Hearing God's Voice
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[00:00:00] Let's start with something we all know today. There is no shortage of voices that are speaking into our children's lives for good or for bad. From TikTok, trends to classroom conversations, YouTube videos to well-meaning adults, our kids are constantly being shaped by all of the voices that are around them.
We already know how essential it is for us as parents to remain a valued and trusted voice in our children's lives as they grow. But are we also prioritizing their ability to hear and trust the voice of God? That's why today we're talking about how we can teach our children to hear God's voice above all the noise, and for many of you, this will be something you can also take away and apply in your own lives.
The key here is helping your children tune into that still small voice of God in their lives, and giving them the confidence to trust that voice above all the others, even ours. So let's get started. [00:01:00] If you're new to me, I'm your host of the Raising Faithful Families Podcast, Katie Bordeaux, and I'm so very happy that you're here with us today.
The world is louder than ever. We've got peer pressure from school, from social media. We've got friends who've learned from other friends or other family members, church influences, even worldly influences, all the things. It all essentially adds up to a lot of mental and emotional noise. If we miss the opportunity to teach our kids how to pause and listen to the voice of God, the world will be more than happy to fill that silence for them, and that can be scary, right?
Jesus tells us in John 10, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. He is the shepherd. We are all his sheep. That means that God wants us and intends for us to hear his voice, but that can be pretty difficult to do on our own, especially when we're hearing our impulsive thoughts, our best friend's [00:02:00] advice, our favorite influencer's opinion, and so on.
So just to be clear, hearing God's voice will not always be audible. For some maybe it is, for most it's not. It may look like a gentle nudge or a prompting that you just feel in your spirit. It may be a sense of peace when you're making a decision. It may be a Bible verse that sticks with you and just won't leave your heart and keeps coming up a quiet thought or a realization that aligns with God's love and his truth, a conviction or an awareness of something that you need to address.
Isaiah 30, verse 21 is a beautiful reminder of this. 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. Our kids don't need to be adults before they can connect with God and build their own personal relationship with him, and thank God for that.
It honestly breaks my heart to thank how many believers are out here that have gone their entire lives, not realizing that they [00:03:00] could hear from God because they were expecting this booming voice or an obvious answer to just show up. The thing is God no longer has to speak the way he did in the Old Testament.
We don't need prophets to pass messages onto us for us to hear from God because now we have His word. We have the Holy Spirit. We already have the step by step instructions, the examples, and the blueprint for how to live. And when God gave us Jesus, he gave us the Holy Spirit, which means that we all have access to something that they didn't have under the old covenant.
And that is a. Out this world gift to have. So let's make it the norm in our homes to say things like, let's ask God what he thinks about this. Did anything come to mind while we were praying? Let's journal about this and ask God to help us understand what to do. When you start normalizing these types of conversations with your kids, they can start to realize that God is close, he's [00:04:00] real, he listens, he speaks, and he can be trusted.
One of the biggest challenges that we all face adults and kids alike is that we almost never spend time in true quiet anymore. We get a moment of silence and we reach for a podcast or a playlist, or we start scrolling. Most kids today have no concept of how to be bored or how to cope with silence, and research shows that this constant stimulation is actually increasing anxiety in children.
But that's a deeper topic for another day. It's just that it is all connected. It's not so much about requiring any type of tal silence, it's more about creating intentional space to connect. So you could try encouraging things like journaling during quiet moments, still time after worship or devotionals, just pausing and sitting in the presence of God.
Nature walks as a time for quiet reflection or a designated screen free hour in your day [00:05:00] to reset and rest. Little moments like these that you intentionally provide in your home create space, and they help your kids create opportunity for God's voice to speak and reveal what he wants them to know. The hardest part isn't just hearing, it's usually knowing whether you can trust what you've heard is from God.
Or is that my own thoughts? Is that God or is that my own thoughts? I've been there a lot of times, but what's really helped me in those situations is I start by praying. I'll tell God what it is that I'm looking for, what am I seeking guidance on, and then I ask for his direction, and I just wait in the quiet.
