There was a time in my younger days when I was sure God never spoke to me. I knew that I did have experience in finding His leading through the Bible and that Scripture would jump out at me right when I needed an answer from Him, but outside of Scripture, I just didn’t feel I was capable of ‘hearing’ Him. Then one day I was doing an exercise in a course I was taking and it required me to think back on times when the Holy Spirit spoke to me to give me answers I needed. I just was blank for a while saying I can’t think of any. As I prayed, the Lord reminded me of a few times that I will describe below, but at those times I just didn’t see them as Him speaking to me. I guess I was expecting to hear this trumpet blowing or something… haha. Even 1 Kings 19:12 describes this very well: “and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice”. I will mention only two right now for the sake of keeping it short.
When I moved to another island for College, it was the first time for me to live so far from my family. I would call my mom often. One day when we were on the phone she told me that she wasn’t feeling good and her hands were very cold. After we hung up I started panicking. I literally could feel all kinds of fear welling up inside of me, wondering what would I do if my mom was actually going to die. I started pacing the room, feeling all kinds of upset in my stomach, praying asking God to touch my mom… it was a horrible feeling knowing I was far away and could do nothing for her. I felt helpless and very afraid. Suddenly, in a very unusual way on the inside of my being I sensed very clearly this sentence “Your mom is doing fine”. I didn’t really connect the dots that this is how the Holy Spirit speaks, but all fear and worry vanished like smoke. I went on with my routine and didn’t give it another thought when just minutes before I was on the verge of tears. Only years later when doing this exercise I realized that this was indeed that Still Small Voice, the way the Holy Spirit speaks.
Another one of those stories is while I was living at the same apartment while in College. One day our apartment got broken into again like other times before. Except this time they broke into my bedroom too. It was a very scary experience for a 19 year old girl to get home by herself and find the apartment broken into again, walk upstairs and find her door wide open with her belongings thrown around, closet open, etc. I first went to my jewelry box and when I saw that my gold jewelry was still there I wrongly assumed nothing had been taken, then I called the police. I told them that I haven’t missed anything but reported the break in. No sooner I had hung up and sat on my bed, items started rolling into my mind. “Your boots”! I ran to the closet, they were gone. “Your passport”. I opened my drawer, gone! “Your expensive shirt”, opened the closet, gone! “Your new pair of jeans”, I went to look, sure enough, gone too! And the list continued one by one until there were like 8-10 items on it and then I sensed nothing more. How awesome that the Lord told me each thing! He was right there in my room and watched what they had taken. And told on the thieve(s)! Note that nothing that came to my mind was still there in my room, each item was missing. Although at the time I knew it was God, it never occurred to me that this is how the Lord speaks. I still thought I would have to hear this deep scary voice coming from heaven.
Thank God by His mercy He taught me to listen to His inner voice, I recognize it and know it is His Rhema. And so does He speak to you, you just have to listen. Please feel free to share your first memories of a time when the Lord clearly spoke to you and gave you direction or even what to tell someone else.
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”.
Isaiah 30:21 “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,“This is the way, walk in it,”Whenever you turn to the right handOr whenever you turn to the left”.
Experiencing The Lover Of My Soul 
When the Lord first spoke to me was in a prayer meeting and I was watching a woman being prayed over. I heard the word, witchcraft, being spoken inside of me. It was as if someone had a megaphone inside of my that’s how loud it was. Sure enough, the person being prayed over had a spirit of witchcraft which was called out by the person praying for her.
Wow! I love it! And funny the first time these happen, in this case Word Of Knowledge, we don’t even understand the gifts until we are taught about them and we go “oooooooh, that’s what I experienced!”