One of my teen friends is struggling, trying to determine if God exists…
He asked me for my testimony. I gave it to him, and decided to share it here as well…  This was my response to Tyler:

You asked for my testimony. Well, put on your seat belt. Here it is.

I got baptized when I was 17, the same day I graduated from high school. I wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, but I didn’t want to go out into the world without being a Christian.
For the next 30 or so years, I went to various churches. During that time, I had lots of questions about the bible that church leaders could never answer. Even worse, they didn’t seem to care that they couldn’t answer the questions. They often said, “Maybe we’ll understand these things once we get to heaven.” Or I’d get this one, “We don’t always understand God, but we’ll give Him the benefit of the doubt.” I’m sorry, but even though there were things I didn’t understand, I thought it was ridiculous that church leaders, the experts, decided we have to give God the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think God needs that from us…

I had lots of years with unanswered questions. When I read scripture, there were things that didn’t make any sense. I would stop, read it again, think about it, and try to fit what scripture was saying into what I had been taught. Usually, I couldn’t make it fit, and I’d give up and move on…  I wasn’t willing to give up my faith over unanswered questions, though.

Throughout those years, I remember people talking about loving Jesus or loving God. I wanted to love God, except I had no idea what that meant. I was grateful for the blessings in my life. I was grateful for my salvation. But who was God? How do I love an abstract idea that I don’t fully understand?
Instead of giving up, I just did my best. I went to church. I taught Sunday School. I went to men’s bible studies. I served on the church board. I did lots of things. I tried to be helpful. I gave money to church. I donated money to charities. I met some really wonderful people along the way. There are some amazing people in the church. A few crummy people, too, but that is not the norm.
But through all of it, I still wondered how to love a divine being that I didn’t know or understand. Sometimes, I would wonder, what if none of it is true? What if God doesn’t really exist? I didn’t like that possibility, so I just did my best to believe and continue on…

It took an absolute and complete crisis for me to get on the path to figuring things out. At 2am on February 1, 2014, I got a call from the police. They told me my oldest son was in the hospital. I didn’t understand. Our whole family had watched a movie on a Friday night, then we all went to bed. My son was safe in his bedroom…

Except he wasn’t.

He had met a girl at school, and she became his first girlfriend. She talked him into sneaking out of the house at night, after we went to bed. She knew a 20 year old wanna-be drug dealer, and he gave them some Molly/MDMA. Josh ended up brain dead, in a medically induced coma, on life support.
When I got to the hospital, the paramedic who treated him and transported him to the hospital talked to me. He told me Josh was blue from head to toe, and had not been breathing for approximately 20 minutes by the time he arrived. Josh’s body temperature was swinging wildly between 89F and 109F. Josh was a bloody mess from having violent seizures. His lungs were full of blood and vomit that he aspirated during the seizures. The paramedic intubated and treated him anyway. They got him to the hospital, and machines stabilized his body. This man had tears running down his face as he told me he’d pray for me. He didn’t say he would pray for Josh. He said he would pray for me, because he knew I had lost my son.
A formal cat scan showed that Josh was brain dead.
At about 3am, homicide detectives showed up and declared his fifteen year old body a crime scene.

Up to this point in my life, I didn’t understand God. I had spent thirty years praying to a divine being that I was pretty sure existed, but not positive of it. My prayers were a hopeful request, sprinkled with a bit of doubt.
But for the first time in my life, I was in a situation where I needed God to be real. I needed God to exist, and I needed Him to give me a miracle.
I got on my knees, and I learned about absolute and complete submission. I was nothing and He was everything. I was dirt of the earth, and He was, is, and always will be the Creator and Caretaker of all that there is.

      I learned to pray that night.

I learned to pray with faith, and with expectation. I learned to pray with complete awe and belief that God was sovereign over everything, including the very laws of physics and life and death. I believed that God was capable of anything and everything. I closed my eyes and I imagined God inside of Josh’s head and body, repairing the damage. I visualized it and I believed it was happening.
I didn’t pray with hope. I prayed with belief and expectation, that what I needed was happening. I didn’t pray for God to consider my request. I prayed with thanks that He had already granted my request. But I prayed that His will be done, not mine, no matter what that meant.

