My spiritual jouney: Descent to despair

The downward spiral began as the world unfolded in my pre-teen years. I wanted to know about God. God was the name I finally had for the rainbow river. The image of the multi-colored water was always in the front of my mind whenever we would go to church. I enjoyed the music and the stories in Sunday School. I thought I would find out more about the voice I had heard long ago, a voice that comforted me beyond anything I could understand.
But there was a dissonance that soon showed itself.
I felt the tug of church and religion, but when I went there, all I heard about was rules. Don't drink alcohol. Don't smoke. Don't cuss. The list went on, even things I had no idea what they were. Well I was a kid. I had never drank or smoked, but I had cussed some. I knew what that was. I tried not to cuss so God wouldn't be mad at me, and it was a long time before I would indulge in alcohol or tobacco.
There was a lot of talk of hell and burning forever. I didn't want that so I went forward and said the prayer, but nothing happened. Nothing changed.
It was all just so confusing. If you go forward in church and say a prayer you will be saved from hell. But then if you sin again, God will be mad at you and you will go to hell. So you had to go back down in front and get saved again.
The thing that bothered me most though, was that there was no emphasis on God. No talk about how to know God, how to learn about God. It was just rules.
Then to add to my confusion, after church, the men would gather and smoke on the front steps while the women did whatever it was they did before getting to the car to go home.
I still looked for the voice, but couldn't hear it. Even the mountains started to not look as glorious as they had looked before.
The rainbow river even began to fade from my consciousness.
Fear and despair became a cloud that pursued me. Fear of what I had no idea.
Even in the darkness though, a small light shined. Someday I would know what God was really like, or what the reality was. I knew the rules, but somehow I also just had a feeling this was not the real thing. God would make sense right?

Whose approval do you seek?

The Word
John 5:44 How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?
The Meaning
In this passage Jesus was having another confrontation with the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day. They saw his miracles, and had heard his claims to be the Son of God, and they wanted some proof, or more convincing.
Earlier in the passage, he said if he praised himself that would not be a valid praise, and he said he did not accept praise from men (verse. 41).
There was John the Baptist who testified as to who Jesus was, there were the works he did - the miracles - and there were the scriptures.
One of the objections that they had against Jesus was that he had not come from them, had not been praised by them, and that he had not been approved by them. Jesus was saying he did not need their praise or approval, needed only God's approval.
The Question:
Whose praise do you seek? Whose approval do you crave? Man's or Gods? How would you seek God's approval?