4 Ways to Hear God's Voice: The Theater of Your Mind

You have already been hearing God’s voice more than you realize. Even if you already thought you were hearing God, I promise you can hear Him even more! The process of learning to hear God’s voice is simple. Learning to recognize when you hear Him teaches you how to put meaning—or words—to something already in you.

Which came first, an object, or the object’s name? It’s not a trick question. The object came first. When Adam named the animals, he looked at something that existed and found language to communicate its existence.

Hearing God works the same way. He gives us meaning in our spirits. That meaning can come in a millisecond, and yet it can be full of what feels like hours or days’ worth of content. That’s because of a couple of things. The first and most important reason for this is that God’s Spirit is eternal, and the depth of His communication to our spirit is unfathomable: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand…” (Psalm 139:17-18 NKJV).

The other main reason that a second of revelation from God seems to take minutes or hours to understand and or explain has to do with the way our minds work. Our conscious minds process 4,000 actions per second. You read that right—per second! And our nonconscious minds process 4,000,000 actions per second. This is the unfathomable, complex way God designed our minds.

So when God drops one second of revelation from His Spirit to our spirit, it’s no surprise that it can be translated into sentences, paragraphs, and even books’ worth of words. When combining the supernatural with the natural brilliance of our minds, it’s possible that one second of revelation could equal anywhere from 4,000 to 4,000,000 words. Of course, 4,000,000 would be a bit of an exaggeration, but you can see that the math is at least 4,000 times the content per second of revelation.

In order to translate Spirit revelation into words, we first need to know how we’re processing the revelation through our minds. We receive the revelation by our spirit. We do not receive it in our minds. We do not need to understand the revelation. We do not need to have prior knowledge about the revelation. Revelation comes from God’s Spirit to our spirit regardless of our minds.

But there’s a caveat. We need our minds to make sense of, meditate on, communicate, and apply the revelation.

Let’s add this disclaimer before we continue. Whatever revelation you receive must be biblical. If you see and hear anything that goes against the Bible, reject it. In social media terms—unfriend it, delete it, block it, unfollow, report it. Don’t connect with it at all. God never contradicts Himself.

The Theater of the Mind

Did you ever notice how sometimes reading the book is better than watching the movie? Or did you ever want to create something artistic, that you could see so clearly in your head, but by the time you draw it or construct it, it was not much better than sticks or stick figures?

What happens in our minds can be much richer than what happens in the natural world because of something called “the theater of the mind.” The theater of the mind is the culmination of colors, shapes, sensations, smells, sounds, movement, multitasking, and backstory that exists in our minds. Our parents called it our “imagination.”

The phrase “theater of the mind” comes from radio jargon. When people used to listen to stories on the radio, the “actors” found ways to verbally create a theater for listeners to enjoy in their minds. This is not to be confused with the contemporary New Age discussion of self-hypnosis that has recently highjacked this phrase.

The theater of the mind explains why when you have a dream, you can say that you “somehow knew” where you were or to whom you were talking, even though it was never directly identified in the dream. The theater of the mind contains indirect information that adds richness to the experience.

When God speaks to our spirit, we can experience much of that revelation in the theater of our minds.

1) Sight

Sight is the first aspect of the theater of the mind. This is our “mind’s eye.” In your mind’s eye, you can see the red solo cup sitting to your right, with a sweat ring around the base and half full of ice-cold water. How did you see it, when all you are looking at it is a white page with black words printed on it? You saw it in your mind’s eye.

Let’s call this your mind’s eye rather than your imagination so that you get comfortable thinking of images you see in your mind as valid. Unfortunately, because we have called it our imagination for so long, many people who are seeing things of the spirit are clearly seeing from God—but they think they’re just imagining.

Let’s understand this to be any visual in your mind’s eye, anything you can “see” other than with your natural eyes. This could even include seeing a word, just like if I asked you right now to see the name of the street you live on.

Scripture examples of seeing include the following:

And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha (2 Kings 6:17 NKJV).

And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits” (Zechariah 5:2 NKJV).

Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” And he said, “Here I am” (Genesis 46:2 NKJV).

Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands (Revelation 1:12).

2) Sound

Sound is another element of the theater of the mind. Do you ever have a discussion in your head? This is the sound in the theater of your mind. When you have a discussion in your head, the entire thing may be in your own voice. Or occasionally, you might think something that your parents used to say, and you might think it in the sound of your mother’s voice.

Sound also includes tone, inflection, intensity, and pitch, which is how you might be able to tell whether something said was sarcastic or supportive, harsh or gentle. “You will always be mine” could sound endearing, romantic, apologetic, or like a stalker, all depending on how it’s said.

Scripture examples of hearing:

Now the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10 NKJV).

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8 NKJV).

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8 NKJV).

Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? (Deuteronomy 4:33 NKJV).

