Learning to Put My Faith in God

I grew up knowing about God. It took me much longer to begin building my own relationship with Him.

For years, I struggled to reconcile what I had been taught with what I saw around me. I had questions about church, about people, and about the choices I was making myself. Some of those questions stayed with me well into adulthood.

I’m sharing this because someone else may recognize a little of their own life in mine. Maybe you believe in God but struggle with church. Maybe you have regrets, or you’re still trying to understand where faith fits into your life.

I don’t have a perfect life to share. But I can tell you how I got to where I am today, and why I’m thankful God didn’t give up on me.

Trying to Make Sense of Things

I’m the oldest of four boys. Growing up, my brothers and I went to church with Mom and Dad every Sunday. Mom was often reading her Bible or playing worship music, and we prayed before meals to thank God for the food on our table.

There was love in our home. We laughed, played, and had things to be thankful for. There were struggles, too. Mom and Dad’s marriage had problems they tried to keep from us, but kids notice more than we sometimes think. Lying in bed and hearing arguments in another room stays with you.

We all love our parents. Looking back, I understand that they were dealing with difficulties of their own. As a child, though, I didn’t know how to make sense of everything.

By my teenage years, I was forming my own opinions. Between home, school, friends, and church, I heard plenty of different ideas about how people should live.

I’ve always looked at things like a puzzle. If a piece doesn’t fit, I have a hard time leaving it alone. I ask questions and keep looking until something makes sense.

And there were things I couldn’t get to fit.

What I Heard and What I Saw

At church, I was taught to love people and live a certain way. But I also heard gossip and saw people doing things that went against what they taught.

There were good people there, and I don’t want to overlook them. But as a young man, the contradictions caught my attention and shaped how I thought about church.

I remember a friend who had been raised atheist. He had long hair and hadn’t grown up going to church, but he and his family had treated me well. One Sunday, he accepted an invitation to come with us.

Afterward, I heard that I needed to stay away from him because he was a bad influence.

That was hard for me to understand. This was my friend. He had been there for me. How was I supposed to reconcile the warnings about him with some of the behavior I saw from people inside the church?

My friends weren’t living godly lives, and neither was I. I started smoking cigarettes at thirteen and experimented with drinking. Going to church on Sundays didn’t mean I was living what I heard there.

At the time, I told myself I would rather be honest about who I was than tell people to live one way and do the opposite.

Looking back, I can see that I was also using other people’s failures to justify keeping my distance. But back then, it felt like a reason I could stand on.

Thinking I Was Grown

When I was around seventeen or eighteen, my girlfriend became pregnant. It was a tubal pregnancy, and she needed a medical procedure. Her mother was also recovering from surgery around that time, so they both needed someone with them.

I felt responsible for being there for my girlfriend. We had gotten into the situation together, and I wasn’t going to leave her to deal with it alone.

Mom didn’t approve of me spending the night at her house. I understand her concern better now, but at the time, I had made up my mind.

We exchanged words. I packed some clothes in a bag and left.

Just like that, I thought I was grown.

My girlfriend and I stayed with her parents until we married at nineteen. About two years into the marriage, we had a child. Roughly a year later, we divorced.

I still loved her, and I didn’t know how to handle losing that marriage.

My driver’s license had been revoked, and I was working for her stepdad and granddad. After the divorce, working with her family was more than I felt able to manage. I eventually quit, moved in with my grandmother, and started working at a grocery store.

Life looked very different from what I had imagined when I walked out of my parents’ house.

Afraid of Being Hurt Again

After the divorce, I became close to another woman. We never really called ourselves a couple, but we did just about everything together.

We had feelings for each other. Apparently, it was obvious enough that her parents took me aside one day for the marriage talk!

That brought back feelings I hadn’t dealt with from my divorce. I remembered loving someone and then losing the life we had together. I got scared and backed away.

Around that time, another woman showed interest in me, and I began spending time with her. I’m ashamed to say that I used that relationship to take my mind off the woman I cared about.

She knew I still had feelings for someone else. That didn’t make my choice fair to her.

The woman I had backed away from even came to the house and asked me to leave with her. I wouldn’t go. Staying where I didn’t feel so deeply seemed safer. I thought that if things went wrong, it wouldn’t hurt as much.

That is a difficult part of my life to look back on. I wish I had faced my fear instead of letting it decide for me.

After about three years, I married the woman I was with. She had wanted us to marry, and I agreed, even though I hadn’t entered the relationship for the right reasons. About three years later, that marriage ended, too.

Through all of this, I still believed God existed. But I wanted very little to do with church.

I wasn’t regularly reading the Bible or praying. I mostly talked to God when I was really low and needed help. Living the way He wanted didn’t line up with the way I wanted to live.

The Life I Built

I spent about nine years single after that.

I was a mechanic, and I loved vehicles—especially four-wheel-drive trucks. I went off-roading often. Around 2006, I learned to ride motorcycles, and as I got older, my interests began to change.

I fell in love with long-distance riding. From North Carolina, I rode to Texas, Florida, the mountains, and the beach. I enjoyed being out on the road, and motorcycles became an important part of my life.

