E288: Born For This: How to Discover God’s Adventure For Your Life w/Fr John Riccardo | Lila Rose Show

How does God talk to you? Most Christians, especially most Catholics, we're taught how to say prayers, but I don't think we're taught how to pray, and there's a vast difference between the two of those. My sense of it is a lot of people aren't really living the amazing adventure that God has planned for them. I think everybody wants to be great, and I think most people are afraid of being great. If everybody listening to this episode right now wants to do a check, am I on the adventure that you want me on? Am I on the mission you want me on? Or how should they discern that? We think there's actually a principle, and then we think there's a method of applying the principle. The principle is simply this. That is such a great four-step process. I was going to say it works, but he works. It's so good. I love that. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to The Lila Rose Show. By clicking on this video and listening to this episode, you're trusting us with your time, and I'm so grateful for that. We are trying to get better every single episode, so continue to leave your feedback. We read your comments, and we take it to heart. Also, thank you so much to everyone who has been subscribing. If you aren't already subscribed, be sure to hit that subscribe button. And if you enjoy this episode, please leave this episode a like. Also, go over to patreon.com slash Lila Rose show. A big thank you to everybody who is supporting this show and its mission. By joining our Patreon, you can get ad-free episodes, behind-the-scenes access, and if you're a monthly paid subscriber, you get 30% off all of our merch. If you're an annual paid subscriber, you get one piece of merch, your choice, and we will send it to you for free. Thank you so much to all of our patrons. Father John Ricardo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It's a joy to be with you. I'm so happy you're here. Thanks. As soon as we started talking, I thought, because I was praying this morning, there's so many topics to discuss with you. You've written books. You've given so many talks, speeches. You train people. But the one that you're wearing your socks about, your socks. Can we show the socks? Talk about Joan. Can we show the socks? You've got the Joan of Arc socks on. Yeah. Why did you wear her socks today? Well, so I do know that she's your confirmation saint, but I totally forgot that when I put them on. So Joan is our patroness in Acts 29, aside from Our Lady, in a very special way. And yeah, in a crazy way. I forget who it is who first said it, but sometimes we pick saints. Sometimes saints pick us. Yes. And with Joan, it was very much picked by her in my life and in ours and our ministry. I can't wait to hear more about that. The topic of today, we're going to get into a lot of topics, but purpose and discernment. And you do incredible work training people on both of these things, how to pray, what to pray for, how to pray with others to figure out what God is calling us to do. Try to. And first of all, thank you for that work. It's so needed by the church today. You're in town because you're about to do that work for 160 priests, the entire diocese down here, which is amazing. and tell me let's start with maybe going back to Joan tell me about how Joan picked you and what that means for your ministry to be picked by Joan yeah so I was familiar with Joan you know I'm a Catholic priest 30 years right so I know I'm one of those crazy guys you give me the date I tell you who the saint is so um it's just tricks of the trade or whatever so I was familiar with Joan tangentially. I think I'd read Mark Twain's book on her some years ago, but I walked into a friend of mine's office. She worked at a parish at the time just to talk about something. It's not even a particularly close parish to me, either geographically or any other way. And hanging on the wall was a picture of Joan and then her famous quote, I'm not afraid, God's with me. I was born for this and I saw it and I don't know how you experience um the lord of the saints at times but it was it was more than just oh that's cool uh it was it was something more like somebody grabbing me and pulling me into a friendship and I gradually started um almost from that moment on calling upon her and her intercession I was still a pastor at the time but I've prayed with that line ever since I saw it that day and I knew that wasn't just true for Joan that's true for me that's true for you that's true for everybody nobody happens to be alive you don't just sneak into the earth God wills everybody to be alive at a particular moment in time for a particular purpose. And he's given each and every one of us all the gifts that we have. And I am just unbelievably inspired by this woman who I think has to be like the greatest woman who ever lived outside of Our Lady. Because for her to have done what she did when she did it is unimaginable and incomprehensible and continues to just provoke people who don't believe in God to go, I think only God could have led her to do what she did. And so she's a huge intercessor for us in our ministry. Her painting, a variety of different paintings and statues, even her flag are everywhere in our office. We have a huge portrait of her when she's first encountering the voices of St. Margaret and then St. Catherine and St. Michael that hangs in our chapel. And she profoundly marks our work to what we're going to talk about, too, because I think Joan had this amazing charism to hear. And so we're constantly asking her to intercede for us, not just for courage and not just for magnanimity, two virtues that she really just excelled in, but really how to hear the Lord, which we desperately need to know right now in the church. Her