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My question for you is this: “If God wanted to speak to you today, what barrier would he have to overcome?” We’ve looked at three barriers: busyness, self-absorption, and not knowing how to listen to God. God mostly speaks to us through his written Word, so if we can’t hear God, it could be because we simply aren’t spending enough time in the Word, reading it and meditating on it.

God 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 Cor. 2:16). That means that I can think thoughts that are governed by God’s Spirit. He can guide me into thinking that is biblically true, and right thinking is another way God speaks to us.

For years I have prayed James 1:5, which says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” I lack wisdom; I need wisdom; on my own I can make really foolish decisions. So, after praying this consistently for years, I remember one day making a decision about a matter that suddenly arose, and 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 you have trouble hearing God speak to you directly, could it be because your mind is so cluttered with the junk of the world, that your thoughts are not Spirit-controlled? We think about what we put into our minds, and often we 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 clutter 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 in Christ, as we read in 2 Corinthians 10:5.