I never set foot in a church growing up. Religion was something other people did—something I openly mocked. “That wackadoo stuff,” I’d say, rolling my eyes. I knew better. The real truth, I believed, was found at the university. I chased it hard, building a career around the “science of learning.” I even designed a tool called U-Behavior to help students at Colorado State memorize and retain knowledge. Man’s knowledge—that became my religion. Then COVID hit, and everything I’d trusted started to crack. I watched the institutions and experts I had looked up to struggle and fall short in big ways. The confidence I once had in academia and human knowledge took a real hit. It left me deeply disillusioned and searching for something more solid — something that would actually hold up. That’s when I did something I never thought I’d do. I ran to the very people I used to laugh at: the church. Not for spiritual reasons at first. City Lights Church in Greeley was a safe doorway. I showed up expecting to keep my distance. What I found instead were people who didn’t judge me. They didn’t try to impress me or prove they were right. They just admitted they were broken and kept asking God to forgive them—every week, out loud, like it was normal. And they trusted that Jesus’ death on the cross made that forgiveness possible. The worship felt raw and real. And the sermons struck deeply. For the first time in years, I sensed something I’d been searching for in all the wrong places. I’d been searching for it in books, in research papers, in my own ambition. It had been right here - in the person of Jesus, who died and rose again. There wasn’t one lightning-bolt moment. It was slow. I kept showing up. I started reading the Bible out of curiosity. The more I did, the more I softened. I quietly let go of the things I’d clung to: my Buddhist meditation practices, the tiny idols I kept on my shelf, the big idol of my professorship and all the status that came with it. And I placed my faith in Jesus instead. The peace He gave me was worth far more than anything I left behind. The strangest part? The very thing I’d spent my career studying—memory—took on a whole new meaning. I used to see it only as a tool to cram in man’s knowledge. Now I understand it was designed to remember Him. As I began using ancient memory techniques (the same ones modern science often claims as its own), something beautiful began to happen. Not only did they help me remember Jesus and His Word throughout the day, they started unwinding the stiffness inside me—my pride, my self- reliance, and my constant dependence on my own strength. It was Jesus gently saving me, convicting where needed, rewiring my thinking, and comforting me in the process. Only Jesus saves like this. Now, when life pulls me back toward old patterns, these simple memory techniques help turn my eyes back to Jesus. They remind me of what God has done and who He is. In those moments, Jesus gently refines me, reshaping my heart and my ways. If you’re weary from carrying it all on your own, you’re not alone. I’m still learning this every single day. I’d love to share how these simple memory techniques can become a quiet act of worship — gentle tools that keep turning our hearts back to Jesus, the One who saves us. All the glory belongs to Him.