ability to hear the Lord, to know it was the Lord, to trust it was the Lord, and to act on it in ways that were incredibly controversial and required immense courage. Like it was supernatural. It had to be supernatural is what I think captivates people. She's so captivating because she heard from God and she knew it was God, even though she didn't go into it like this raging maniac. She was this calm, humble girl. She didn't have some agenda. She didn't invent this. what does your ministry do? Sounds like this was the onset. This connection with Joan was part of the onset of the ministry that you have today. Yeah, it was very much so. So much like Joan experiences this call, you know, within a call. She's already baptized. She's living a life of discipleship. And then the Lord asks her to go do something seemingly ridiculous. So I was a pastor, and my time was coming up at that time to move. We tend to move every 12 years. I had this beginning of an inkling in prayer that I wasn't supposed to be a pastor anymore. And so I went to my archbishop at the time and just said, hey, I know you're going to move me soon. You want me to be doing something different? And he said, why? What do you have in mind? I said, I don't know. I just don't think God wants me to be a pastor anymore. And he and I had been fortunate to serve him in some different capacities. So he knows me and he said, yeah, let's pray about that. And so I invited five, six, seven folks, a few of them who are sitting right here with us. We went up north on Lake Michigan, spent about four days together in prayer, exposed the Blessed Sacrament, fellowship, food, right on the lake. It was gorgeous. And the whole context of the conversation was, do you and I know each other for friendship or do we know each other for ministry? And if it's friendship, that's great. But if it's ministry, I'd like to know who's in. And so some of us discern friendship. some of us to start ministry. I went back to the archbishop. I said, I think there's a few of us that it was kind of like an Acts 13 moment where the Spirit says, set apart Paul and Barnabas for the work of mission that I have entrusted to them. So we went back. We proposed to him that we start a nonprofit. He looks at me. He says, what if I say no? I said, well, then I do what you want me to do. He says, I'm not going to say no. Go for it. And then he released me from the archdiocese. So I'm a priest in good standing with Detroit, but Acts 29 is its own entity. And there's now 10 of us that were five originally. And we're just missionaries. So we do four primary things. So Acts 29, obviously there's no 29th chapter of Acts, or maybe not, obviously, for people. I sit down with folks and are always like, I couldn't find the 29th chapter. I was wondering, am I reading the numbers wrong? I'm like, is that a real, is that part of Acts? There's a real significant point to that. You know, so our formal name is Acts 29, Mobilizing for Mission. And the 29th chapter of Acts is often used by people as a way of describing this time, whatever time it is. You know, that's the same spirit who was writing the history of the early church is writing right now. But it means more than that. It means kind of like a return to the nimbleness of the early church. Not getting stuck in bureaucracy and what a friend of mine calls the corporatization of the church. return to basics proclamation of the gospel let's presume nobody's heard this because probably most people haven't really learning how men and women work together not just lip service to that really learning how ordained and lay work together not just lip service to that so the name means a lot of things but the fourth main things we do we do fair amount media so we do podcasts we do some videos we write books um we do retreats for priests we've been with about 40 different presbyterates around the world. About 6,000 priests. Wow. It's given us a really honest, sober look at the state of the priesthood. A lot of guys are thriving. A lot of guys are not. We do these week-long leadership immersives, which maybe we can talk about, where we bring people to our space in Metro Detroit and over the course of five days, we just give away what God's given us. Because everything we do, we do for free. And then we created an experience called the Rescue Project, which is really our, I think it flows from our conviction that the single greatest, most urgent need, both in the church and in the world right now, is a compelling proclamation of the gospel for the simple reason most people have never heard it. Amen. So we do those things and we do it all for free. It's very amazing that your bishop was just like, yeah, go do this. not to say that bishops don't let priests go do things, but it's very unusual. It's a unique thing that you had this call, that the call was blessed really immediately, virtually immediately by the bishop, and that this ministry has been thriving and it's already had such an impact. It's very special. Yeah, it is. And as a priest, obviously, it's a huge confirmation to me that this must be God's will. Yes. Because my bishop said yes. And so it just, it gives so much, you know, back to Joan. She has this capacity to hear the Lord and then she acts on it. You know, my way of discerning that was just, well, you know, what did you say? Back to me as my superior. And he says, I say, go for it. I'm like, great, then I'm going to go for it. And I want to be like Joan. It'd be great. I've got to ask you, when you were a parish priest, when you were working in a parish before you started the nonprofit and now you're just traveling the world doing this incredible work, did you have any inklings that this was coming or were you content no i was super content i think i i began to grow restless the last couple of years i think that's what led to the asking of the question i had no idea what what the what we were going to do if he said yes in fact like you know to one of the my former my one of my missionaries sitting here with us i remember coming back from the meeting with the bishop and she's there with a another guy who was part of the original team and they're like what did he say i said he said yes and we're like shoot yeah now we gotta go like what are we gonna do um but i had no no clear understanding we just trusted that okay so you called lord now you're gonna make known the next step and he did and he continues to nothing beats a great cup of coffee except a great cup of coffee that goes towards saving lives 7weekscoffee.com is what we drink at my house, and it's organic, pesticide-free, mold-free, and absolutely delicious. 