In some ways, my own journey of coming to faith in Jesus Christ is fairly irrelevant to the next person, but at the same time I think the articulation of it might at least make a non-believer seek some of their own answers.
As I discussed in my about page, I lived my first three decades as someone who would scoff at the idea of God. For me, religion was always a man made institution that was a big waste of time for any rational person. If I reflect on the question of whether that belief system served me well, I'd have to say that from an earthly (ie non-spiritual) perspective it probably did. To explain who I was pre-faith, I am probably best to give a quick summation of my upbringing.
I was a fairly troubled teenager after my parents divorced in primary school and my outlet was to generally rebel against society. Fortunately I never got into substance abuse, focusing instead on painting trains, vandalising property and getting into fist fights. This mindset probably played a role in my total rejection of the Jesuit Catholic doctrine that I was taught in high school.
I got my act together pretty much in my final year of school, finished in the top few percent of the state then studied commerce and finance at one of the best academic institutions in the country. During that time I became somewhat obsessed with acquiring wealth - Rich Dad, Poor Dad was my favourite book and my laptop background was an Aston Martin that I knew I would someday own. I started dating the girl who would later become my wife in second year of uni and saved ferociously to get into the property market as soon as I could.
I had my first mini epiphany a year or so into full time work, when I decided I needed to live a little and spent 6 months backpacking the world on my own. I finished the trip with a 10 day meditation retreat at a Buddhist temple in India, where I was so enamoured with the concept of annica (the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence) that I got it tattooed on my arm. By no means did I live as a Buddhist beyond that (I liked the philosophy overall but disagreed with a few core tenets), but this part of my life did indeed set me up to live with a much more holistic mindset.
Fast forward a decade or so and by all earthly measures, I was flying. At the start of 2020 I had just turned 31 - I owned a business and two properties, had been married three years (with an epic wedding at a 5 star Croatian hotel) and we were expecting our first child. To top it off, this wasn't a story of someone who worked 80 hour weeks and burned out - I was the master of shortcuts and never worked all that hard, found plenty of time for holidays and just about every extracurricular activity you can imagine. All this being said, I still had the feeling of something missing and was always chasing something more.
The big shift towards finding out what that more was happened with the combination of covid and the birth of my daughter at the start of 2020. I am well and truly beyond arguing what covid and the jab is or isn't, but the long story short is that I sensed we were being lied to and decided against getting the vaccine. As someone that was living an otherwise very 'establishment' type of life, this caused a significant fork in the road and shattered my previous way of living. The idols I'd once looked up to (people like George Soros and Bill Gates) suddenly became wicked villains. The restaurants and sporting venues I'd once enjoy frequenting now banned me from even entering. The corporate world I once aspired to conquering now appeared as nothing more than a big corrupt and meaningless web. I saw the world for what it really was.
With my existing worldview shattered, I not only struggled to find purpose, but became bitter, angry and consumed by negativity. The position I'd arrived at was that the whole world was controlled by very evil people, most of our existence was a lie but it was a matter of time before everyone woke up to this fact and all I could do was help drive this 'awakening'. I went deep down all the gnosticism rabbit holes that we see in the narratives of 1984, The Matrix and V For Vendetta etc. We were stuck in a prison and our way out was to awaken our own consciousness.
The weekly protests and sense of community that came from being part of the rebellion gave me some purpose, but I quickly realised I needed a new philosophy to guide me. The tipping point was a night where I had my first ever panic attack and lay in bed wide awake fearful for how I was going to live in this evil world. As someone that had never once suffered from any mental health issues and prided myself on my extreme resilience, this anxiety attack scared the life out of me. I now see it as the nudge I needed from God, but at the time I thought it was a sliding door moment that could have very easily had me ending up in a mental institution.
At this stage I'd explored all the rebellion movements that spoke about some inside group working to tear down the cabal, but was given some great advice from an American ex-military guy I'd connected with online who told me that there was no heroes coming to save us and it was up to us to find a way to live happily despite the external forces we faced.
He recommended a book on stoicism that got me back to the annica way of living and pretty quickly I was a stoic. Simultaneously I got interested in the role the ‘Church' could play in reestablishing traditional moral values in our society, particularly as a result of content I was seeing from Archbishop Carlo Vigano. It was the first time ever that I become interested in what a priest was saying and my feeling at the time was that if all the world was evil, then the best way for me to fight it would be to side with whoever the ‘good' guys were. One of the first Bible verses that really grabbed me was Ephesians 6:12 - we fight not against flesh and blood..
The problem of finding a Church that wasn't as corrupt as the rest of society was quickly resolved when an otherwise totally random person told me about how he attends the Latin Mass at a traditional Catholic Church. I emailed the priest at the main Latin Mass service near me and his response was the aha moment I'd been waiting for. Not only had most of the congregation not taken the vaccine, but they had continued doing incognito services all through the lockdown and were all well and truly aware of the evil globalist agenda that we were up against. I'd finally found my tribe.
