Does God speak to people audibly or give instructions in such a way that a person might describe them by saying, “God told me to…” or “God said to?

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Question: Does God speak to people audibly or give instructions in such a way that a person might describe them by saying, "God told me to…" or "God said to me…"?

ATP: It nearly always raises a red flag with me when I hear some one say, “God told me…” or “God said to me…”

It isn’t that I don’t believe that God is capable of speaking to us this way or that this doesn't happen. It is just that if this does happen it seems to me that it is rare in the extreme. The Bible warns us repeatedly regarding the deceitfulness of the human mind. We can fool ourselves into thinking that God is speaking to us.

Jeremiah 23:16 says,

Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes; they speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.

In Jeremiah 14:14 God was even stronger saying,

The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.

In the New Testament we find the same warning in Colossians 2:18:

Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind...

A person's mind can run away with them. And when they say, God told me to do such and so, who can argue with "God"?!

But we are told that when people speak we are to weigh what is said. (1 Cor. 14:29) That is, we are to use the written Word of God to measure what has been communicated when some one is claiming to speak from or for the Lord. If what they say doesn’t fit with the Bible their communication is to be rejected.

To be fair, there clearly are times and regularly so, when God is communicating to us, leading us in a specific direction. So how would we communicate that leading of the Lord in a legitimate way and in a way that does not intentionally or unintentionally mislead a listener into thinking that we have heard an audible voice from God, or that God has spoken to us in specific sentences as it seems people want to claim?

When a person feels strongly that the Lord is moving them to do a certain thing, it is much healthier and reasonable for them to say, “I believe the Lord is leading me to...”. Words like "believe" and "leading" leave room for human error, Biblical evaluation and discussion all of which are critical acknowledgments in determining whether God is leading us or our leading is coming merely from our own imaginations.