Why Young People Need to Learn to Hear His Voice
What young people need is a miracle. They need access to Him and His voice every day. And they need guides who will help them learn how to do it.
3…2…1…. Blast off.
Your rocket shoots into the sky at a velocity you can only imagine, and adrenaline fills your veins. There’s so much you’re nervous about on this, your first mission in space, but your goal is clear: You will complete a space walk.
As the momentum levels off, you take a look at the round, blue planet in awe. Then, you prepare to step out of the spacecraft, arming yourself with the tools you will need: your helmet, your oxygen tank, all the connection hoses, and your radio. The seal releases, the door cracks open, and you’re out in space. In….out…in…out….your breathing steadies, and you begin to collect samples.
Then, the unthinkable happens: the hose that connects your oxygen tank to your suit disconnects, and you can’t breathe. In desperation, you begin to grab for anything to stop the leak; debris cakes around the hole. But no matter what you do you can’t stop the leak.
—--
A dramatic picture? Yes. But this is the experience for young people when they are disconnected from God’s voice.
God created man from soil, breathing His life into it (Genesis 2:7), and then began to speak to him about what he was made for and what he could and couldn’t do (Genesis 2). The Bible goes on to tell the stories of men and women who were led by and obedient to God’s voice: Noah (Genesis 6-9), Abraham (Genesis 6:13-22), Samuel (1 Samuel 3), Jesus (John 12:49-50), Paul (Acts 9, Acts 18:9-10).
Young people, too, were made in His image (Psalm 139), and young people are made to live doing what they see the Father doing and saying what they hear the Father saying (John 12:49-50). This, however, is often not the case.
Like astronauts disconnected from their lifeline, young people are living their lives disconnected from the God who gives peace in the midst of chaos, who speaks purpose constantly, and who is their help in times of trouble. So, they flail and reach out for anything that might stop the leak: the voice of the enemy who offers anger, anxiety, and pain, their own voice that offers logic and half-baked solutions, the voices of others who offer help that is temporary.
What young people need is a miracle. They need the still small voice of the Lord that says, “This is the way; walk in it,” (Isaiah 30:21) to come and solve the broken connection. They need access to Him and His voice every day. And they need guides who will help them learn how to do it.
Why do young people need to hear and obey His voice?
They are reconnected to the way they were made to live. Dead from separation from God (sin), all people need the Gospel in order to be alive. This deadness is experienced in countless forms: anxiety, fear, hopelessness (the list goes on). Believing in Jesus, takes their dead heart and gives them a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:36), which enables them into a process of learning to live from a place of life, guided by His voice. This is the hope of following Jesus.
His voice is the guide, director, and helper. The God who made all that there is and purposed all that there is wants to speak to young people. He is their ever-present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1). His voice gives them direction to know how to quiet their own thought lives and the lives of the enemy. His voice gives them vision for what they are made for. His voice will speak direction as they step out into what He is saying to do.
Obedience to His voice gives them access to His power in their lives. Much of what draws young people to Jesus is the hope that things can and will change. When they learn to hear and obey what God is saying to them, they are drawn closer and closer to Him. And life close to Him gives them a front-row seat to His power unleashed in their lives, their families, their neighborhoods, their schools, and their cities.
How can you help young people learn to hear and obey God’s voice?
Teach them to listen with their heart and not their mind. “God is a Spirit; and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) While God can speak in many, many ways, we most often hear Him through our hearts, which He has made alive again. Their thought lives are a mix of the enemy’s voice, their own thoughts, and the voices of others, therefore, their minds are often clouded. God’s voice comes as a clear, still, uplifting voice into a deeper place: their hearts.
Give them a Bible and have them read it. The best way to know what voice they are hearing is to learn what God sounds like. The Bible is a training manual for God’s voice— it’s all His words. The more they read it, the more young people will learn the kinds of things He says (and doesn’t say), and they will become familiar with Him. It will then be easier and easier to discern if what they are hearing is Him or someone else, and it will be simpler to reject the voice of the enemy or their thought lives to take hold of what God is saying.
Get them a journal to write everything down. In the caked up realities of their hearts and minds, God often speaks more than young people can recognize and the other voices make it more confusing than they realize. Give the young person a journal to write down everything that sticks out to them— every recurring thought, every line from a movie that impacts them, every comment that hits their heart — and go through it together. As a mentor, you will start to see patterns, ideas that line up with the Bible, and lies written side by side. And you can help the young person see what is God speaking, what are their own ideas, and what are lies of the enemy that have made their way in.
The more a young person hears and obeys God’s voice, the more the caked-up junk that they grabbed for in moments of desperation gets hit off and removed. The Lord fixes the broken connection, and they can breathe again. He then helps them complete the mission for their lives, and makes a way for them to live full of hope, peace, and joy.
Looking for more? There is a tool our team wrote to help young people learn to hear and obey God’s voice. You can also use it to guide your conversations as you help young people. You can purchase the Forgotten Pieces book here.