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You get the best baby and women's products delivered right to your door, and you get to help moms and babies in need. If you use the code Lila at checkout, you'll get an additional 10% off your first order. Save lives with pro-life diapers, wipes, hygiene, and women's products over at everylife.com. Use code Lila at checkout. When you were first feeling called to be a priest, how old were you? I didn't feel called as a child. I felt like God broke into my life and asked me when I was 25. Wow. No clue up until 25. No, I didn't even go to church. I had no desire to be a priest at all. Didn't go to church, so I didn't know what these people did. Were you raised Catholic? Oh, yeah. But rejected it? No, I didn't reject it. I made a really conscious decision when I was about 15 to live a devil life. Why? I knew God was real. I've grown up, I think, with the supernatural gift of faith. God's always been present to me. I've never not known him, which means when I act the way I acted as a youth and I can still act today, it makes it all the worse because he's always right here. I mean, always right here. So I knew he was real. I knew he loved me. I knew the cross was for me. I knew he created me. I was supposed to have been aborted. My mother was told to kill me. But I just wasn't convinced that that was the best way to live life as a young person. And so in my mind, I just kept saying to the Lord, I'll get back to you. You were having too much fun? Or what was the thing that was, and what was that fun like that you were living this double life? Yeah, I wasn't really having fun. I thought I was. And I just wasn't convinced that indulging all my appetites wasn't going to make me happy. So I tried and didn't make me happy. And then one day out of nowhere, God said, I'm inviting you to live single and to do it as a priest. And I went, I don't want to do that. But I figured that's probably God. So I just said, if that's really you, then you've got to give me a desire. And that took one night's sleep. Wow. God was quick to hear that prayer. Yeah, so I was working. I was living in Ohio. I'm from Michigan. I was living in Ohio at the time, working. I was going to go back to school to get an MBA, which I didn't want. I grew up in a family that was, my dad was super successful. I knew I didn't want money. I wanted meaning. That's what I really wanted. I wanted meaning and purpose for my life, and I didn't think it was in the automotive industry, which is what my dad did. And so I didn't go to church, but I did read the Bible every day. and I prayed every day. Oftentimes my prayer was, forgive me for what I'm about to do, but I prayed every day. And so I'm walking around at lunch one day. It was late November. Open up the Bible. I'm just like, Lord, what do you want me to do with my life? And I open up to Matthew 19, which I knew fairly well, where Jesus says some men are born incapable of marriage, some men are made incapable of marriage, and some men make themselves incapable of marriage. You can accept it, should accept it. and, you know, the words didn't jump off the page or anything like that, but I knew God was talking to me, and I went, you've got to be kidding me. So I'd almost been married and thought about religious life for a little while, kind of an ecumenical group of guys, left all that, kind of abandoned going to church. So I'm like, what in the world? Like, what's left? And I felt like, you know, kind of like I can hear the hum and hear from the lights. I heard Jesus say to me, John, I'm inviting you to live single, and I do it as a priest. and so I said to him, I don't want to do that. You've got to give me a desire, and I literally woke up the next morning with this unbelievable clarity. Like, I don't understand this, but I want to be a priest. I don't know where you go. I don't know how long it takes. You're not even going to Mass at this point. I knew one priest, I think, my whole life who I thought anything of, and maybe two. all I knew was I would describe it this way after it happened it was as if Jesus tapped me from behind on my shoulder and said turn around and I turned around and he says that's what you want and that's why I made you and I went oh my gosh it is the life of a priest because I wanted to preach I want even though I wasn't going to church I wanted to lead people into an encounter with Jesus because I knew that was true I knew it was true but you didn't have this deep desire for marriage or did you oh I did yeah so I had been in a relationship for a long time um for I don't know 16 to 23 maybe something like that those years um that just kind of gradually grew apart and then at this time I was dating again and it just felt incredibly empty so I yeah I just discerned from that like okay that's not going to be enough so the person that I you know considered marrying at one point we saw each other some years later at a reunion and she said how are you doing what you're doing and I said you know what I think I came to realize I want thousands of children Wow. Spiritual children. Yeah. And I, you know, I admire the heck out of, you know, those of you in the married life. It would kill me. Like I have more, like it wouldn't contain me. I just have too much, I don't know, not energy. It's like that would never satisfy me. So people look at us as priests oftentimes or religious and they go, how do you do that? We're looking at you going, I don't know how you do this. And it's not like, how do you put up with the demands? Because the demands are there on both sides. They're just different. It's just, it's not what my heart's wired for. My heart's wired for, I want to be first gods, and then I want to be available to everybody in a way that you can't as a married person. So when you became a priest, and so that would have been your early 30s, that you actually- Serdained at 31. 