Walking away from the Catholic religion was very difficult for me. For 30+ years, I stood by the Catholic Church, tradition, and family. It’s what I grew up with and knew. Anything different was against the grain, and I felt like I was saying the way I was taught was wrong. It was personal, where Jesus was tugging on me to follow him but my pride was resisting. I felt like I was being disloyal to those that raised me and loved me most.

My fondest memories of Catholic mass are smiling at my grandparents as I walked back down the aisle from receiving communion. I can still see their bright smiles, beaming with love right back at me. They were the absolute best, and I wish I had more time with them on this earth. But I digress. It’s important to explain my appreciation for the Church, to later explain the tug on my heart when God called me another directions. There are components to Catholicism that are rooted in my core, truly beautiful memories of my childhood. There is a togetherness, a sense of community to the Catholic Church (I want to touch on this in another post).

As I married and became a father, we started attending a non-denominational church (aka a Bible Church). It was heavy in the New Testament, with an emphasis on Jesus Christ. The music was a band, not an organ. Everyone received communion even if they were younger than the second grade. The coffee was abundant. The genuine joy of the congregation was a vast contrast from the church I grew up in. The pastor spoke emphatically about the saving grace of Jesus Christ, how nothing needed to be added to Him. The messages and preaching was powerful, and certainly tugged on my heart strings. I heard scripture that I was never taught in 13 years of Catholic education. Scripture of mercy, grace, love, and forgiveness.

However, there were times where the pastor would reference a practice from another religion (aka Catholicism) to explain how it was unnecessary. This is where I would get defensive, angry, and resent the new church we began to attend. I’d get so mad, thinking the two churches have so much belief in common, why does the pastor need to focus on the 2% that’s different? Why does he need to offend my family and childhood? Why did the pastor have to say the Catholic Church is wrong? For 4-5 years this bothered me. Arguments ensued with my wife as we would pull into the church parking lot. There was a loyalty component I couldn’t let go of, the pride. So what changed in me?

I spoke about the 2% above (an arbitrary number). But, if that 2% were part of a data set in finance, and it was wrong, then ALL the data is wrong. It throws everything off. If we get the Gospel even a little bit wrong, then it’s ALL wrong. We have to get Jesus 100% right. From my 30+ years of experience in the Catholic Church, I was not correctly taught about the saving grace of Jesus Christ that ultimately leads me to Heaven. Looking back, so much is added to Jesus Christ, that his true value gets lost if not ever even told. For years I worried about my own salvation, not knowing that Jesus already paid my ticket to Heaven. Guilt, anxiety, shame, and embarrassment drowned me, without knowing that the blood of Christ made me white as snow.

Jesus + Nothing = Everything. He is life, there is nothing you need to add to him to find true contentment, peace, and love in this world.