At about 12pm, the neuro physician in ICU explained that she would stop the coma inducing sedatives. She prepared us to not expect anything. This was a process they followed… Lift Josh from the medically induced coma, check for signs of brain activity, go back under a coma, try again in twelve hours…
After several attempts, we would need to prepare ourselves to make a decision…
She and the nurse stopped the coma inducing medicine, and told us it would take 30-45 minutes for the medication to wear off enough to check for signs of neurological activity (they expected none).
Within about 15 minutes, Josh opened his eyes and tried to sit up. He still had tubes in his throat, a machine breathing for him, and he wanted to pull them out. The ICU MD and nurse were SHOCKED!! They scrambled to check vitals, and then removed the breathing tubes. Josh was conscious and awake, and they could not believe it.
They asked him a few questions, and he got the answers right!! His mind was intact.
The neuro physician said he was a miracle. She said he was not alive and well due to any medical treatment, but only because of a miracle that she could not explain.
Once they realized Josh was stable, they disconnected all the life support and left us alone. As soon as we were by ourselves, Josh grabbed me by the shirt, pulled me close, and exclaimed, “Dad, I know God exists now!!” He had been struggling with his faith, and had decided that he could not follow God.
Josh remembers dying. He remembers seeing his body lying in the hospital bed. He remembers leaving… He doesn’t know where he went, but he met a spiritual entity. The only words he could think of to describe this entity was a beautiful, constantly moving and changing, blue and green fractal… The most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He said he had a lengthy conversation with this entity (he has never disclosed the content of that conversation, even now). He said the spiritual entity told him they had to repair the damage to his brain and body. This being held his head for a few minutes, then told him it was time to go back. Josh felt himself receding from that place, like exiting a maze. After leaving this place, he saw the entrance seal up and close. And then he opened his eyes and woke up in the hospital…
[I don’t have an explanation for his story ~ I’m just sharing it, as he described it]

They kept Josh overnight for observation, and discharged him the next morning. I asked the ICU doctor what follow-up was required and when he could return to school. She said he could go back to school the next day, and that no follow-up was required. She said he was unresponsive, in a coma, with no brain activity one minute, and in perfect health the next. She could not find a single thing wrong with him.

I don’t know why God chose to spare Josh, but I am eternally grateful. As bad as this experience was for me and my family, I cherish it. Because this happened, I learned that God is real, and I learned that I am nothing, and I learned how to pray.

I don’t think God exists. I know that God exists.

I ran across this passage in the book of James:
James 1:5-8
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

No way. Can it really be that simple?
If I pray and believe, God will give me His understanding?
Yes.
It is that easy. But it requires belief and faith, and no doubting.
In the last several years, I have studied scripture and I have prayed as James told us to pray.
And God has revealed His understanding to me.
Thirty years of questions and doubts were cleared up in a very short time.
But, the understanding I have been given does not match mainstream doctrine.
But I don’t care.
Truth is more important than fitting in with the majority.

The words of Jesus:

Matthew 7:13-14
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

When learning and understanding His truth, instead of false teaching, I have found that scripture is fascinating!!! It is exhilarating. The truth turns the world upside down.

1 Corinthians 3:18-19
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

If you want to know God for real, forget what you think you know. Start praying for His understanding, the way James says to pray, and God will reveal much to you. But do not doubt, as we are warned.

Let go of religion and churchianity. Start getting to know the real God (YHVH, yod hay vav hay in Hebrew) and the real Jesus (Yeshua in transliterated Hebrew).
I make great efforts to tell others the truth I have learned. Most reject it, because it is not what they have been taught by the church. But my truth comes from God and His word, not from a college operated by men. Check out Matthew 23 if you want to see what Yeshua (Jesus) thought of educated religious leaders of His time.

I will answer any and all questions you have, if you are interested.