3) Sensing

Sensing has to do with how something feels in the theater of your mind. Sensing may be informed by the other elements, such as sound and sight, but it can also stand apart from them.

You might have an interaction with an old friend in public somewhere. During the interaction, you might get the sense that your friend is in a hurry, or that he or she doesn’t want to go too in depth in their discussion with you. You could get that sensing from their body language or how brief their answers to your questions are, but you could also get that sensing without any other input.

Sensings are sometimes called a “gut feeling.” These aren’t necessarily emotions but rather feelings or sensings that give us information. A sensing is where you might identify, for example, whether a purple cloud-like presence in your dream was positive rather than negative. You may not have any other point of reference for that weird, dreamworld image, but your gut feeling about it gave you the sense that it was good.

We often get a “sense” about situations and people in the real world. Sensings in the theater of the mind work the same way.

Scripture examples of sensing or feeling:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1 NKJV).

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27 NIV).

Verse Concepts

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25 NKJV).

Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness (Mark 1:12 NKJV).

4) Knowing

Knowing is an interesting aspect of the theater of the mind. Knowing includes backstory that is never explained. Just like in the dream mentioned earlier—when you knew where you were or to whom you were talking, without it being mentioned in the dream—knowing is information you have without any direct source.

When you “know” in the theater of your mind, you often can’t explain why you know. This kind of knowing is hard to defend. It’s similar to a sensing, except that it usually doesn’t even have an emotion or inclination to support it. All you have is the thing you know that you know, even though you don’t know how you know it.

Scripture examples of knowing:

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words (1 Corinthians 2:13 NIV).

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come (John 16:13 NIV).

And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick (Matthew 14:14 NKJV).

I like to avoid the early morning flight when we go on ministry trips, but occasionally we book them out of necessity. One time we had the early flight out, but by the time we boarded the plane, our airline app notified us that the flight was delayed thirty minutes. Instantly, I just knew it was delayed much longer than that.

We waited thirty minutes, and then the flight attendant announced it was delayed another thirty minutes. Again I had an instant feeling that it would be delayed much longer. I told Jermaine, and we decided to get off the plane. We booked the next flight, which was at noon! We were not going to make our first speaking engagement that night if we took the noon flight, but somehow, I knew it was best.

We left the airport and went to breakfast. When we returned to the airport at 11:00, we saw our original plane, with all the passengers still on board. That flight didn’t take off until 11:45, with announcements every thirty minutes that it was delayed another thirty minutes. If we hadn’t had the “knowing” that this flight wasn’t going anywhere, we would have waited on the tarmac, without air conditioning, for more than four hours.

It’s such a little thing, but to me, it meant a lot to be liberated to have a lovely breakfast with Jermaine rather than a sweaty wait in an airplane seat. There was no evidence for the knowing, no emotion with it, and certainly no logic, but I’ve had enough of those knowings to learn to recognize they’re more than just a random thought. That is what will develop in you too when by reason of use you train your senses to know what God is speaking to you.

A Quick Test

Let’s start by figuring out some of the easiest ways you identify what God is saying to you. You could identify what God is saying in any or all of the ways cited: sight, sound, sense, or knowing. But at least one of these ways is probably easier to you than the others.

We all think in the theater of our minds, but we all think most comfortably in at least one of these ways. This is where we get the idea of learning styles: auditory learning versus visual versus kinetic, and so on. This is how you process information.

So we’re going to take a simple test to determine at least one way that you comfortably process information. Remember, God wants to speak to you in a way that you will understand. He’s not trying to overcomplicate it, so we won’t either. Let’s assume that God wants to speak to you in the easiest way for you to process the information.

Are you ready for the test? I’m going to put the test at the end of this paragraph, and I don’t want you to read on until you’ve finished the test. Take enough time to pause and answer the question before accidentally reading on. Here is the question: What is your name?

Did you answer the question?

Great, you answered the question! I don’t need to know your name—though you can email me and I’d love to chat about how this went for you! I asked your name so that you can think the answer.

Now let’s examine how you thought the answer. Choose the one that is most true. Did you:

____ See your name in your mind’s eye, as if it was written down on something?

____ Hear your name being said, such as in your voice when you introduce yourself, or your mom’s voice calling your name?

____ Get a strong feeling about who you are, maybe your qualities or a sense of pride?

____ Immediately know your name, without any clue where the knowing came from?

Each answer represents sight, sound, sensing, and knowing, respectively. You may have had more than one of these as a reaction to the question, “What is your name.” If you had more than one, that’s okay and is quite common. If you don’t know which one was your reaction, it was probably the last one—knowing.

Now you have a real-time example of how the theater of your mind processes information. You already know your name, but you had to think your name in reaction to the question. Similarly, when you receive revelation by the Spirit of God, you have it in your spirit, but you will have to think about the revelation using your mind to convey it effectively to other people, or even to continue to meditate on it yourself.

Jermaine Francis, Rebecca Francis