How Can I Tell if God is Speaking to Me?
Mar 19, 2026Summary
In this episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, we dive into the process of verifying the Spirit, exploring how to distinguish divine promptings from your own imagination. Our guest, Tiffany Fletcher, shares expert advice on using the "Goodness Filter," breaking down how to apply the fruits of the Spirit to your daily thoughts. Whether you're a Christian woman looking to solve the pain of prompting paralysis or simply curious about how can I tell if God is speaking to me, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways.
Host Tamara K. Anderson also uncovers surprising insights about asking for clarification, discussing how she awkwardly followed a persistent prompting to help a college student with ADHD accommodations. If you’ve ever wondered about how can I tell if God is speaking to me and how it impacts your ability to serve others, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Plus, we share practical steps for testing the whispers—making it easier than ever to apply these lessons in your own life, just like Tiffany did with a miraculous late-night apple pie delivery. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on how can I tell if God is speaking to me, and don’t forget to subscribe for more expert insights on recognizing revelation!
Episode Takeaways
- The Goodness Filter: How do you know if a thought is from God or your own head? Use the Fruit of the Spirit test. If the thought leads you to do good for yourself or humankind, it is from God.
- Prompting Paralysis: It is completely normal to feel awkward or scared when God asks you to do something outside your comfort zone. Tamara had to ask God "Are you sure?" five times before making a stressful phone call that ultimately helped several college students.
- The Gideon Principle: It is okay to ask God for clarification! Just as Gideon asked God to prove His direction using a fleece of wool, you can faithfully ask the Lord to confirm a scary prompting so you can move forward with confidence.
- God is in the Details: Tiffany's "God's Pie" story proves that the Lord knows exactly what we need. Following a frustrating detour led her to deliver a nut-free apple pie to a weeping mother on Thanksgiving Eve.
Resources
Are you ready to cure your prompting paralysis and build your spiritual confidence? Download our FREE Roadmap to Revelation: 6 Steps to Hearing God in Your Daily Life, which includes an exclusive Receiving Light and Revelation Audio Meditation. 👉 Download the Bundle Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/pl/2148756546
Reflection Questions
- Think of a recent thought you had to help someone. Did you pass it through the "Goodness Filter"? Did you act on it, or did you brush it off as your own idea?
- Have you ever experienced "prompting paralysis" because what God asked you to do felt too awkward or uncomfortable?
- Read the story of Gideon in Judges 6. In what area of your life do you currently need to ask God for faithful clarification or a "fleece"?
- How does knowing that God is in the details (like a nut-free pie) change how you view the random detours in your day?
Host & Guest
Tamara K. Anderson @tamarakanderson
Tiffany Fletcher @tiffnyfletcher
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.400 - 00:01:37.180
Have you ever had a thought flash through your mind and immediately wondered, am I making this up or is it actually God? Maybe you felt prompted to text someone or show up at their door, but you hesitated because you were afraid of looking crazy or maybe being wrong.
Today we are answering the question, how can I tell if God is speaking to me?
And by the end of today's episode, you will understand the Fruit of the Spirit spirit test and why it's not only okay, but sometimes necessary to ask for clarification from above.
We're going to help you solve the pain of prompting paralysis, which we sometimes feel by sharing stories of awkward phone calls and a miraculous God's pie story that proves he is in the details of your life. Or we're moving from doubting the details to delivering the miracle. Stay tuned. Ordinary women Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God Podcast. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and joining me today is Tiffany Fletcher of our Women warriors of Light Advisory Board.
And today we are diving into the process of verifying the spirit and its whispers. First, let's kick it off by Tiffany Sharing the Goodness Filter for me, it's
Tiffany Fletcher
00:01:37.180 - 00:03:02.950
always about the Fruit of the Spirit. Is the thought that I'm having is the answer that's coming. Does it lead to good?
If it leads to good, we know that anything good comes from God and so it's from the spirit. A lot of times we think, oh, that was just me, I just made it up.