Sometimes something comes to me, a thought, an idea, a scripture. Sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay too. Another way that I love connecting is through journaling. I'll just write as if I'm talking to God, like as if I'm texting him, but I'm writing it down. And I'm pouring out my thoughts, my questions, my concerns, and then I just pause.
I ask him to help me process or understand or [00:06:00] answer the questions. And sometimes as I write, the words just start flowing and they sound like they're coming from him, not me. But the key is I always test it. I, I still say, was that me or was that gone? And that's where your discernment comes in, which is another skill that you build over time.
And this is why you cannot avoid spending time in scripture, because the more familiar you become with who God is and how he speaks, the more quickly you'll be able to recognize if something truly is from God of God, if it aligns with his word. If a message that comes to you contradicts what God says in scripture that's not from God, and you would keep seeking.
This is not some overnight skill. This is not like God is not a genie in a bottle. He's not always gonna give you an instant answer. And sometimes when we don't hear from him, it's because we're not ready for what he wants to say, or we're [00:07:00] not ready for whatever it is that we're asking for. Other times, our minds are just too cluttered and busy to receive it.
So that's when I personally turn too fasting. Fasting creates space. It silences distractions. Whether it's food that you're fasting from, or social media, tv, music, coffee, you name it, you can fast from anything. The Lord can reveal to you what needs to be paused for a day, a week, even permanently. I typically choose one thing each month to fast from, and it's most often something that I realized I'm using this too much.
So last month I was, I saw myself, felt myself on TikTok way too much. So I decided for the next month I'll be fasting from TikTok. At one point I was snacking on way too many sweets, so I decided for the next month I was fasting from sugar. So again, it can literally be anything. It can be a like a Daniel fast.
There's so many different options available to you. But [00:08:00] what I like to do is choose something to prove. This is not an idol in my life. I do not place this above God. I'm taking a break from it to reconnect and focus on God instead of this thing that I've been giving so much of my time or attention. But just ask God what it is that you need to pause and then start paying attention to the things around UN.
C. How to fast, but please don't push fasting on your kids. Let it be something that they see you doing and then they become curious about. So that brings us to our next point of modeling it for them. If you want your kids to learn how to hear God's voice, just let them see you do it. Let them watch you pause and pray before you make a decision.
Let them watch you say out loud when God answered a prayer, or when you saw him show up in your day. Share with them how you were guided, how you were corrected, how you were encouraged by the Holy Spirit. That might sound like I felt like God was nudging me to help that person [00:09:00] today, or I was feeling really frustrated, so I asked God for patience, and I feel like he helped me just see the situation differently and respond with kindness.
Those are the types of things that will model turning to God and listening to his guidance on how to handle a situation, and it's how we raise kids who don't just know about God, but know how to walk with him, who live through him, who actually have the fruit of the spirit displayed in their lives. If this episode spoke to you and you're looking for more faith-filled parenting tools, please join us inside the Calm and Confident Club.
We have step-by-step resources, conversation guides, so many spiritual tools, real life, real-time support to help you build a Christ-centered home. You don't have to figure it all out today, and you certainly don't have to figure it out alone. You can join our community of like-minded parents that are all on this journey together.
That's at [00:10:00] www.covenantcollections.com/club, and it will be linked in the description as well. The world is loud, but God's voice is still, and it's steady and it speaks directly to you. So let's be the parents who make space for our kids to hear him. Not just through words, not just through us. Let's not try to be our child's Holy Spirit.
Let's not try to be so overpowering and so in control that we can't teach them how to rely on God even above us. 'cause the one voice that leads them the best is gonna be God's voice with his truth and his peace and his purpose for them. Thanks for joining us today on Raising Faithful Families. Please share this episode with a friend, subscribe.
Leave a review. Leave a comment if you're on YouTube and connect with me on Instagram if you're not already at Covenant Collections. Thank you and God bless.
