The audio for this devotional is not available for now, but you can have your device read it to you.
Reading options
Verse:Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” —Isaiah 30:21, NIV
Have you ever heard someone give a testimony and say, “God spoke to me and said...”? If you are a Christian or have been around Christians long enough, you may have heard this statement at least once. I used to wonder why when I prayed or asked God for signs, I never heard His voice. Ever. I began to chalk it up to others having a better relationship with God than I did —before something quite curious happened.
A year ago, I was about to make a really bad decision.
In what can only be described as presumption, I declined to pray about it because I already knew I was in the wrong. That night, I had one of the most vivid dreams of my life. In the dream, I saw the direct consequence of the action I was about to take. I even heard a voice saying to me, “Don’t do it!” I woke up in cold sweat.
Could that be the voice of God? As a self-proclaimed “modern woman” not given to the traditional Caribbean emphasis on the significance of dreams, I shrugged it off as being just the result of an overactive conscience.
Ignoring the warning I had been given yielded the exact results I saw in the dream. I realized then that God had spoken to me, but in not recognizing His voice, I chose to ignore it. Since then, I’ve come to realize that God speaks to each of us in different ways, and every time since then, I’ve perceived God speaking to me through that “gut feeling” —my conscience. The Bible says in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (KJV). As Christians, as followers of Christ, we must be able to not only recognize God’s voice speaking but also heed His wisdom when He gives it to us.
As the ever-loving Father, He only desires our good and wants to give us direction. While we may never be able to say that we have heard an audible voice telling us which path to take, through dreams, a word from a friend, a Bible passage, and yes, through our very consciences, we can still hear God’s voice behind us, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21, KJV).
Olivia D. Valentine