31. Did you feel at peace on a human level with all of the practical realities of the priesthood, or were there still things that you had to navigate? I felt, you know, the analogy with marriage would be, this is how I explained it. It immediately felt right. At the moment I got ordained, it's like, oh, I need to do this. And so to those who are married, it's like my presumption oftentimes is you get married, it's like this just feels right. Then I got made a pastor, and it was a quantum leap. And it's kind of like you become a mom. It's a quantum leap. Like it's a change from marriage to motherhood. and for me it was a change from priesthood to pastor. Nobody trained me to be a pastor. My experience is many priests really struggle with that because we're taught to be priests and formed to be priests, but to be spiritual fathers and all that God asks us to do, nobody trained me that. The person who trained me the best for that was my own dad. Did it come naturally to you? I don't know. Ask the people in the room. I think so. I think it seems that way. Yes and no. Yeah. Yes and no. I think, again, because of the example I saw in my dad, who's just the greatest man I ever knew. I think listening to your story, and this is an interesting thing to consider as we look, we're going to look at Jen's life and then the ministry that you do of how to discern and how to discern individually and in groups of people for God's call. You know, like Acts 29, we're out building the kingdom of God. We're preaching. We're supposed to go to all four corners of the world. You seem to get it. I mean I think you again just on what you're sharing people listening like you had the sense you didn't like this you like that you didn't want this you wanted that God woke you up God tapped you on the shoulder you responded by God's grace you had the humility to respond you had the courage to respond you got the desire you got the desire and I think some people hear stories like that and they can relate because they've had experiences like that and other people are like I don't relate I would like to have a clear cut mission the way that sounds like you were given like you were just like, I don't know. I'm not called. I don't feel like the marriage. Maybe I'm called to be a priest. If you want me to be a priest, make me want it. Then you wanted it. And then bam, you become a priest, right? There's a, there's a simplicity there that again, from the outside looking and you're gonna be like, it was not simple. Trust me. But that people say like, yeah, give me that. If I, if God could just tell me, tell me what to do, God, I want to do it. Like, just tell me. And then like, all of a sudden it's very complex and it's not so clear. And it's like, there's conflicting signals and everything else. Well, I don't think it is that clear for everybody. I think that's part of the challenge. We're in a broken world. You know, in general anyway, I would say to somebody, are you allowing the Lord to speak? Do you give them time? Because there is no, you know, it's not like I got a phone to the Lord. You didn't get a passenger pigeon. Yeah, you know, like I tend to hear the Lord very clearly on a number of things. but no one's got a pipeline to God. So I have to discern everything. That's why the beauty of having a team that you work with, we all try to discern together what God's asking us to do. But the first requisite and one of the things we try to teach people and get them to share is to actually have conversations with each other and say, how do you hear God? How does God talk to you? Because I think most Christians, especially most Catholics, I think we're taught how to say prayers. But I don't think we're taught how to pray. And there's a vast difference between the two of those. You can say prayers and be praying. Most people, I think, just say prayers. But to pray, I mean, to have an established habit of giving the Lord. Marriage is a great example of a relationship. You can text your husband. That's fine. Hey, pick up some milk on the way home. but that doesn't cut it for communication you know like you actually have to sit down and talk to each other and put all the devices away and just say what's going on inside like where are you and so with god like i can i can ask for intercessions i can do all sorts of things but but i also i have to be quiet not so i can empty my mind that's not the goal but so i can give him space to talk to me, you know, whether it's through scripture or just in meditation and ask the Lord something as simple as, um, what do you want of me? I use movies a lot because I'm very visual when I pray. And there's a, there's a scene in, in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, which I find so emblematic of where most people are right now. And so this true story, this guy named Desmond Doss fighting in World War II, and he's up on top of a ridge, Hacksaw Ridge, in a tremendously dire situation. And all his