Question:
Hey Pastor J, I just wanted to ask a question. During my life I've had a rocky path, and I blamed God, I turned away, and stopped believing. I was wondering maybe you could help me find my way again?

Response:
Been there myself ... it's so hard to understand that although everything in life does happen for a reason... it's not always God's reason or His doing. See, that's how it is so easy to fall into that trap of saying "Why God?" "Why me?". Sometimes when we are hurting we fail to realize that God hurts with us and asks the same question!

Jesus himself said that "in this life you will have trouble. (John 16:33)" I have found that there are (3) types of "trouble":

1) Trouble that results from personally making dumb decisions!

2) Trouble that results from someone else making dumb decisions and it unfortunately affects us!

3) Trouble from living in a world that God has not yet fully restored... but WILL when Jesus returns (disease, natural disasters,etc...)

You've taken the most important step and that's realizing that you're just not satisfied with the level of relationship you have with God right now. That means you need to take steps back to Jesus! You've already taken Step #1

Step #2 ~ PRAY! Ask God, in Jesus name, to forgive you for blaming him for stuff that He didn't do! Just be honest with him in prayer.

Step #3 ~ You probably know some guys your age that go to church or a youth group... go with them!!! It's so important to get plugged in and STAY plugged into to a place where you can, without fail, find God and the truth of His word! This is the step that so many fail to take and then feel like they're all alone. The church is the very thing that Jesus intended for us to be a part of... a part of a community who is going through life together!

Here is a story that Jesus told to help us understand about God's love (grace)! The father in the story represents God and His forgivness... the son who leaves the home represents us when we turn away and do our own thing in life!

Luke 15:11-24 "The Story of the Lost Son"

Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country.

There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.

"That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father.

"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'

"But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here-given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.