Spiritual Sally loved going to her Bible-believing church—she was the one that everyone called when they needed someone to pray for them. Why do some people seem to develop spiritual insights while others or even whole churches full of people seem to remain in the dark? What do these enlightened, “spiritual Sallys” have that the others do not? Read More
Many of us have a heart for spiritually lost family members, coworkers, friends and others and spend time in daily prayer pleading with God to reach their stony hearts with the Gospel. Like those that share this concern I pray each day for a large group of people including many with whom I used to work in one of my previous careers. Of the people on this long list five particular people stand out, let's call them the "five guys." One day as I was pouring out my heart to God about this long list of people and I came to an interesting understanding of how I could be praying for them but especially my five guys.
This site is dedicated to tell the story of the gigantic changes that came rushing into my life after faithfully attending the Roman Catholic Church from birth to adulthood over 35 years. I implore you to read about what happened and how God worked in such amazing ways to bring about this turn of events.
What about you. Do you consider yourself a good person? Do you go to mass every Sunday and holy day? Maybe it's what you have always done. Very likely it's what your parents did. And your grandparents. Perhaps you got married there. Had your babies baptized there. Maybe you were even an altar boy, like I was? And maybe you are struggling to live up to the high standards for how you feel you need to behave in order to make it to heaven?
Jesus said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). He set a pretty high standard, perfection. Jesus was perfect, but are we able to obey his command and achieve perfection ourselves? If we can't be perfect, then how good do we have to be to make it to heaven? What if we missed mass a few times this year because we just didn't feel like going that Sunday, are we condemned?
Sit. Kneel. Stand. I knew the routine by heart. I didn't even need a missal any more, I could recite all the prayers without even looking. Often during mass my mind wandered, and frequently I planned what I was going to do during the rest of the day. Looking back I remember going to the local news stand with my parents to buy the paper after mass. Many times I would save up my allowance money so that I could buy some candy or pop after church, and a pop only cost a quarter back then! After mass my mom or dad would make a huge breakfast which I enjoyed very much.
As I got older, life began to get much more complicated. I started a job with Ford Motor Company as a design engineer in Dearborn, Michigan. Even though I continued attending mass, I began to lose interest in it. To reduce boredom during mass I started reading a small Gideon's Bible that some whacko handed me on a sidewalk while I was going to school at Western Michigan University. Later on I changed jobs. My friend Dan came up to me one day and asked me, "Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" I did not know what to tell him, I just wanted him to go away. I'm not sure what I said but it was something like, "I think I do." He knew that I was a devout Roman Catholic but unlike other Protestants he was not judgmental of me. Instead, he was kind and treated me as his equal, as his friend. This was quite different than many of the Bible thumpers that I had encountered in the past. Dan's question to me way back in 1996 started me thinking. Please read what happened next.