hearing God's voice

In the last few months I've been part of conversations that have turned to what it sounds like to hear God's voice. It seems that in Christian circles we often use the words "God told me" when talking about why we're making a certain decision. I've used it often myself. But, lately I've been wondering what I actually mean when I say that.

What do I mean when I say that Gold told me to do something different? What do I mean when I say God told me not to do something?

When I say that, I'm saying that I heard God's voice in some way in my life. But, often I couldn't explain it anymore than that. I can't often tell someone how exactly I heard God's voice, but I know I have. It would be easy if hearing God's voice was like hearing someone sitting across the table from you telling you something. But, it's not. Hearing God's voice is something inside. Most often it's something personal. And that can be hard to explain to another person.

What I do know is that to learn to recognize God's voice speaking in our lives we have to take the time to develop a relationship with Him. We have to make it a priority so we can learn to hear God's voice. The same way through spending time with them we learn to recognize the voices of our family and friends, is what we have to do God if we want to learn to hear and recognize God's voice when He speaks.