God's Voice

Recently I have really been struggling with knowing the difference between God's voice and my own. I've really been asking God for help knowing the difference.  This past week He gave me a great example.

I went for a walk and near the end of the walk had the thought cross my mind to send an email to someone specific.  I brushed it away, but it kept coming back.  So I asked God, "What do I say to [this person]?" He replied, "I will give you the words to write." I didn't really want to do it but it there so I finally sat down to write out this email.  I started with something like, "Dear ... I feel like I am suppose to write you this email but I don't really know what to say."   Then I figured that wasn't acceptable so I started a new line and God gave me a word to write. He then preceded to tell me words for two large paragraphs to write to this person.  But typical of God, in keeping our need in Him, He only told me up to three words at a time for this entire email.

When I finished the email, I didn't really want to send it to this person for it had some strong stuff in it and it would be embarrassing if I had misheard God and sent it to them.  I felt a slight nudge to send the email.  I said, okay, I'll sleep on it and see if God is still nudging me in the morning.  In the morning I felt a strong nudge all morning, "Send the email" it kept saying.  I kept asking God, "Please give me confirmation that this is you, I don't want to send this email if you aren't the one telling me to send it."  I kept feeling the nudge all the way to the church.  On the ride to church, I felt God whispering to me, "when you get to the church, send this person the email, it is something they really need to hear this morning."  Scared and fearful, when I got to church I didn't send the email.  But with the constant reminder in my head, "They need to see the email this morning" I told myself that I would send it this morning.  Of course not doing it right away, I forgot about it until I got home that night.  

When I got home I knew then that it really was God speaking to me and so I asked God if He still wanted me to send the email... no response.  I kept asking, and kept getting no response.  The next handful of days - which seemed like forever since I couldn't get a reply from God, I kept asking and I kept getting no response.  I knew that I wasn't getting a response because I had failed to listen to Him when He was speaking so why will He continue to speak to me if I am not going to listen and be obedient.    One evening, finally, God suddenly prompted me (without me asking) to send the email now.  So this time I did.  I hope that it was meaningful and had as much of an impact on the person as it would of had, but I now am getting a better picture of what God's voice sounds like.