Carlos From Partying to Preaching, Part 1

Carlos was born in Brooklyn, New York, but at age 10 he moved with his family to Puerto Rico, making him fluent in both English and Spanish. He grew up in a hardworking, loving, middle-class family who raised him up in the Catholic Church, yet even though he went through the sacraments, he never felt connected with these beliefs.

When Carlos was taught that if he turned from God he would be punished in hell for all eternity, he rejected God. “That’s not fair,” he thought to himself. “If God is just and I choose not to follow His way, then He should just take away what He originally gave to me—life.” As soon as he wasn’t required to attend church, he quit going and never looked back. “I didn’t want anything to do with God.”

Carlos enjoyed his high school years, where he played in sports and was popular. But when he entered university, things took a turn for the worst. “I partied and drank some before college, but when I started working in the restaurant business, I was exposed to a whole new environment.” Carlos says, “I began partying every day of the week.” He used alcohol and drugs on a heavy basis. “I partied like there was no tomorrow. I was doing all the wrong things in all the wrong places.”

But his life was empty. “I thought I was having a great time, but I was looking for a purpose in life that I couldn’t grasp,” he shares. Carlos got depressed, which only pushed him deeper into drugs and alcohol. He finally hit rock bottom, even contemplating suicide.

During this time, Carlos was taking a psychology course that studied the human brain. “I was blown away by the powerful way our mind works,” he shares, “and it led me to believe there must be some type of Supreme Being out there.” But how would he discover this Creator? He definitely wasn’t going to start with Christianity. “I believed the Christian’s God must be sadistic to torture those who disobeyed Him.” So he turned to non-Christian religions in search of truth.

Reflect: Was there ever a time in your life when you felt that God was not fair? The Lord is patient and will reveal His love for us if we open our hearts to Him.

Key Bible Texts

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. (Luke 15:13 KJV)