Daily Devotional

Todd and Shirley came from a Catholic background. They were both confirmed in the Catholic Church, and Todd had been an altar boy. The couple met through their work, experienced love at first sight, and have been married for fourteen years [as of 2015]. They have five children whom they cherish.

Although Todd and Shirley were brought up in the Catholic Church, they felt a growing discontent with calling the priest “Father” and also with making confession to a priest. “We also found all the idols in the church unsettling,” says Todd. “We just felt something was wrong and slowly stopped going to church.”

When Todd and Shirley moved to Arizona, they became concerned with seeing evil symbols and started researching the Illuminati, the new world order, and the mark of the beast. In order to learn about these symbols, they watched YouTube videos, but as they gathered information, they just felt confused. “We had this uncontrollable feeling of doom,” says Todd. “We felt really lost with no hope, but we didn’t know what to do. I would lock myself in a room and watch videos for hours. I also drank and cursed quite regularly.”

One day while Todd was watching videos, trying to figure out the answers, up popped a link to a Doug Batchelor video on the mark of the beast. “I continued to watch other videos, and then another video of Doug Batchelor popped up. I still did not watch his video until it popped up again!” Todd believes, as he looks back, that God was trying to get his attention.

“I finally watched the video,” says Todd, “and it was jaw-dropping. I knew something good was happening inside me. So I watched another video by Pastor Doug about the pope and the antichrist. Everything I was learning seemed right and logical. Pastor Doug said to check out what he was saying and not to believe just another man but to look up the Scriptures. And I did.”

Reflect: Has God ever tried to get your attention when you were looking in the wrong place for answers? Often the Lord is reaching out to us even though we are not searching for Him.