There’s a kind of noise that doesn’t come from outside. You can be sitting in a quiet room, no TV, no phone, no people, and still, it’s deafening. Thoughts like a stampede. Regrets from yesterday, questions about tomorrow, a to-do list that loops like a broken record. And right in the middle of that storm, someone says, “Just be still and listen for God’s voice.”
Be still, and know that I am God, Psalm 46:10.
And you think, I would, if I could hear anything over this mess in my head.
So let’s take that pressure off, first of all. God is not whispering from behind a locked door. He’s not hiding in a soundproof booth waiting for you to master some perfect spiritual trick. He knows exactly how loud your mind is. He sees every darting thought, every synapse firing, every unfinished sentence rattling around. And still, He’s there.
He’s not demanding that you force silence. He’s inviting you to rest.
Because hearing God’s voice doesn’t start with control. It starts with trust.
Most people think they have to “empty” their mind before they can hear Him. But that’s actually not how He works. In Hebrew, the word for “hear” is שָׁמַע (shama), and it doesn’t just mean to hear with your ears. It means to pay attention. To listen with the intention of obeying. To lean into it, even when it’s faint.
So this is what it looks like, practically, when your mind is crowded and you’re not sure what voice is whose:
You start by doing the one thing the noise can’t do: you become still. Not perfectly. Not monk-on-a-mountain still. But still enough to say,
“God… I want to hear You. And I trust that You want to be heard.”
That’s it. That’s the doorway. And sometimes, it starts small. Like a thread of peace winding through the static. Or a sudden stop in your thoughts, like something quiet settled down in the middle. Sometimes it’s a verse you hadn’t thought about in years. Sometimes it’s just the feeling that you’re not alone in the room anymore.
The voice of God is not one among many. It’s other. It carries weight. It carries peace, even when it’s correcting you. It doesn’t race or panic. It doesn’t twist your arm. It knows you, better than your thoughts do. It’s steady. Patient. Clean. And when it speaks, even if only one sentence… everything else has to hush.
But to get there, you don’t need to master silence. You just need to welcome Him into the noise.
Say it aloud if you have to. Whisper it through your own doubt:
“Speak, Lord… I’m listening. Even if I don’t know how to do this yet.”
He honors that. He draws near to that. The ruach (רוּחַ), the breath, the Spirit, moves in the spaces we give Him, not the perfection we can’t reach.
So if you’re not sure what His voice sounds like yet, don’t be discouraged. Just start where you are. Invite Him. Trust that He’s not standing on the other side of the static. He’s already in the storm with you, quietly waiting for you to notice that still, small voice (ק֖וֹל דְּמָמָ֥ה דַקָּֽה) qol demamah daqqah) cutting through the whirlwind.
He’s not far.
You just have to turn down the world one notch at a time, and lean toward the One who never shouts to compete.
He just speaks.
And when you’re ready, you’ll hear.
Image by chatgpt at my direction.