Some of us have “problem” areas when it comes to hearing God’s voice and really knowing what He said. We may feel comfortable with certain topics, but when we try to hear what God is saying in other areas, it feels like our discernment doesn’t kick in, and we have a much harder time.

Why is discernment sometimes like that, and how can we get better in the areas that give us trouble now?

We can have blind spots

We will have difficulty discerning in any area where we have emotional issues, “pet” theologies or our own opinions. We could have an abundant revelatory gift and an abundant discernment gift and be well practiced in both, but the specific topic God is addressing is one that we have already made a judgment about, and so we don’t apply discernment in that instance.

For example, I like the New York Jets. If I think God told me that the New York Jets are going to win the Super Bowl, I may not be discerning about that. I would likely assume it means what I want it to mean, without seeking God for greater clarity.

In the same way, if I have an opinion about a political party or the president, it will be much harder for me to be discerning in related areas because I have already decided that such-and-such is true.

Again, we will have difficulty discerning in any area where we have opinions, judgments, woundings, unforgiveness, bitterness, etc. Every time we cling to these things, we are essentially saying, “In this area, I am choosing not to be discerning.” In most cases, we could be more discerning if we wanted to be.

What is God doing?

On the other hand, our level of discernment could shift simply because God wants it to in that given moment. He could give us great discernment in a brand new area where we have no practice, or, depending on what He is doing, there could be times when He “covers our ears” and keeps Himself hidden.

Perhaps you are good at giving advice. People share their problems with you, and you faithfully use the discernment God gives you to help them. Usually, you are able to tell the people what they need to hear, but this one specific time, your discernment is completely off. Your advice doesn’t help the person at all, and he or she makes a wrong decision.

Your level of discernment in that instance isn’t necessarily because you’ve done something wrong. God either gives us grace, or He shuts our ears. It is His prerogative to do both. In this sort of situation, all we can do is ask Him why and use our discernment to grow.

Discernment needs to be developed

The revelatory gift and the discernment gift do not always align with one another. We could have a profound revelatory gift and not as much discernment, or we could have a large discernment gift and not as much revelation.

If we have discovered that our discernment is weak in certain areas and we want to improve, we need to do two things: We need to practice receiving revelation in those specific areas, and we need to practice receiving discernment for that revelation.

How do we practice receiving discernment? A very simple way to do this is by taking back to God everything He reveals to us. What does this mean? Is this really from You? What are You saying here? And then we listen for His answers.

Discernment comes by reason of use (Hebrews 5:14). So if we practice receiving from Him, we will improve in our gifts.

We will always have what we need

The people who have an abundance of discernment typically are those who also have the ability to help others grow in discernment. Some people have great revelatory gifts and just enough discernment to be wise in what they’re receiving from God. Other people have substantial gifts in discernment that are greater than their revelatory gifts so that they can help other people. Again, both gifts should be developed, and we do this through practice.

One thing we can know for certain: God will always give us what we need, so in any situation, we can trust that we will have enough discernment to stay out of trouble, so to speak. He will either speak to us directly or through someone we can choose to listen to.

If we practice listening to Him and are consistently open to hearing what He has to say, we can move forward with confidence.

Why is it that God’s voice seems easier to hear on certain days than it does on other days?

One reason could be that relationship with God is cyclical in the sense that He will draw near, and He will draw away. There are days when He just draws away. Most of us go through seasons in which we hear from God a lot and other seasons of “divine silence,” in which it seems like He isn’t speaking. This doesn’t happen because of us — because we’re failing to do something important or because we’re doing something wrong; it is a natural fluctuation of intimacy and separation. Leviticus specifies a similar dynamic between husband and wife that is driven by biological cycle.

If we are having difficulty hearing God’s voice, it could also be an issue of peace. We have a much harder time communicating with God when we are stressed, dealing with fear or if He is speaking to us about topics that are hard for us to believe or accept.

However, if our days and emotions remain basically the same, and one day we’re hearing clearly and the next day we aren’t, it most likely has to do with anointing.

The level of anointing in a person’s life tends to oscillate from one day to the next, from one week to the next. The anointing is what helps our brains recognize that what we are hearing or seeing is important. It stimulates our spiritual senses and makes us want to pay attention to God. We feel His presence, and we get excited. In a way, the anointing provides incentive for listening and spending time with Him.

When the anointing is high and God speaks to us, we are much more likely to recognize, This is God! I need to listen to this. But when the anointing is low, we may not realize anything happened.

His whisper is easy to ignore, and it isn’t inherently going to demand our attention. God says many things in moments of low anointing to see if we’re going to notice Him even when our minds don’t immediately register that something important is happening. On days of low anointing, hearing from God takes more work. He may be saying the same number of things He said the day before, but we will often wonder if He is speaking at all because the whisper can be so hard to discern.

This is why it is good for us to desire to hear Him more than we desire to be anointed, more than we desire to see results and more than we desire to feel comfortable or like we know what we’re doing. If we pay attention to everything we think might be from Him, even if we are uncertain in the moment, it will be much harder for us to miss His voice, no matter our current level of anointing or how quietly He is speaking.

When God speaks to us in our dreams, He often draws our attention to something that gives us greater understanding about something else.

Words are two dimensional, but pictures and metaphors are three dimensional and four dimensional. They can have depth and reveal timing; their stories convey tone and color and presence. They give us the “full picture” of what God is showing us. He doesn’t limit Himself to spoken language alone. He uses everything, which causes us to seek Him for meaning, to know Him and His ways.