Then, in 2013, I met another woman.

Neither of us had been looking for a relationship, but we grew close and she moved in. I fell in love with her and her children.

I wanted a life with them. But she didn’t develop the same feelings for me, and in 2015 she left.

In the Doorway

I drove home from work that day and opened the front door to an empty house.

I tried to walk inside. As I stepped into the doorway, my legs gave out, and I fell to my knees.

I had never cried like that before. Even now, I remember how swollen my eyes felt and how badly I was hurting.

I cried out to God.

“Please help me. I give.”

In that moment, I asked Him to take me home. I felt like I didn’t belong in this world. I didn’t know how to deal with what I was feeling.

I asked Him to fix me.

I can still remember being on my knees in that doorway. The changes that followed took years, but that is where this part of my journey began.

Trying to Start Again

One of the first things I worked on was my finances.

I had spent years buying what I wanted without properly taking care of my bills or myself. I knew I needed to become responsible enough to support myself.

Over about three years, my credit improved. My bills were paid on time. I had a little money in the bank.

I was praying more and trying to read the Bible, although I struggled to understand it and didn’t spend much time in it. I still wasn’t living the way I believed I should.

Something continued to feel unsettled.

As I prayed, I began to think God might be leading me to get away. I moved to Florida and worked in a shop for almost a year.

Moving taught me something: my feelings of unfulfillment followed me.

Eventually, I returned home when I had the opportunity to live in my grandmother’s house, which was now empty. It felt like a chance to start again somewhere familiar.

But I didn’t want to return to my old workplace. After fifteen years there, I felt hurt and disrespected. I needed another direction.

An Unexpected Place to Begin

About a month after I returned, my brother put in a word for me at a local flooring store that needed help.

I didn’t want to work there at first. Being a mechanic was what I knew. But I needed a job, so I accepted a position in the warehouse.

It was a small store, and I was the only employee who didn’t attend church. The owner and one of the employees attended the same church as my mom and brother.

Sometimes I felt like the odd one out. But they never treated me that way.

They invited me to church. I said no. They kept including me.

My employer sometimes prayed with me and regularly talked with me about God. I listened because I felt invited into those conversations. I didn’t feel condemned.

I still had questions, but I was willing to talk.

Coming Back with a Different Mindset

After several years at the store, I met the woman who is now my wife.

During our conversations, she mentioned that she would like to ride a motorcycle someday. One afternoon, while I was out riding, I thought of her and called to ask whether she wanted to go.

We rode out to get something to eat, talked, and eventually began dating.

Her passion for Christ caught my attention. Combined with the years of conversations at work, it made me curious enough to attend church with her.

I had visited that church a few times before, but this time my mindset was different.

I still questioned people. I examined the worship and sermons, looking for signs that it was a production or a business rather than a place teaching the Bible.

My wife normally sat near the front, but she sat toward the back with me so I would feel comfortable. Of course, then I worried that everyone knew why she had moved to the back!

Some Sundays, I found myself tearing up without knowing how to explain it. I tried to wipe the tears away before she noticed. I came to recognize those moments as the Holy Spirit working in me.

I still saw imperfect people. I still heard things that troubled me. But this time, I stayed and listened.

And I began wanting to understand what I was hearing.

Opening the Bible for Myself

Years earlier, I had strongly defended something I believed was true, only to discover I was wrong. That embarrassed me and taught me to be more careful about repeating what other people said.

I brought that same questioning mind to church.

How could I know whether the pastor was teaching the Bible accurately if I hadn’t read it myself?

So I started reading.

It wasn’t easy to understand at first. I began learning about the Bible itself and the different books within it. As I read, the connections I found across writings from different times strengthened my conviction that I could trust Scripture.

I wanted to understand it for myself.

Gradually, I stopped making other people’s behavior the foundation of my faith. I began looking to the Bible to understand God and how I should live.

What Began to Change

I stopped drinking completely.

My language changed, too. I hadn’t made a deliberate effort to stop cursing so much. One day, I simply noticed that I wasn’t speaking that way anymore.

I began helping more at church.

I also saw people serving others quietly, without drawing attention to themselves. Through ministries connected with our church, I’ve personally seen where donations go and watched the lives of the people doing the work.

One group helps families in struggling communities along the East Coast at Christmas and responds to areas affected by disasters.

Seeing families cry with happiness and hug the people helping them touches my heart. They receive help whether they attend church or have the same doubts I once had.

Those experiences have helped me notice the good that I might once have overlooked.

Where I Am Today

I’m still a quiet person. I don’t often go to the altar or put myself in front of people. My wife worships with her hands raised at the altar, while my expression of worship is usually quieter.

We’re different, and I love God deeply.

I continue to experience the Holy Spirit’s presence. I’m still learning, still asking questions, and still making mistakes. There are things in my past I regret and things I need to keep working on.

But I’m thankful God guided me here.

For years, I let what I saw in people stand between me and knowing Him. Today, I read, pray, and try to live by what Scripture teaches me.

My story is still being written. This is where I am today.