If it is leading to do good for yourself or humankind and it is from our Heavenly Father and you can trust that it is from Him.
If you think, oh, this may not be good for this person, maybe it's not the right thing to do, or maybe you need to go back to Heavenly Father and ask for clarification and ask him, okay, well, I feel like this is what it is. Can you please help clarify what it is that you want me to do?
I think sometimes, at least in the way that I receive answers from Heavenly Father, sometimes I feel his voice in speaking, speaking to me. Sometimes it's a thought and sometimes those thoughts, I'm interpreting them wrong or not quite.
Like it needs to be tweaked a little bit because I'm understanding one part of it, but I'm putting my own spin on it so I don't understand it fully. And so I think sometimes going back to him and clarifying, okay, this is what I felt you wanted me to Do. How now do you want me to do it? Is.
Is a really helpful thing for me in determining how he wants me to move forward. But it always comes back to those fruits of the Spirit. Is it good? Is it kind? Is it showing love? Will someone know that I'm a disciple of Christ?
If I follow through with this, if
Tamara K. Anderson
00:03:02.950 - 00:05:45.530
it leads to good, it's from God. And it's that simple, my friends. But even when we know it's good, sometimes it's incredibly awkward.
I recently had a wrestle with a prompting where I asked God, what? Are you sure? At least five times.
I had received this prompting twice during the week to reach out to someone who is a close friend of my daughter and she's in college.
And God was like, you need to call and tell him that he can get accommodations in a university setting for adhd because he was struggling in some of his classes.
And I had this impression several times, and it was Tamara who was the one going, oh, that's kind of awkward for me to just, like, call him up and be like, hey, you know, I'm like, I feel so uncomfortable doing this. And so my conversation back and forth with God was, are you sure? Yep, I'm sure. Okay, well, when should I do that? You know?
And I was hesitating so much and so dragging my feet. So sometimes you ask again and again, are you sure? And I asked him probably five times. I'm really nervous to do this. God. I. I'm super uncomfortable.
This is so awkward for me. I know. You're sure? I'm sure. So it's okay to ask again because sometimes we're uncomfortable doing something or acting those promptings.
And it is so scary.
Like, I remember by the time I was done with the conversation and it went just fine, and he was so cute and gracious about it all, but I was, like, sweating, like, total stress response. And can I tell you a beautiful end to the story simply because I did this?
My daughter recently called me and told me that because I was able to help this one friend, she mentioned it to another, which cascaded and rippled out to several kids being able to get accommodations for their ADHD in the university she attends. Isn't that amazing? God knew one drop would make a big difference. Thank goodness he starts us with baby steps, right?
He knows we're sometimes nervous to act on those promptings. Now, Tiffany's going to share a really good point out.
Sometimes when the task is huge, like Gideon faced in the Bible, we need a little more than just a feeling. We need some Clarification.
Tiffany Fletcher
00:05:45.690 - 00:07:49.240
I love how you said, God will verify with us, and it's okay to go back again and again and ask him. So for me, I actually ask, heavenly Father, show me a sign that that is what you want me to do.
And I think for some people, that's scary, because in the Bible, it talks about, well, he who looks for a sign is not a faithful person. But in that aspect, God is talking about someone who is unfaithful and is asking for God to prove himself. Like, he's saying, prove it to me.
You show me. Show me that you're your Christ. And. And yes, we should not be asking for signs asking God to prove himself to us.
There is a different way in the Bible that also people use signs as a clarification model. So if you think about Gideon, if you. It's. It's like saying it's a faithful model, saying, God, I believe, and I understand what you're saying.
I just need clarification, and I need to make sure that I'm moving in the right direction. So we're told that signs can follow the believers. And so in that way, when Gideon had this army, he had to take the army out.
And God's like, I want you to take this army out, and I want you to go face this monstrous army. And he's like, okay, well, God, okay, okay, I will do it.
