not contradict his own word. He said, How do you know was your question? And when you can see uh logos words that are confirmation about um uh about a message that you've received, that alone can be very helpful. Uh sometimes you will, as you just said, somebody sends you$90 uh in a moment when you need it, or resources that you need for your children. So uh uh the this idea of instantaneous supply at the moment of need is something that I've been watching as well. That's kingdom economics. I remember one time my tax man called me, my CPA, and he called me at the end of December. He says, Hey, I just want to let you know that uh in early January you're gonna need to uh remit how many, what did he say to me? It was um uh it was a it was a pretty big number. It was like f five thousand dollars or something of that nature. And it was pretty sizable, and I remember putting the phone down and said, Okay, thank you very much. And in early December, in early January rather, I had uh I I received a contract that was for that amount multiplied. There was let's just I won't go into details, but it was a multiplied response of uh income. And and I just, you know, again, I wasn't moved by the sudden need for thousands of dollars to go to the tax man. I just I just trusted the Lord was gonna supply all my needs, as you just said. Uh and so you just rest in the in that kind of faith. So we can operate this way, you know. Some people may be scornful or cynical about this, but um, but uh it's it really does uh call for uh a good amount of faith. And so that's the thing that we would do. We say, Lord, strengthen my faith. And so that when we do that, we'll be more receptive to the results of these words, these visions, uh, like you just described.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

So well, these are just four of the ways. Angelic visitation. So God speaking through angel, Rhema word, God speaks directly to our spirit, logos word, God speaking through scripture, visions and dreams. So we've talked through how they were then, how we see them now. And more than anything, from this podcast here, I hope that you're walking away with this. God isn't quiet because he's distant and he isn't hard to hear because he doesn't care. If you've just ever felt like, you know, I don't hear God like other people do, you're not strange, you're not broken, and you're not alone. Sometimes we just haven't been taught the different ways that he speaks. And the good thing is we're not done. These are only four of the ten. So in the next episode, we're gonna go through ways five through ten on how God speaks to people, peace, conviction, and everyday life. These are the kinds that show up in real life, not just Bible stories. So if this stirred something with you, I hope that you'll stay with us. And we're really thankful you spent this time today with us. Until then.