Hearing God — Part 1: The Theological Foundation

Jun 03, 2026·By Erik & Mayana Frederickson

Can you actually hear God's voice? Not just feel a vague sense of peace at church or get goosebumps during worship, but actually hear Him speaking into your everyday life.

If that question feels foreign to you, you are not alone. And that is exactly why this conversation needed to happen.

Why This Topic Hurts Our Hearts

After years of working with people one on one, Erik and Mayana have noticed something that never stops being surprising. People who have been in church their entire lives, faithful, committed, sincere believers, who have no framework for hearing God speak to them personally.

For many people, hearing God's voice feels like something reserved for prophets, super-spiritual people, or those with a special gift. It feels out of reach, foreign, maybe even a little strange.

But here is the truth: not only can you hear His voice, you should be hearing His voice. It is the normal Christian life. And chances are, you are already hearing Him in some ways and simply have not recognized it yet.

What "Hearing His Voice" Actually Means

The foundation for this whole conversation is

John 10:27 - My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

Most people read that verse and funnel it down to one thing, an internal audible voice. But when you look at the Greek word used for "voice" here, it is the word phonē, from which we get our English word phonetics. And phonetics is not just about hearing someone speak out loud. It refers to the cadence, structure, and culture of a language, how that language communicates.

You could read that verse the same way by saying: my sheep know how I communicate with them, and I know them, and they follow me.

That changes everything.

God is not limited to one channel. He is not confined to an audible voice in your head. He speaks through His Word, through circumstances, through peace that settles on you when you sit down to pray, through a verse that jumps off the page at just the right moment, through a situation that opens up right after you cried out to Him.

When you prayed genuinely from your heart and a few weeks later found yourself in an environment where you were getting real help, that was God communciating to you. When that peace that surpasses understanding settled on you in the middle of a stressful situation, He was speaking. He is always communicating. The invitation is to learn how.

God Literally Felt It in His Gut

One of the most powerful moments in this episode comes from a closer look at Matthew 14:14.

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and He healed their sick.

The word translated as "compassion" in this verse refers to the inward parts, the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the seat of deep feeling. Jesus literally felt it in His gut. He looked at a crowd of sick people and something rose up on the inside of Him, and He turned and healed them all.

The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives inside the believer. The same Jesus who walked through the Gospels, patient with His disciples, full of compassion, moved by compassion, operating in power, that exact same Jesus wants to live that same way inside of you.

What the world calls intuition, what we call a gut feeling, when we are genuinely soaking in His presence and renewing our minds in the Word, that inner sense is often Him. That is discernment. Not just a Holy Spirit detector for bad things but the ability to see both what God is doing and what the enemy is doing in a situation.

What Blocks You From Hearing His Voice

One of the biggest barriers to hearing God is not lack of effort. It is condemnation.

Romans 8:1 - There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Condemnation is a legal term. It is the moment a judge looks at you and declares you guilty and announces your punishment. And that verdict no longer applies to anyone who is in Christ. Not because what you did does not matter but because He took the punishment for it.

So that voice that says you are an idiot, you are stupid, you already failed before, you will never change, why would God want to speak to you, that is not God. That is the enemy who has watched for thousands of years as people fold under that kind of pressure because they do not really believe what they say they believe.

God's voice brings you up. It calls you forward. Even when He corrects you, the goal is to open more freedom in your life. Even when He disciplines, it is to move you toward the things He has for you which are always good.

Conviction is completely different from condemnation. Conviction is the Holy Spirit saying, hey, this is not who you are. This is not what you were made for. Take my hand and let me walk you back into freedom. That is not shame. That is love with direction.

If you cannot tell the difference between condemnation and conviction, it is very difficult to begin to learn God's voice. So start there. You are not standing in front of a judge anymore. You are standing before a Father who loves you and wants to speak to you.

Simple Ways to Begin

Here are the foundations Erik and Mayana laid out for anyone who wants to grow in hearing God's voice:

Spend time with Him. This is everything. Matthew 7:7 - ask, seek, knock. It is a promise that He will not leave you hanging. The more time you spend with Him the more familiar His voice becomes. Just like Mayana said, if she were blindfolded in a room full of voices, she would recognize Erik's voice because she knows him. She has spent time with him. That is how you learn to recognize God's voice. You spend time with Him.

Know the Word. The Bible is your protection. When a thought or impression comes, the first filter is simple, does this line up with who God is and who He says I am? Does it line up with His Word? If you do not know the Word, that filter does not exist. The Word is instruction, it is also how you learn to recognize the character and nature of the God who is speaking to you.

Ask Him to speak. Say it out loud. Lord, I want to hear you. I want to grow in this. Treat prayer as a two-way conversation, not just a monologue. Spend time speaking and then spend time listening.

Honor even the imperfect steps. Learning to hear God is like learning a new language. You are going to say the word wrong sometimes. You are going to step out and wonder if you heard right. He honors the posture of your heart. Even when things do not go the way you expected after you stepped out in faith, what He is looking for is the motive. Were you trying to hear Him? He will honor that.

The Simple Truth

My sheep know how I communicate with them.

That verse is an invitation. Intimacy and guidance are available directly from your Father in heaven. A daily living relationship with a God who wants to speak to you, not just in church on Sunday, not just through a pastor, but personally, directly, in the middle of your actual life, that is what He is offering.

It does not happen overnight. It is a journey. But it starts with one conviction: He wants to speak to you more than you want to hear Him.

Start there. Give Him the time. Come to Him without condemnation. Open the Word. Ask Him to speak. And then pay attention.

Isaiah 30:21 - 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.

He is already speaking. The invitation is to learn how to listen.

Listen to the Full Episode
- Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qu4bDACjXvGql4ImvxwIw?si=M0YnNW_5Q8id3n-hQoqURw

- Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-recovering-reality-podcast/id1448492452?i=1000770228389

Work With Erik & Mayana

If this episode stirred something in you and you are ready to go deeper in your walk with God, Erik and Mayana offer one on one coaching and mentorship rooted in biblical truth and real transformation.

Erik's Coaching → https://recoveringreality.com/work-with-us

Mayana's Women's Coaching → https://recoveringreality.com/recovering-reality-women