What If God Doesn’t Speak to Me?

I remember being a young girl and walking through the trails in the woods behind our house. My rubber boots kicked rocks in front of me. I was whispering. Though I was all alone, I was still nervous that someone might hear me praying to God.

I had just read in a devotional that believers should regularly hear from God; prayer isn’t meant to be a lecture, but a conversation. To participate, we need to listen. I finally ended my prayer with, “I’m ready to listen, God. Speak to me!”

I walked in silence. I stood in silence. I waited and listened. But he never spoke.

I was later told that this may take some time. I had to wait and be patient—God wanted to see that I was truly listening so he could freely speak. So I continued waiting in silence. Praying and waiting. But God never spoke to me.

It seemed everyone else heard from God. Youth leaders, friends, conference speakers, pastors, and older girls I looked up to. They had an intimate relationship with him. He was always nudging and whispering to them and filling them more with his Spirit.

I wanted to lie. I would strain and listen as hard as I could, but I never heard God speak to me. I never felt any nudges. I never experienced a fresh out-pouring of his Spirit. I never felt “peace” about a decision like others described. He just doesn’t love me like he loves them. 

Maybe you’ve felt the same way. You’ve heard the speakers at the conferences. You’ve heard the sermons. Your mentors and friends all hear from God. But all you hear is the humming of your dishwasher. Sister, this is for you: God doesn’t love you any less, and you don’t need to listen for a whisper or wait on abstract nudges from God.

How We Hear From God

In Hebrews 1, God lays out his practice for speaking to his people:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:1-3 CSB)

What does this passage tell us about God’s pattern of speaking to his people?

He Spoke by the Prophets¹

In the Old Testament, God spoke mainly through his prophets. When God established a covenant with his people and gave him his law, he did so through prophets.

Prophethood wasn’t inherited or self-appointed, but declared by God. A prophet’s words bore the authority and power of God himself because they were God’s words. To disobey a prophet was to disobey God. When a prophet spoke, you could be certain it would come to pass—because it was God’s truthful and powerful word. In the ancient days of Israel, you didn’t claim God had spoken to you unless you knew for sure he had—to claim God had spoken when he hadn’t would surely bring death upon you (Deuteronomy 18:20).

This office served a very specific purpose for a specific time. The prophets served during the Sinai covenant. Prophets were like lawyers, prosecuting the Israelites when they disobeyed God’s law and broke his covenant with them. When this time period ended, so did this office, until the time for Jesus’ birth came; then they proclaimed God’s word and the new covenant that was established in Christ.

Consider the weight of this office and what it meant to say, “God has spoken to me.” Whenever God speaks, we should consider it his holy and powerful word. God certainly does. To claim God had spoken when he hadn’t was considered blasphemy—taking God’s holy name in vain. Do we take such care today when we claim God has spoken to us?

He Spoke By His Son

God’s final and complete revelation comes through Christ. He is greater than any prophet, because he is the Word of God himself (John 1:1-5). As Matthew Henry wrote on this passage,

It is the final, the finishing revelation, given forth in the last days of divine revelation, to which nothing is to be added, but the canon of scripture is to be settled and sealed: so that now the minds of men are no longer kept in suspense by the expectation of new discoveries, but they rejoice in a complete revelation of the will of God, both preceptive and providential, so far as is necessary for them to know in order to their direction and comfort.²

There can be no greater revelation than Christ himself. Christ fulfilled the promises of the covenant, atoning for our sins and establishing eternal life for his people, and finally spoke through his chosen Apostles, prophets, and writers in the New Testament. “We receive Scripture as God’s authoritative word because it comes from the Father, with the Son as its content, and the Spirit testifies within us to its inherent truthfulness.”³

In the Old Testament, God’s people needed the prophets to tell them the Word of God, and even then there were times it was like trying to read an unfamiliar, distant street sign. But now we have God’s sufficient Word contained in one book. Time and time again in the New Testament, we find commands and calls to go to God’s Word to learn the gospel and law. Rather than giving directions for receiving prophecy, hearing God speak, or discerning nudges and feelings, the New Testament writers beckon us to immerse ourselves in the writings of Scripture.

All of redemptive history has pointed to Christ. The Old Testament looked forward to him and the New proclaims him fully realized. Now we have the two together in the entirety of Scripture and have no need of further revelation. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work,” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV).

Prayer As a Conversation

Many of us have heard that prayer should be a conversation, often referring to how we shouldn’t simply lecture God with our prayers but also take time to listen to him. It’s a relationship, and any relationship requires both speaking and listening.

Rather than giving us instructions on how to listen for a whisper from God or feel a nudge from his Spirit, we’re instead called to understand and study his Word where he already has and still is speaking. Hebrews says Scripture is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) because it comes from our ever-working, ever-present God. As Tim Keller writes,

God acts through his words, the Word is “alive and active” (Heb. 4:12), and therefore the way to have God dynamically active in our lives is through the Bible. To understand the Scripture is not simply to get information about God. If attended to with trust and faith, the Bible is the way to actually hear God speaking and also to meet God himself.⁴

Scripture is so vast and deep, and our minds so frail and limited, that we’ll never exhaust it’s content and wisdom. The Holy Spirit is at work fully within each believer, storing the Word in our hearts and convicting and changing us by it. As my friend Brianna writes,

The Bible verses we read as a new believer only grow richer and more colored as we continue to read them each passing year. Sometimes the new colors come through the pain of great trials. Sometimes they come through joyful blessings that change our perspective. Sometimes it’s merely the passage of time and years of patient change by the Holy Spirit. New colors, new angles, and new surprises will continue to pop up as we live, study, and seek after the Lord.⁵

The Bible is and always will be a continual conversation of love and discipline between God and his children. And our response is prayer. “Our prayers should arise out of immersion in the Scripture. We should ‘plunge ourselves into the sea’ of God’s language, the Bible. We should listen, study, think, reflect, and ponder the Scriptures until there is an answering response in our hearts and minds.”⁶

As I’ve grown, deepened my theology, and studied the Bible more, I’ve learned that God doesn’t speak audibly. I hear from him each day that I open his Word and his Spirit leads me in applying that Word to my life. At times the Spirit brings to mind passages when I’m tempted by sin or need a reminder of my identity in Christ. When I’m drowning in suffering, he reminds me of his sympathetic compassion. As I discipline my son, he reminds me of his fatherly care towards me and that I should model it. As I behold the beauty of the flowers in my garden, I’m reminded of his powerful, creative hand. I no longer feel as if I’m “missing out” on hearing a word from God—because I have his Word and the Holy Spirit sanctifying me through it.

Dear sister, God isn’t ignoring you. God has spoken to you and is still speaking to you through his Word. And when it’s unclear, he has given you his Holy Spirit to help you understand and his church to make it clearer still. God doesn’t speak to us audibly, but you can have a conversation with him—if you open your Bible to marvel at his words and reply with prayer.

1. Zach Keele, The Unfolding Word (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), p. 154. I am indebted to Pastor Keele’s work in helping me understand the office of the prophet in the Old Testament and therefore in writing this entire section.

2.  Matthew Henry, Zondervan NIV Matthew Henry Commentary, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 723.

3.  Michael Horton, Pilgrim Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 57.

4.  Tim Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 54.

5.  Brianna Lambert, "What Colors Do You See?" Looking to the Harvest, September 21, 2021, accessed September 21, 2021, (https://lookingtotheharvest.com/what-kinds-of-colors-do-you-see/).

6.  Keller, 55.

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