There are incredible parallels between meanings in science, creation, Scripture, what God shows you in dreams, the way He made the universe to work, how physics works, how math works, how language works and often how colloquial expressions and idioms work. There are parallels and symmetry in almost everything. He doesn’t need to make something up in order to reveal Himself to us. He doesn’t need to invent a new metaphor that we don’t see anywhere else in creation.

For example, the number two often means multiplication for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it has been programmed into the reproductive cycle. God made male and female mammals to multiply. You start with two and can have an exponential increase.

But biology isn’t the only area in which we see the number two relating to multiplication. The ancient Hebrew character for the number two is bet, which is a picture of a tent. A tent denotes family: something that begins with two individuals and then multiplies. So in the original language of Scripture, the meaning of the number two parallels the biological meaning.

We also see that the number two can mean multiplication when we look at specific chapter and verse references in Scripture. An example of this is Acts 2:2, where the Early Church went from being a small group, just a few people in an upper room, to thousands in one day. It was a noteworthy multiplication, and it happened in chapter two and verse two. That is significant.

Because God is the Creator, we can study His handiwork and get to know Him at a deeper level. We can learn more about Him by examining certain principles we find in nature, in culture, in history, in science. Something may be a formalization of humanity, but God made what humanity formalized.

Obviously, the Bible is our chief source for the meaning of elements. But certain elements get used a lot in Scripture while others do not, and still other elements don’t get used in a clear way that is easy to understand. God didn’t give us a list of what every single item, number or image could mean. So what do we do with the elements He shows us that aren’t clearly used in Scripture? We look for other references that God has allowed to come about. Then, as we see His truths align with all of creation, what is hidden in Scripture becomes more and more obvious.

This journey to understanding what things mean is a journey to know God and His ways and to hear His voice in its fullness and clarity. The more we do this, the more dependent we will find ourselves growing on Him. The closer we draw to Him, the more we will realize that He alone is giving us the understanding we have, and if He doesn’t give it to us, what we have seems completely empty.

Jesus said several times in Scripture that the kingdom of God is at hand. As Christians, we are called to “expand” that kingdom. This often means going into territory where the kingdom isn’t readily visible so that it can be made manifest.

Sometimes, we don’t need to go very far to find a place in need of an intentional manifestation of God’s light. In a recent article, I told a story about some friends of ours who were experiencing interesting spiritual activity at the house they had just purchased. They asked me to “consult” with them about it.

While I was at their house, I sensed there had been some violence committed by previous owners. On top of that, the spirit, or atmosphere, of the neighborhood was pressing in on the house and influencing what was going on within it. My advice to the head of the household was to exert influence outward and to create a history of peace that would override the history of violence.

If the neighbors’ issues are pushing in on the place where we live, we need to push light outward. We need to be brighter in spirit, and we need to be aggressive. Not only is this good for our family, but it is also good for the entire neighborhood, for reasons we will discuss in a moment.

Harmony instead of disharmony

We want to leave God’s thumbprint on everything we touch. So whenever we come across disharmony in our home, it can be a sign that something is amiss.

In addition to affecting emotions and thought processes within the house, disharmony often manifests itself in several ways. We could feel an almost physical vibration in a certain area of the house. We might have an impression of something dark, or we could see pictures of negative activities that occurred there in the past; it is similar to witnessing a crime and feeling like you’re reliving it hours or days later.

Usually, these pictures will be somewhat faint, like echoes, but the more severe the painful activity, the louder the pictures will be, like 1000 small echoes that are more noticeable when combined.

As our discernment increases, much of what we feel will have some sort of texture to it that gives us a sense of the source. We could be picking up on violence, disunity, unbelief, hatred, bigotry, etc. There will also likely be a sense of direction accompanying it: I feel violence coming from the kitchen. I think the previous owner must have beaten someone there. Or, I feel fearful in the house at night. Maybe the previous owner struggled with anxiety.

If there are negative activities happening in the neighborhood, we could feel those pressing in as well. For example, if the couple next door is going through a divorce, we could feel disharmony, discontent or disunity trying to take root in our house.

How do we cleanse the space?

Typically, when people talk about cleansing a house, they mean three things: cleansing, anointing and taking possession.

First, we can cleanse a house by applying the blood of Jesus and asking God to wash it clean; both actions remove anything that isn’t of Him. If issues come up as we do this, we can repent, either for our own activities or those of the previous occupants.

Second, we can anoint the doorposts with oil and consecrate the house for God’s use. This makes it much harder for demonic beings to gain access.

But in the long term, the biggest impact we can have on a space is to take possession of it and be spiritually active within it. This isn’t a more powerful action, but when used in correlation with cleansing and anointing, it is the one that has the greatest effect long term. What really transforms a house is when a Spirit-filled believer takes possession of it, lives there, fully occupies the space and orients it toward the will of God, building a history with Him there.

When we truly possess the space we dwell in, it is filled with God’s presence. Instead of being defensive (“I’m anointing doorposts and windows to keep the enemy out”), we are being aggressive (“I am broadcasting the light of God to my neighborhood”). The house glows like a city on a hill. It becomes salt and light in the world.

Wherever you live, you have the ability to fill that space with the activity of the Holy Spirit. You have authority to ask God to cleanse it from the previous occupants’ behavior and wash away anything evil. You can dedicate it for His use during your time there, according to the authority you have.

More importantly, you have the ability to build a history — one in which that space is used in every way for God. As you make the house, dorm room or apartment your own, the kingdom of God becomes tangible in the neighborhood, city and maybe even nation, because you have taken full possession, and that space is in alignment with God.