One Man’s Journey to Finding God
Not everyone comes to faith on a straight path. For many people, the road to Jesus is filled with wrong turns, painful detours, and moments of complete desperation. This is the story of one man’s long and winding road to salvation, and the God who never stopped pursuing Him along the way.
What Is the Most Important Question Every Person Must Answer?
It is not where you will work, where you will live, or how much money you will make. The most important question any person will ever face is this: where will you spend eternity?
Every person who has ever lived will spend eternity somewhere. Heaven is real. Hell is real. And God has provided a way for sinners to be saved.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” – John 14:6
Jesus is the only road to salvation. But each of us travels a different path that leads us to Him. Some roads are straight and smooth. Others are filled with detours, wrong turns, and dead ends.
Growing Up Without God
Not everyone grows up in a home where faith is present. Some people spend their early years knowing about God without ever truly knowing Him.
A Father raised as a Jehovah’s Witness who walked away from religion entirely. A grandfather who was, as one man put it, “baptized by the bottle.” A childhood where the Lord’s Prayer was recited before wrestling matches and Scout meetings, but only as words, not as a real conversation with a living God.
Going through the motions is not the same as having a relationship with Jesus.
When Tragedy First Knocks on the Door
Sometimes God uses crisis to get our attention. A Father fell 40 feet from a tree, landed on a chainsaw, broke nine ribs, punctured His lungs, and was not expected to survive the night.
A family sat in a small hospital chapel and prayed for the first time with real purpose. Three days later, the man woke up. Six months after being released, he was back at work. A miracle by any measure.
And yet, even witnessing that miracle was not enough to bring a young man fully to God. Not yet.
The Mistakes That Pile Up When We Run From God
Wrong relationships. Partying. Alcohol used to numb pain. A marriage entered for the wrong reasons. A divorce before a daughter was even born. Visitation rights that allowed only three hours every other Saturday.
The pain of missing a daughter’s first words and first steps led to a depression so severe that it brought a man to the edge of ending his life. By the grace of God, He was stopped. But instead of turning to God, He turned back to alcohol.
Like Jonah, who had to learn his lesson inside the whale, some of us keep returning to the very things that are destroying us.
How God Uses Other People to Reach Us
A second marriage. A daughter named Morgan who became his entire world. A little girl who loved going to church so much that her Father started sitting in the parking lot waiting for her, and eventually decided the family should start attending together.
A first profession of faith was made. But the heart was not fully surrendered. They eventually stopped going.
Then came Kim. A woman who showed grace when it was not deserved. Who stayed through selfishness, through failures, through seasons when she was not prioritized. Who helped lead a stubborn, broken man back toward God.
God uses faithful people to reach the ones who are still wandering.
What Does True Surrender to Christ Look Like?
After moving back to Ohio and finding a church where they truly felt at home, something shifted. For the first time, faith stopped being religion and became a relationship.
It was not just attending services. It was a genuine, personal surrender to Jesus Christ. Baptism followed. And with it, a new identity.
But even after salvation, life does not become easy.
When God Seems Silent in the Hardest Seasons
A grandson born with a heart condition so severe that doctors sent Him home to die. Thirteen children in his hospital unit. He was the only one who survived. He is now 13 years old and has had a heart transplant.
A son who was stillborn. Leaving a hospital with empty arms is one of the most devastating experiences a parent can face. And yet, even in that grief, there was a turning toward God rather than away from Him.
Then came July 3rd, 2017. A 17-year-old daughter named Morgan was killed in a car accident.
What Happens to Faith When We Lose Someone We Love?
Nothing can prepare a parent for that kind of loss. At Morgan’s visitation, the line of people stretched down the street. Kids came to share stories of how she had welcomed the new student, protected the bullied, and written notes of encouragement to those who were struggling.
One note she had written read: “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” Those words are now engraved on the bottom of her headstone.
But grief can turn into anger. Seeing a social media post where a mother thanked God for protecting her son who had been drinking and driving and walked away without a scratch broke something open. The question came hard and fast: why would God protect Him and not my daughter?
Depression set in. Church stopped. Family was pushed away. The enemy convinced a grieving Father to focus on His loss instead of God’s promises.
How God Pursues Us Even When We Push Him Away
A wife who moved out but kept coming back. A cancer diagnosis that brought two people back together. A stubbornness that finally cracked in a hospital room during chemotherapy treatments, where a man prayed for the first time since his daughter died and simply said, “Please don’t take her.”
God used hardship to draw them closer to Him and to each other.
They eventually found a church that felt like home. A community that changed everything. A weekend retreat that became a turning point, where releasing something to God in a moment of communion broke open years of held-back emotion and left a man with a new fire for Jesus.
What Satan’s Greatest Deception Really Is
It is not convincing people that heaven and hell do not exist. His greatest deception is convincing people they have time.
Morgan was planning to go to college. She wanted to become a nurse. She had a boyfriend she loved and dreams of a family. She had plans for dinner that very evening.
She never made it home.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” – James 4:14
Do not tell yourself you will get serious about God later. Do not convince yourself that because you are young, you have plenty of time. Come to Him today.
Your Road Is Not Over Yet
A road to salvation does not end at conversion. It continues every day, through every season, through every loss and every miracle. The destination is the moment when we stand before our Savior and hear the words:
“Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” – Matthew 25:21
Until then, the call is to keep following wherever He leads.
Maybe your road has been rough. Maybe you are carrying guilt, regret, or pain from years of wrong turns. The good news is that God specializes in restoring people who have gotten lost. He never stopped pursuing one broken, stubborn man through decades of wrong choices. He will not stop pursuing you either.
Life Application
This week, take an honest look at where your road is heading. If you have been putting off a deeper commitment to God, waiting for the “right time,” or numbing your pain with something other than His presence, consider this your invitation to stop waiting.
Your challenge this week is to find one person in your life and share a piece of your story with them. It does not have to be polished or perfect. It just has to be honest. You never know whose life your testimony might change.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Am I truly in a relationship with Jesus, or am I just going through the motions?
- Is there pain, anger, or grief that I have been carrying instead of surrendering to God?
- Am I telling myself I have more time before I need to get serious about my faith?
- Who in my life has God placed there to help draw me closer to Him, and am I paying attention?
- What is one thing I need to release to God today?
No road is too broken for God to redeem. No person is too far gone for Him to reach. If He can pursue a man through addiction, divorce, suicide attempts, devastating loss, and years of anger, He can reach anyone. Including you.