Throughout my life across nine cities and three countries, I’ve very rarely experienced God speaking as a booming decree or a celestial GPS dictating exact coordinates. Instead, I’ve learned that God’s voice comes through listening, silence, and the daily sacred ordinary.

Early on, I learned from my mom that prayer is not a monologue of requests and desires, but a posture of attentive listening to the Spirit’s gentle nudge and the still, small voice. When paralyzed by decisions early in my career, that voice came through her liberating wisdom: "In God’s economy of grace, there is not a wrong choice". I found freedom and solace in the notion that, if I walk with integrity and seek love, I’ll find the right path for myself. That clarity is what eventually led me to the Bay Area in the early 2000’s. 

Yes, God has most often spoken to me through silence. When uprooted as a child to have our family move to post-Soviet Russia in the early 90’s, then feeling like an invisible ghost during the reverse culture shock at thirteen returning to America, this silence felt agonizing as I entered teen years. But I see now that silence was not at all absence; it was God actively forging an internal compass in me, teaching me that Jesus was also a wanderer of no fixed address. 

Reading in Scripture about Jesus seeking “portable sanctuaries” (up in the hills, on a walk alone to pray, and as a nomad) showed me the voice of Truth and Spirit is anywhere, everywhere, and happens at any volume.

Ultimately—at least for me—God speaks not loudly as a distant parent, but as a quiet, traveling companion who walks with me, reminding me that they are actually the road itself.