As I rediscover my faith, which I am totally in route of learning and understanding, I see it is a slow process. Faith takes time. To truly understand and allow the seeds of curiosity and change to take root is slow. Progress is slow and steady as you absorb knowledge, reflect on its values, and reflect back on the decisions you make in your life.

That’s why it feels odd to me to see such performative Christianity in the world. I can see why so many, including myself, grow weary of even knowing or having curiosity about the faith, or why some eventually leave it altogether.

I’ve noticed how people assume that believing in Christ, or simply claiming to believe in Him, automatically makes someone a good person. Recently there was the death of an evangelical Christian podcast political commentator, and I’ve seen the ways people pedestalized this man just for claiming to be a follower of Christ. Some even described him as a Christian martyr. Can you imagine?

As a Christian Catholic, I have a deep interest in the saints, learning about their lives, why they were called to live extraordinary lives of faith. When I think about this man, honestly, everything I know about him is against my own will. But nonetheless, he came to have great influence over the population.

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I can’t help but feel that we are in dark times of misinformation. People talk about an antichrist coming, and while I agree there will be one, I don’t think it’s necessarily a person. I think it’s the internet because of its power to dominate and run rampant with false information, catering to the eyes and thoughts of the ignorant. If you do not have an intellectual mind and spiritual armor to protect yourself from falsity, you are vulnerable to brainwash. People are searching for meaning and faith, yet don’t want to do the work themselves to see the beauty and wisdom Christ has to offer. Instead, they cling to binge-watching brain rot on the internet, filled with voices of ego, vanity, hatred, and ignorance.

They think faith is about a feeling, something that resonates with their momentary thoughts and ideas. But as I learn more about my faith through my own studies, I see faith without action is like trying to get in shape with thoughts alone while refusing to go to the gym.

Faith is something we have to dedicate time to:

• Time alone in contemplation.
• Sitting in silence and allowing the voice of God to speak.
• Learning not just from the Bible, but from the wisdom of those who lived before us, who showed an exemplary way of faith.
• Learning from the Holy Family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus Himself.
• Asking the Spirit for grace to truly understand.

But if the Holy Spirit is active in our being and we don’t take action, don’t take accountability for the ways we cause our own suffering, then faith itself is useless. Learning to live in the way God loves us, and to be examples of that love with everyone we encounter, is impossible if we are not doing the work ourselves.

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Yet I see so many in this country claim to follow Christ as if that’s a token of being a great person. But God said, many will claim my name but they are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

We don’t ask God to help us in our laziness, in our lack of discipline, in knowing Him intimately. We rely on others to make us feel something. Many say they don’t like the Catholic faith compared to churches that make them feel something. But it gets me thinking: is faith a feeling?

It’s not. Faith is a commitment to goodness.

People follow leaders who claim to be followers of Christ because they make them feel something. They stir emotions, reinforcing ignorance and twisted ways of thinking, stamping it with Jesus’ name. And people say, yes, he has Christ in him. But from my understanding, Jesus didn’t come here to agree with us in our ignorance. He came to relate, yes, but mostly to teach us a new way of living. To wake us up from our sleep. From ignorance. From our choices of division, hatred, greed, envy, and jealousy.

Nowadays everyone thinks they know everything. If you correct someone or try to show truth, they shut you down and say, you don’t know what you’re talking about. We lack humility. We get embarrassed when we don’t know something, and like bulls filled with pride, we stand unmovable to truth. I see how people follow blindly, waiting for their next dose of the “drug” —the feeling they think they need to feel God’s presence.

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But I’m sorry to tell you, when you follow leaders who only validate your existence, you are not following Christ. Even if you shout His name and sing His songs. You are following man. You are following your whims and emotions. You cannot claim to be a follower of Christ while holding thoughts of supremacy in your heart. Why would God ever create a superior person? He already gave us the one superior: Christ Himself.

Why would He make one race, based on skin and location, better than all His children? To think so is sick and delusional.

God’s chosen people are those who humble themselves and say, God, I don’t know anything. I’m overrun by hurt and ignorance. Please teach me truth and show me the way to goodness. And even then, God doesn’t see those who walk in humility as “better” than others. He gives each of us the choice to seek Him internally.

But instead, we’re lazy. We follow liars and bigots who lie to our faces because we’re too lazy to seek God on our own. We want someone to save us. To tell us we matter.

