Finding a church to join is like a quest. You can just guess which church is true, but that’s pretty dangerous. If you’re going to commit to a religion, you want to be sure it’s the right one. The only way to know for sure which church is the true church is to ask God.

Today, we’re going to learn about a  teenager who did just that. We’ve talked about him before, but we’re talking about him today as an ordinary teenager who wanted some answers. He was fourteen when he started to worry about which church to join. He wasn’t alone in this, though. All around him, people were worrying about which church they ought to join. His area was suddenly filled with ministers and pastors holding revivals and competing for new converts. Everyone was talking about religion, arguing about it, worrying about it. People went from one revival to another, trying to figure out which church they liked best.

Joseph Smith, the teenager in our story, was just like the others. His mother and siblings were all attending these revivals and he went with them. His father didn’t attend, not believing that was the best way to choose a church. He preferred to study quietly at home for now.

Joseph went and his family seemed to be deciding on one particular religion, but Joseph just couldn’t be sure. He thought that religion sounded pretty good, but he felt like it was such an important decision and he didn’t want to make the wrong choice.

The problem was that every minister said he was teaching God’s truth and yet, each minister taught something different. Sometimes it was just little differences, but sometimes they were big differences. Joseph Smith felt that God would have one set of truths, not lots of conflicting ones. After all, the Bible says, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33, King James translation of the Holy Bible.) Conflicting information was confusing.

But how was a person, especially a teenager, supposed to figure out who was right? While he was trying to decide, he started reading the Bible. One day he found a verse that caused him to stop what he was doing and to think about the problem in a whole new way. This verse was in the New Testament and was written by James, whom some people think is Jesus’ half-brother. The verse says:

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed (James 1:5-6.)

This made complete sense to Joseph Smith. People might lie to him or they might be mistaken, but God knew what was true and he wouldn’t lie. Joseph Smith had been raised to trust God, so he felt this was the solution to his problem.

He decided to go into the woods near his home and put this promise to the test. He wanted to be alone and he lived in a typical small home filled with parents and siblings. He also wanted to pray aloud, something he’d never done before. He went into the woods and knelt down and prayed.

Now, if you decide to put this to the test yourself, you probably aren’t going to get the results he did, but this was a special situation because God had plans for Joseph, so His answer had to be bigger than usual. First I’ll tell you what happened to Joseph. Then I’ll tell you what you will probably experience when you give your own prayer.

When Joseph prayed, Satan tried to stop him from continuing. Satan, like God, knew the plan and didn’t want it to happen. Once that ended, a light appeared in the air above Joseph. He saw two personages in the light. One was God and one was Jesus. He knew this only because God pointed to the other personage and said it was His Son, Jesus Christ, and that Joseph must listen to Him.

Jesus explained that Joseph Smith must not join any of the churches then in existence because none of them completely taught the truth. They had pieces of the truth, but none of them had the entire truth or the authority to carry out the complete program.

Why not? After Jesus died, His apostles ran the Church, but they eventually died or were killed. Because most of the people were more anxious to kill Jesus’ leaders than to listen to them, God withdrew His authority from the earth for a time. The small number of Christians remaining were very brave and did their best to keep things going but it’s hard to keep things going in a straight line without a prophet.

Even before the apostles died, various church groups were falling into apostasy. The apostles wrote many letters trying to straighten out false doctrine that developed. When they were gone, there was no one with that authority. And to make it worse, sometimes new issues came up and there was no way to find out what God wanted them to do about those things, so they had to guess. Over time, people didn’t agree on those guesses and they’d break away and start a new Christian church. Eventually there were a lot of churches all teaching different things and none of them held the whole truth because they’d all pieced together doctrine from other religions or what they thought the Bible meant.

God told Joseph to wait, so he did. Eventually, an angel named Moroni was sent to help prepare Joseph to restore the Church to what Jesus had established.

In the meantime, though, Joseph was a teenager trying to decide what church to join. The solution he chose is the same one you can choose, because that promise from James wasn’t just for Joseph. It was also for you.

Next post, I’ll tell you how to pray, in case you don’t yet know how, and what to expect from your prayer, since God and Jesus probably won’t come visit you in person.

Prayer: How

I’m pretty sure you’d choose the instructions so you’d be more likely to win the game. After all, the world is a huge place and there are all kinds of things to learn and do. How could you ever manage to guess which ones were necessary for the game, especially if there was a time limit?

Life is pretty much like that game show. You can wander aimlessly through your life, hoping you do and learn the right things, or you can follow instructions. Of course, there is a catch to following the instructions. You have to know where to get the right instructions.

Suppose, in our imaginary game show, you were told there were five hundred people with instructions and only one set was completely accurate. One person knew the exact instructions and the others only knew some of the instructions. Who would you ask? You’d ask the person who knew the complete instructions.

Can you guess where you need to go in the game of life to find the right instructions? There are a lot of people anxious to tell you what to do. Your friends will gladly tell you. So will television, movies, books, and music. Your school has some ideas on how you should live your life. Your parents have ideas. Complete strangers want you to do things their way, even. How are you ever supposed to find the one person who has all the answers?

You might have already guessed that God is the only source of complete truth. Others can tell you what they think or believe or even know, but you can’t be sure, by yourself, if they are right. No matter how much they love you or how sincere they are, spiritual truths can only be learned at a personal level. No one else can give you a testimony. The Holy Ghost is the only way for you to find out what God wants you to know. You have to find out for yourself.

God sent you here on a journey. Mormon beliefs teach that we lived with God before we were born and learned all about God’s plan for us. We even chose to accept it. We don’t remember that now because God wants us to have faith, and if we started out already knowing, we wouldn’t have to search for truth or have enough faith to accept it.

There are an awful lot of churches out there and they’re all going to tell you they have the truth. Most of them aren’t lying—they really think they do. So how are you going to figure it all out for yourself?

If you already believe in God, Jesus, and the Bible, you have a head start. Open up your Bible and start reading. Pay attention to the things God and Jesus taught and to how they ran the Church in Biblical times. They had prophet and apostles, for instance. When Jesus set up His church, He was the prophet. He was more than just a prophet, of course, but He was also the prophet at that time. There had been other prophets before Him but while He was on His mission on earth, we didn’t need someone to tell us what He said. He could do it Himself.

Now, what happened when Jesus died? His apostles ran the Church and one of them was the prophet, telling the people what Jesus wanted them to know, since Jesus wasn’t there to tell them Himself. Did He say there would never be another prophet? No, He didn’t. In fact, he said God would never reveal anything except through His prophets.

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets (Amos 3:7 in the King James Bible.)

So one thing you’ll want to look for is prophets and apostles. But just having those isn’t enough. There is more to look for. The first step to finding truth is the same as the first steps in writing a term paper. First you figure out what question to ask. On a term paper, it might be, “What are the causes of the Civil War?” After formulating your question, you’d start researching. You’d find there are a lot of different opinions on that subject, so you’d have to evaluate the evidence to help you make your decision. You might also contact some experts.

When you’re trying to complete the treasure hunt for truth that God sent you on, you’ll start with a question, too. Your question will be, “Which church is true?”

Next article, I’ll tell you about another teenager who asked that question and what happened. Then, over the next couple of articles, we’ll talk about how you can win a prize better than the one you imagined for your pretend game show—the prize of eternal life.