It was in several different ways.
Most of it, before I was a believer, was conviction of sin. I'd feel horrible and rejected.
Some of it, was the voice of silence, I don't really know how to word it. I think this is what is referred in the Bible as "the small still voice". You probably experienced it yourself, most people do they just don't know what it is. Usually it happened when I was in nature and it happened since childhood. I would just have a sense of great peace and feel like one with the mountains and the sky and the trees and sometimes when I played with my toys or drawing as a child or playing with the mud, I'd have a lot of peace and feel like the moment lasts forever.
Some of it was crazy "coincidences". I found about a dozen of lost crosses (jewelry) since I was a very small child (on the street, in the grass, at school, or just about anywhere) before I became a believer. I don't know anyone who had found so many or even close. I believe God arranged it to keep directing my attention to Him.
I had a dream referencing Biblical details back as the unbeliever, when I haven't been exposed to the Bible. (I wrote it down into my diary because it was puzzling as to what it meant - I only learned later when I started reading the Bible as a believer). I testified of this experience in detail later to agnostics, and they admitted, that would've been sufficient for them to be converted if it happened to them. But then I'd tell them, see how God didn't allow me either to know the proof beforehand, He only revealed it after He was unconditionally trusted. We must come to God by faith. I think double slit experiment attests to this scientifically, even. They confirmed in the lab that one as merely an observer, the presence of observing and the act of looking no matter how unbiased one was, affects how the observed particles will behave. I think one looking for God as in trying to observe Him under a microscope, to find empirical proof, will never find God, and that's simply how God arranged the universe.
But when I became a believer, a lot more came (and please forgive me now that I'll hold some back but this forum can get very irreverent and filthy, so that's why).
It's not hard to discern God's voice because it's very different from how our own mind thinks. I regret that there is not more conversation on this topic among us, I googled and asked many questions too until with experience and the Bible and testimonies of some other Christians I came to answers and also guarding myself from counterfeit spiritual experiences. Our own mind chatter isn't God's voice, but while His voice does reach our mind it's coming through the spirit.
His voice comes as spiritual perceptions, for lack of better term. Sometimes it is so strong that you can make the words out, sometimes you will find these words somewhere in the Bible later but not always, but it will be the same Spirit and not contradicting the Bible teaching. When these perceptions are of visual nature people call them visions - this is different than just "imagining things", it's different than "seeing things", it's a spiritual perception and "downloaded" into the spirit - BAM! Some rare people heard God audibly and then it will be as described in the Bible, like thundering or roaring of many waters - God does not change. Sometimes you can't word what God is telling you, but you understand a vastness reaching the depth of your soul ("deep calleth unto deep")... it's as if your mind isn't working when you try to describe it... Sometimes God brings up a verse to your mind and you just find a new depth in it, it's like you ate His Words (like Jeremiah). But one cannot confuse it with your own mind because the thoughts of His mind are so different.
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