Right there and then my feeling was that I'd found the remnant of the old Church that helped create the high point of western civilisation - all I had to do was find a way to go along with the whole God and Jesus part of it.
I told the priest about my lack of faith and he gave me some books to read on the apologetics of Catholicism. Despite 8 years of a Catholic education and a drunk on pride position of believing that I knew everything, I'd never once considered the apologetics of Christianity. I had no idea that people had put forward arguments using logic and reason that God and Jesus Christ existed. I actually came to accept the reality of God fairly early into the process. The reasoning was simple - an agnostic is someone that chooses to not have a belief on the primal question of our existence and an atheist believes that the perfect order of all living things was established not only by randomness, but with ‘nothing creating everything'. It made no sense and I realised that the acceptance of an intelligent designer was not only a very moderate theological position, but also the most logical explanation for our existence.
I remained skeptical on the truth of Jesus Christ, but now believed in the existence of a God and thought that the Catholic Church, through evidence of their dominion, had the strongest claim on who that God was. It was enough to make me go all in on the Latin Mass and I went to every service for 6 months straight.
A few interesting things happened initially. There were a few sinful vices that I was addicted to that I gave up literally overnight and haven't touched since without the slightest withdrawal. I also received a phone call on my business line from a man who had called the wrong number but upon hearing my name was Luke, explained to me that I had a wonderful Biblical name and that his life had changed since he found Jesus Christ 20 years ago in his 50’s and urged me to seek Him out too. I'd never once had a similar conversation despite sharing a name with the Gospel writer.
Still at this point my belief was that God was going to defeat evil here on earth and this was the overwhelming message preached by the Latin Mass. I would go through the ritual of confession regularly, but in no way was my mind focused on the idea of needing to defeat the evil in my own heart, it was all about defeating the evil in our world. During my time in the Church I was a sponge and thirsty for information that would bring me closer to the ultimate truth - I'd meet with the priest regularly and ask him all the difficult questions and fly through various book recommendations. I was still seeking the answers from within Catholicism.
My favourite part of the service was the Gospel and accompanying sermon, which is where I'd hear the Word directly and started to learn more and more about Jesus. I probably hadn’t yet accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour in my heart of hearts at this point, but I was increasingly fascinated by what I was learning about Him. This man Jesus Christ, whoever He really was, was delivering line after line that hit me to my core. I started to wonder why I was never being recommended to read the Scriptures - it was always some recommendation about some early Church father preaching about morality with references rather than centrality to Jesus. Why should I read about Emperor Constantine when I can read about Jesus?
Water finds it level, cream rises to the top and truth always reveals itself eventually if you seek it. I remember sitting in Mass one week and as we sung the Nicene Creed, I felt uneasy at that fact that I was chanting words about what I believed in without having absolute conviction in them. Immediately I ceased attending the service and decided that I would read the entire Holy Bible from beginning to end to establish a position on God, Jesus Christ and the Church.
Three months later I'd read the Holy Bible from cover to cover and established a position that I will lay down my life for. Nothing explains the physical, social and spiritual realm in as pure and perfect way as the Bible. With almost one million words of text written over a period of 4,000 years across 66 books, I now have no doubt I'm my mind that this is of divine origin. Having read it in its entirety, I accepted Jesus Christ as the Redeemer that was promised to us throughout the entire Old Testament and became truly born again. A lost sheep who was now found, thanks entirely to God’s grace despite rejecting Him for 30+ years.
There is a chasm between how the Bible instructs us to follow Jesus and the doctrine of the Catholic Church. I now see it as one of many denominations that's been established by mere men to use the name of Christ and deceive many (Matthew 24:5). Unfortunately, so many of us have allowed ourselves to be deceived by the teachings of men on who Jesus Christ really is rather than simply picking up a Bible and reading his testimonies firsthand. I have my opinions on why this is so, but will save it for some future posts.
As someone who has lived their entire life with an itchiness to find truth and meaning, it's been quite incredible to experience the sense of calm that comes with having found it. It's the feeling of finally arriving at a destination you've been seeking your whole life and knowing deep down in your heart that there are no what ifs, no contradictions, no missing elements. Or as our Lord Jesus Christ explained so eloquently in Matthew 13:45-46 - “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
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Well articulated Luke! Your story of salvation and mine have a common core: If you genuinely seek to know the truth, knock on Truth's door, and He will open to you, no matter how many times you leave the room!
My faith in God continues to grow together with the Church family on the Sunshine Coast. The fellowship is about God not religion. We pray, worship & give thanks & praise to his omnipresent power & glory. 🙏