When you pray and you say God answers you, how do you receive the answers? Do you actually hear Him, or is it more of a feeling? I've heard people say they have heard the answer. I never have heard any kind of voice. Sometimes I just get a feeling but then I'm not sure if that's God answering or just me trying to imagine what the answer is. But most of the time the answer comes from my environment or out of somebody else's mouth. Like He's working through them to communicate with me and I see it.
I've also heard people describe God's voice telling you to do something is like having this fire in your stomach and you have such a sense of urgency that the subject just can't be ignored.
That's a trick question, because there isn't anything set. Usually, I see the answer; though I have heard things that I would swear anyone else could have heard also, if that makes sense. I think how God communicates with each person is individual to them. Some people claim they hear from God all the time. I don't see that in mirrored in Scripture. Jesus is the only one who seemed to be in constant communication with the Father, so much so that in those last moments when He didn't feel Him, He said: "Abba, Father, why have you forsaken Me?" If I did that every time I didn't hear His voice when I wanted to hear it, I'd be saying that more than not (and certainly not just once in my lifetime, like Jesus did).
In my experience with God, when He speaks about a topic, He is usually telling me something different than I would ever consider doing or something I cannot imagine ever thinking of on my own. In some cases, I didn't even know the word, or if I did I didn't know what it meant.
This is a long time after, but as God is bringing it to my memory, when I asked to leave from my x-wife's abuse and attempts to destroy my testimony, I immediately saw "NO" on an otherwise white canvas in my mind. I was asking, because I wanted to leave. So, my answer being the opposite wasn't what I wanted to hear. Nor did He tell me "wait it out. She'll leave." The understanding I received along with that was that I was supposed to keep working on my marriage, as if I was going to be in it for the rest of my life. God wanted me fully invested. And, it really was amazing how many thoughts He would put in my head to do things--like go out of my way to do things--that in the previous 10 years of our marriage--because even before God woke me up, I had to endure a lot of abuse and manipulation. I just stayed in the relationship, because I didn't want to be alone--which was the same reason I got married. And, since she could manipulate me, she had no reason to leave. I things I suddenly would do, I wouldn't have thought to very regularly do and in the face of nastiness, threats and abuse that really ramped up one month into my awakening--when she realized that she couldn't manipulate me any longer. It certainly wasn't my flesh at that point that wanted to be there. I felt safe and loved by the God who woke me up. I didn't need to stay in the abusive relationship for the same reasons I was there prior to God waking me up.
Another example: I was defending Christians who God calls into the military against an alumni of the seminary I was about to enter. God woke me up one night and took me through the Scriptures to reply to Him. I like sleeping at night, so the idea of waking up at 1230 and staying awake isn't normally what I do. A seminary professor who didn't know I wasn't even at the school yet, commented on what an incredible response it was. I replied back and as I was giving God the credit for what He did, God told me "ACTION POTENTIAL". I was like "What is that?" So, I looked it up. But, after I did, I immediately understood what God was telling me and I shared with the professor. Scriptural parallel: Vision given to Peter that he didn't understand; but, then when he went with the three men to Cornelius and the circumstances unfolded, he then understood.
Often I love to take the baton (I was always a make-it-happen kind of guy before God woke me up) and run. Sometimes I wonder if God just crosses His arms while looking down and wondering "Is this kid ever gonna get it?" One example was I was sitting in a paid-for professional job placement after our drug company did a big layoff. As the guy was giving his sales pitch for what he could do for me, I just heard the word and saw the word: "Education". I decided that meant to become a public school teacher. But, while I served a year and a half as a public school teacher, and God blessed the time, I lamented that I couldn't really impact the kids lives, because I had to focus so much on developing the math education for them. Now, I am in education and am where God called me to be, working as a houseparent for neglected or orphaned children. And the peace that I am doing exactly what He called me to do right now is so wonderful.
Some of the instantaneous healings that I've seen since becoming a Christian, I saw happen to former teen gang-members who professed to hate God or not believe in God when they were healed right in front of their eyes--since being here as a houseparent. One in particular was not on my hall at the time, but was very angry. When I asked him if I could pray for him, he said: "I don't believe in that crap." So, he would have had no reason to fake being healed. And, yet, as shown by the astonished look on his face when his knee was again completely normal, he was healed.
Another amazing and instantaneous healing happened when we were on a job interview to potentially leave here (where we are still at). He got his life back and was able to compete again on the national level in the martial arts--something he had lost when he suffered a leg broken in two places that never healed right, so he couldn't put pressure on it. Immediately after the prayer and the pain being gone, he went and started lifting weights. He was full of joy. Two years of unstopping pain and lack of athletic ability suddenly gone! We would have been paid more, they wanted us, we had our letter of resignation in, we wanted to go, and then God made it clear He didn't want us to leave here. So we didn't.
I told everyone here at this children's home that "if they ever sent me to do the emergency cottage, we would leave." So, last December, God told me to propose something that has never been done before. He said that He wanted us to propose becoming the full-time, never-off (but two weeks a year) houseparents on the emergency cottage. That couldn't have come from me, because I made a vow that I wouldn't do it! This past year, He has done so many incredible things through that sacrifice, it has been incredible.
I think most of the time when God speaks, we don't fully understand. Even Paul talked about us "seeing through a glass darkly, but then face-to-face." That is why when someone gets a prophetic picture, I want them to share the picture with me, before they share with me what they think it means. The picture is worth more, because God speaks to me in pictures--even in pictures of words--more often than not and pictures can often have multiple meanings--and they can all be relevant!
Proverbs 25:2: "
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings
is to search out a matter."
Sometimes, he communicates in dreams and visions. Sometimes it is just a nudge or an urge to go somewhere out of your way at a time you wouldn't normally go. There are so many unique ways He communicates. I am sure that I am only scratching the surface. But, most of the time when He is communicating, He is communicating something that my flesh either wouldn't want to do or wouldn't have even thought of.