If tomorrow morning I'm going to put a fleece out on the ground, and if that fleece is wet, there's no dew on the ground around it, then I will know that this is what you want me to do. I will take the army and fight. So he gets up the next morning, and the lamb's fleece is so wet that he, like, wrings it out.
And he gets an entire bowl of water out of the lamp's fleece, and the ground is completely dry around it. And Gideon's like, okay, Lord. And he literally says, please don't be angry with me.
But I still need another sign just to make sure, because this is a huge thing that you're asking me to do, and I need to make sure. So tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up, and when I wake up, I want you to make the dew on the ground around it.
But the lamb's fleece, I want to be completely dry. Then I will know, Lord, that this is what you want me to do. And so he gets up the next morning, and it was exactly how he asked. The sign was there.
And so then he was like, all right, I will now Start moving towards taking those steps.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:07:49.400 - 00:08:06.560
Isn't it great to know that God meets us in our uncertainty? I'm so thankful to know that he knows us perfectly and individually.
Now Tiffany's going to share a story of how she put this very principle into practice. And it all had to do with an apple pie on Thanksgiving eve.
Tiffany Fletcher
00:08:06.720 - 00:10:34.020
One Thanksgiving a couple years ago, my daughter made extra pies for Thanksgiving.
And she's like, mom, I just feel like you need to take these out and give them to people in the neighborhood who need them that you just feel impressed to take them to. And I was like, that's very nice of you. Okay, I will do that. We'll pray about it. And I would go where God wants me to go, basically.
Well, one of these pies, God's like, I want you to go to this lady's house. It was like nine o' clock at night. One she doesn't. She goes to bed early. She just does not like visitors that are unannounced.
The God's like, I need you to take the pie to her. And I was like, God, I can't take the pie to her because I know she's going to be upset with me and I don't want to wake her up.
And I just don't think that that is a good person to give it to. So give me someone else. And so I had another name come into my mind. I said, okay. I said, God, this is a sign.
If I go to that house and that that woman isn't there, I will take, I will go back and I will give it to the other woman. And so I went there, that lady wasn't there. And God was like, I gave you the sign. I need you to take it back to this woman.
And I was like, okay, God, I will take it back to her. So as I went, I saw that the car was running in her driveway. And she was sitting in her car. She wasn't moving. She was just sitting in her car.
I was like, okay, I got my pie in my hand and it was wonderful. Dutch apple pie, like, like beautiful apple pie. But she was in her car crying. And I knocked on her window and I said, are you okay?
And she said, tiffany, I am the worst mother. I am so terrible. My son, he has peanut allergies. He has nut allergies, and we just barely learned about it.
He asked me tonight if there was a pie for him to eat. And I realized I don't have any pies that don't have nuts in them. So he's not going to get pie for Thanksgiving. I didn't think about it.
Pie is his favorite and I feel like a terrible, terrible mother. And I said, can he eat apple pie? And she's like, well, are there any nuts? I said, no, there's no nuts at all. And she said, yeah, he could eat it.
And so I pulled this pie out from behind me and I said, here is an apple pie for you for Thanksgiving. And she just wept. And she's like, tiffany, how did you know? I was like, God told me.
Like, she's like, this shows me that God is in the details and he sees me and he sees all of us. And she's still Even today they talk about how it's God's pie, that God brought them a pie.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:10:34.500 - 00:11:37.780
Whether it's a phone call about ADHD or a late night apple pie, God is speaking to you because he wants to bless someone else through you. Don't be afraid to ask for clarification and don't be afraid to act, even though sometimes it is scary.
If you're still feeling the prompting paralysis. We have a guide to help you build spiritual confidence.
You can download our free Roadmap to Revelation 6 Steps to Hearing God in your Daily Life, along with a bonus Receiving Light and Revelation Meditation Audio completely free on our Women warriors of Light website. The link to get those is in the description below.
So my friends, take those baby steps, believe that God is speaking to you, learn to hear his voice and then go Be the hands of God today, even if it feels a little awkward. And until next time, may you arise. Do it God's way. God Strong.
