The May 2021 issue of GQ has Justin Bieber on its cover and the article focuses primarily on his faith. The mega-pop star had been living a life of despair and emptiness. If you ask Bieber what he would’ve been doing five years ago, should the world have shut down and locked him in his home, he will say that … “things were pretty dark in general.”

He went on to say, “I was surrounded by a lot of people, and we were all kind of just escaping our real life. I think we just weren’t living in reality. I think it would have probably resulted in just a lot of doing drugs and being posted up, to be honest.”

At age 15 Bieber had met and was influenced by Pastor Judah Smith. As Bieber became successful, they kept in touch but only sporadically. But when Bieber finally began to emerge from his bad years and to seek guidance, Smith was still there. And Bieber noticed that, in retrospect, Smith had never asked him for anything. Bieber says, “He put our relationship first.”

And then he started to notice other things, too, like the way Smith’s family seemed to care for one another. Bieber says, “It was something I always dreamed of because my family was broken. My whole life, I had a broken family. And so, I was just attracted to a family that eats dinners together, laughs together, talks together.”

Bieber talks about God, “He is grace. Every time we mess up, He’s picking us back up every single time. That’s how I view it.” Bieber suddenly had a certainty: “If God forgives me and He loves me and He set these things in motion, if He put these desires in my heart, then I’m going to trust Him.”