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The spiritual path is not about going to church and yelling, I’m a Christian, look at me! Community is important, yes. But not at the cost of integrity and virtue. We put people on pedestals, make them into gods, exalt them into places they don’t belong. We are human beings, deeply flawed. There is no shame in that.

Yet we hide under a façade of perfection while rotting inside. What Jesus are you praying to when you treat the poor like garbage and exalt your race into a god of its own? You’ve tried to make gods of yourselves.

The spiritual life is a slow race. A daily practice of asking God:

• Show me how to be good.
• Show me how to respond to what life throws at me with grace.
• Show me how to heal the wounds of my past so they don’t run my life today.

It’s seeing how my own ignorance creates conflict in my relationships. It’s asking: Open my mind, God. Help me seek truth, even when I don’t like being wrong.

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Look at how your “gods” live. They seek vain glory in mansions and private planes, with hunger for power and division.

But we are not so different, you and I. The world and the dark one try to convince us we are so different, that we must be afraid of one another. Why? Because we look different? Because of cultural differences? We’re not that different. The world offers chaos and blames others for our misery. But Christ draws us inward. To change ourselves before we try to change others.

You want to change the world? Change yourself.

God always makes a way for the humble and meek. The spiritual path is hard at first. It’s a reckoning with how we create our own suffering. It’s shedding habits and ways of thinking. It’s realizing we can’t do it alone.

Not because a priest, pastor, or church saved us, but because without God, nothing we do has lasting value. Our efforts will always fall short unless we surrender to Him and receive grace. God’s work is private, intimate, unique to each soul. Be good, not so others think you’re good, but to taste peace in your soul.

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God doesn’t ask you to be weak or complacent. He calls you to strength. Internal strength. Knowing you are inherently valuable because you are here, living this human experience. Be wary of those who seek followers for their vanity and ego. Who want blind dummies to fight to the death for them.

That’s why I say: look for God intimately. Through knowledge and study. Through silent time in prayer. Not to prove you’re good, but to actually grow. The world is fickle. One day it loves you, the next day it hates you. People try to force God into politics while not being examples of Christ themselves. But you don’t bring people closer to God by force. You do it through love, compassion, peace, harmony, and truth. Truth won’t always make you feel good. Sometimes it brings grief and anger. But God doesn’t want loyalty based on shouting His name while your spirit is dead inside. We show Him our love through action.

You draw people closer to Christ by your way of living. By inspiring them. By caring for others, even those different from you.

Don’t know how? Ask God: How can I love people more? How can I be more tolerant? Because guess what, you’re annoying as hell too. People have to deal with you, just like you deal with them. No one is perfect.

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Wake up from your sleep. Ask God to help you see truth, not through the eyes of hate and ignorance. Stop trying to change everyone. You won’t. You’ll never change the wicked. But you can inspire those who are also seeking truth.

Don’t make gods out of politicians who spread hate, who go from campus to campus claiming God’s words while being driven by supremacy and power. Men who live by the sword only to die by the very system they upheld. Some will say, “Well, he shouldn’t have died for his political opinion.” Let me make this clear: a political opinion is something like, “How high should we tax people?” or “How should we regulate healthcare?” What this man spewed from the power of his mouth was not political opinion. It was consistent rhetoric of hate, bigotry, violence, and white supremacy. You can look up his own videos and see his hateful speech for yourself.

When you are a leader, or called to great heights, God says you will be judged at a higher degree because of your influence on His sheep. This man wasn’t even a politician yet, only a podcaster with the ambition to move in that direction, and look at what he did with his influence. His legacy is one of hate, division, and ignorance.

Now, do I think something bad should have happened to the man? Absolutely not. I only see him as an example of what a life of living by the sword will get you. And just to state a fact, it was one of his own who did it—not a person of color, not an immigrant, not a trans person, not anyone the governor of Utah prayed for 30 hours about, hoping it would not be “one of his,” as he said himself. Can you imagine praying to our Lord with reasons rooted in racism? That’s not prayer to God at all. Anyway.

Why should they be seen as more deserving of compassion than children dying in Gaza, children dying at school in churches? Than immigrants seeking refuge? Than the poor and homeless who have lost security? God is with the suffering, not with the fakers who use His name while living in mansions surrounded by followers who look just like them .

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So I say again, change yourself. Stop watching garbage that riles you up. Seek peace, love, understanding, and growth.

That’s what you’re here for. To grow. To have the humility to know you don’t know everything. To realize that knowing you know nothing is the start of the great journey.

As always, I hope you leave feeling a little more inspired.

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