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Although God mostly speaks to us through his written Word, he also speaks through our thoughts, if our thoughts are controlled by his Spirit. The good news is that when we are born from above and have been given new life in Christ, the Bible says we have the Spirit of God alive in our very bodies. With his Spirit living in us, Paul writes that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). This means that we can think thoughts which are governed by God’s Spirit. He can guide us into thinking what is biblically true, thus making right thinking another way God speaks to us.

For years I have prayed James 1:5 which says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” I lack wisdom; I need wisdom. On my own I can make really foolish decisions. After praying this consistently for years, I remember one day making a decision about a matter which arose suddenly. Afterwards I thought, “That was smart; that was a good decision.” It dawned on me—well, yeah, you’ve been praying for wisdom and God gave you wisdom when you needed it!

How did I make a good decision? God spoke to me through my thoughts, which were—at least at that moment—controlled by his Spirit.

If we have trouble hearing God speak to us directly, could it be because our minds are so cluttered with the junk of this world that our thoughts are not Spirit-controlled? Think about what we put into our minds—we often treat our minds like they are garbage cans! We listen to any kind of trash that comes over the television or on the internet, or we read stuff that isn’t uplifting or helpful. So when we want to hear God speak to us, he has to get through all that trash which we’ve collected in our minds. It becomes a serious barrier between us and God.

If you want to hear God speak to you, I strongly encourage you to get serious about bringing every thought into captivity and making it obedient to Christ, as we read in 2 Corinthians 10:5.