He speaks to me with a still small voice….He whispers to me

If I ever question how intimate God wants to be with me, this statement gives all the answer I need.

Who do you whisper to?   Your best friend when you can't wait to tell her the crazy funny thought you just had?  Your husband when you are lying together in the dark?  Your child as you rock him to sleep?  An aging parent as you're holding their hand to offer comfort?

These are the most important people in your life, those you are most comfortable with.  A whisper is intimate and whispering to someone is a very intimate act.  Imagine what you would do if a stranger walked up to you and tried to whisper in your ear.  I'm assuming the reaction would not be in a very friendly or encouraging manner.

Another thing to consider about whispering—if you can't see their face, you have to REALLY know someone's voice to recognize their whisper.  I honestly don't know if I could pick out the whisper of those closest to me.  What about you?  Do you realize that that is exactly what God expects of us?  

He wants us to know Him so well that we can hear Him over all the other whispers competing for our attention.  Whispers telling us to be afraid.  That we can't change.  There is no hope.  God isn't big enough to really have our back.  God's whisper guides us, encourages us, gently corrects us.  He tells us who we are and who we aren't.  He tells us we are victors, overcomers.  Most of all, we are HIS!  He is our Daddy.

It is also important to recognize the enemy’s whisper.  The enemy whispers to us, but he tells us how we fall short.  That we will never be good enough.  That God is not trustworthy.  That we will never truly be loved and accepted.  He tells us to give up.  He calls us stupid for trusting in a God we can't even see.  He has a whole repertoire of lies for us.  If we aren't able to discern his voice from God's, we believe those lies and take on a burden God never created us to carry.

Discerning God's whispers from our enemy's is only part of our job.  We must deny the lies whispered by the enemy, denounce them and rely on the whispers of God as truth!  We must also stop allowing the enemy to have the intimacy of whispering to us!  He only has as much of an audience with us as we allow.  

Imagine if you were in a busy restaurant having dinner with an old friend you hadn't seen in a few years.  You are completely focused on them and your conversation.  You want nothing more than to talk with them and hear everything they have to say.  You hear background noise, you recognize that everyone around you is talking, you hear the wait staff taking orders, you hear the dishes being cleared from tables, but you are so focused on your own conversation that you have to purposely ignore your friend to know any details of what's going on around you.  

How much deeper would our relationship to God be if we were able to tune out the distractions the enemy offers?  What would happen if we didn't have to work so hard to tune out the other whispers fighting for our attention?

Keep practicing.  Keep focusing on your conversation with God and what He is whispering to you and the enemy's voice will become background noise.  The more we tune out the enemy and focus on God's whispers, the easier it will become.  The easier it becomes, the better we will be at immediately recognizing His voice and denouncing the lies of the enemy.