Emily Parker spoke with Tania Harris about her new book 'God Conversations', what God's voice sounds like, how you know when it's Him speaking and who God is in the midst of suffering.

Tania Harris

Emily: Tell me about yourself and where you come from.

Tania: I am an Australian and I currently live in Sydney. I have been a pastor in a church. I've been a Bible College lecturer, but now I have a ministry called 'God Conversations' that equips people how to hear God's voice. My life involves travelling around the world, teaching people how to recognise and understand what God's voice sounds like.

Emily: You mention at the start of your book that you dedicate it to someone called Gill. You say that she made you jealous to hear God's voice. Tell us about who Gill is and why were you jealous to hear God's voice.

Tania: I had grown up in church all my life and I'd heard a lot of people tell stories about the reality and tangibility of God. They would talk about God speaking to them and I would also read my Bible and I would see it happening in my Bible and I'd think, "Well, it's never happened to me!"

Then I met my friend Gill and we were both in the university years. She had a different experience of God. She had a very tangible personal relationship with Him. It seemed like she heard from God a lot more often than I ever did. So I was like, "How come you've got the hotline to God and I've never heard from Him?" Just watching her life and listening to her stories it made realise I was missing out on something. It made me jealous and hungry. I thought, "I want to be the person that hears from God as well." So that's what started me on the journey and that is what the book is very much about.

I think it's gonna really help people who find themselves in that position that I did, asking that question, "What does God sound like and how do I know if it's Him speaking?" They were always my big questions. I was always scared of getting it wrong.

Emily: What was life like for you at the time, when you decided to begin to have a conversation with God?

Tania: I was asking lots of questions. I'd just finished university and my degree and it's that time of life when the future isn't clear anymore. Up until that point there had been this pre-established pathway. You'd go to school, you'd go to uni, finish a degree, and then what? I just remember having this whole thing of, "If I have a faith, what would that faith look like, what difference does it make in my life, and how do I make decisions? Or what does that mean for my future?"

At the same time, I guess I'm a bit of a skeptic naturally, a bit of a thinker, and I really wanted to know whether God was real or not. So I had a lot of questions. I'd never seen some reality, if I can say that. I'd believed what my parents had taught me. I'd gone to church, and I'd done the right thing, but I wanted to know, if this God is who He says He is, then I want to be able to see that. It was that crossroads time in my faith, trying to test out, "Is this something I want to believe for myself?"

Emily: How did God respond to those questions?

Tania: There was no bolt of lightning straight away, but over the process of time He did begin to speak to me and I went on that journey and began to see that in a very tangible way. He began to speak to me about my life and I began to get to know Him on a very personal level. I liken it to the Queen of England; you can know a lot about her, you can study her life, and you can read about it in magazines, but if you haven't actually sat down and had a cup of tea with her Majesty, you're not going to know her personally. I felt like I knew all about God, but I wanted to see Him relating to me personally.

He began speaking to me about my life and my future. And how do I know it's God? Well, sometimes when He says things you would never think of. I remember when He called me into ministry. I came from a very conservative background, and in my background women weren't ministers, and so it was another whole thing to deal with. But God was very kind, and led me, and spoke to me and showed me things that He knew that I didn't, and I learned a lot about myself and at the same time who He was. It changed my life.

Emily: Is there a way that God speaks to you? Does it always take the same shape each time?

Tania: Not always. One of the things I learned was that, as a person of faith, when I choose to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes into my life, and the Holy Spirit is a spiritual presence, a spiritual being. When He speaks He often uses a spiritual voice.

One of the most surprising things I discovered at the start, is that I expected this loud booming voice external to myself, and then I realised that it was much more like a quiet voice, a whisper, or a spiritual voice. It came within. The question was, "How do I know it's not my voice?" That process is described in the book, because one of the challenges that we have is people wanting to know what God sounds like.