I am through hard times. Does it mean God is testing orpunishing me or...

I felt like you at one time in my life and I talked to my pastor and he said, God is not punishing you. You're only feeling the results of making a bad choice, and from then on I stopped feeling guilty about every little thing and thinking God was punishing me. That was not it at all. When we sin, we reap what we sow. Meaning, that's how we learn, that's all....by making mistakes and making adjustments throughout our lives. If there were no consequences in how we feel we would never learn and we would repeat the same mistakes. God doesn't go about punishing people. But they will feel the consequences of what they did, so they don't repeat the same mistakes. And I came to learn also, not to run away from problems, that way. Instead of being willing to learn something that God was trying to show me I needed help with, I would run away at all costs to avoid it and that was the wrong attitude. When problems come along they are not meant to hurt us. They are to show us where we need Improvement and help. So now I don't dread them because I know God's trying to show me something that needs changing in my life and is not working for me, that's all. He's not wanting to hurt me. He's only wanting to teach me so that I can have a better life instead of avoiding all the problems and sweeping them under the rug. That never works and when we go against the grain that's when we feel the pain. We have to face the situation we are in whatever comes up and then pray about it and ask God what is the best way to handle it. It's not about punishment. So now I face my problems head on, ever since I've learned that lesson long ago. I can guarantee you, you are not being punished. Now you may be in God's waiting room. That's what I call it. While we're in God's waiting room we can learn many valuable lessons. This is the time we need to pray and just wait on God to answer our prayers and also ask him to tell us where we need Improvement and what to do about it. He will always lead us to the right answer. We need to be patient with God when we ask him something and always seek his will and he will not let us down. I can vouch for that. How will you know you're doing the right thing? I pray about things and then really listen to myself. If what I'm wanting to do would not be going against God but would be fulfilling in my life and not go against my gut feeling, then it always works out. We get that gut feeling for a reason. If it feels like we're going against the grain then don't do it. Don't make moves that will make you feel guilty or like you're doing something wrong. If it's God's will, it will feel good. I always ask myself what would Jesus do and that really helps. But right now you may be in God's waiting room and that's when you just pray and then let it go and let God take care of the rest and things will fall in place when they're meant to, but when you get ahead of God and try to fix things yourself, that's when you'll go two or three steps and think you got it right, but then things start to fall apart again, because you didn't wait and listen to God, so you'll have to go back again and wait until you know God is giving you the okay to move forward. He'll let you know when. Certain doors will begin to open for you and won't have to be forced. Things will flow just right. It's important to keep communication with God open and read our Bibles and pray. Not wait until we need something. That's not a way to love God.