fellow soldiers are retreating from the ridge. He's still up there, and he falls to his knees, and he prays. And this is the prayer. He says, Lord, what is it you want of me? I don't understand. I can't hear you. And then almost immediately after he prays this, this is a true story, He hears this voice out in this battlefield crying, medic, help me, somebody, help me. And he puts his helmet on in the movie. He says, all right. And then he runs into this battlefield and he spends the rest of the night finding wounded soldiers, putting them on his shoulders like the good shepherd, lowering them down the ridge. that prayer, I mean, we show that to priests and bishops all the time and lay leaders in the church because I think that's the prayer of so many people. What is it you want of me? I don't understand. I can't hear you. But if we'll listen, we'll hear the Lord. We may not get the crystal clarity that we all want on a lot of things but we'll hear the Lord because Jesus promised it. He said, my sheep hear my voice. So I just sit there and go, hello, I'm your sheep. I can't hear you. You promised me I was going to hear you. Help me to hear you. so you give him time you grow in the established habit of loving silence which is so hard for most people and he'll talk well and i think the principle at work though too is yes making the time for silence with god to receive not just to like say the prayers or to do the prayers but to let god speak and just letting emptying yourself like you're saying but then the other word that comes to mind is service like lord deploy me lord what do you want me to do like Like, like, because that's the question everybody has to say, especially younger people who are figuring out their lives. But I would argue it's a question that people that are more established should have more in a more fresh way. Like, like kind of like press the restart button almost like, Lord, is this what you want me to do? And likely it is. And you keep doing what you do and put a lot of love into what you're doing and be grateful for what you have. And like, you know, open yourself with prayer. But sometimes we should shake things up. Oh, totally. So our formal name is Acts 29, mobilizing for mission. so i think as christians oftentimes we kind of get stuck in the me and jesus two-step what is that mine calls it so like we just we just dance back and forth you know yeah yeah i i this is a safe intimate space where we just talk with each other but i don't want to get out there because it looks it looks hard out there and so confusing yeah or confusing or i might get yelled at or I might get laughed at or I might get worse. But we're, this is, I think the area where the Lord has really taught me the most over the last probably 10 years as a priest is I think most of us get the mission wrong. What do you mean? I think we think the mission is just to evangelize. And obviously that's a huge part of it, right? We're commissioned to go share the gospel. But Jesus says in Matthew 28, go into, you know, go out to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them everything I have commanded you. That's a lot. So you're saying it's not just share the gospel, it's make the disciples. And it's change the world. That's the part that I think. So I think we get, I think we've heard we're supposed to evangelize. I think we've heard we're supposed to make disciples. I don't think we know how to do that, but I think we've heard those things. I think oftentimes people, and my goodness, the work that you've been doing towards this end is a spectacular example. You and I are commissioned, and the laity in a particular way is commissioned to transform the world. The way I often would describe it is the enemy can't create. There's only one enemy of the human race. That's Satan and his minions. Nobody else is my enemy. No human being is my enemy. People do wicked things. They're not the enemy. They're just rebels. Rebels to be one. But they're not the enemy. You know, Paul says that Jesus died for the ungodly. That's us, right? So I was a rebel, can be a rebel still, at least in my mind, if not in more ways. And someone won me. You know, the Lord won me and he won me through people. But the work that we supposed to do because the enemy can only he can create he can only bend So he tries to deface God good creation marriage family sexuality dignity of the human person politics entertainment sports everything You name it. And God wants to put us into those places. That's why he's entrusted you with the gifts you have and everybody who's watching with the gifts that they have. So that they can encounter him, but then they can go back into that area and they can try to bend it back into conformity with how God created it to be. and here's the tension, we'll never get it done. Like we're never going to finish. You can't build the city of God. It's a terrible song on so many levels. But you can build for it. And I think that's the part that we haven't been taught. So there's more than just do the work virtuously, as important as that is. It's go into art, go into politics, go into entertainment, go into sports, go into every area and make it more genuinely human as God created it to be. Because when Jesus returns, it will not be to take us away, even though I think that's how a lot of people live their lives. It will be to make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth. Did you know that your health insurance plan likely covers abortion, abortifacients and other unethical services? Most people have no idea that they're footing the bill for procedures that go directly against their beliefs. While there are health-sharing ministries, some families need and want standard insurance. 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WeHeart Nutrition makes premium research-backed supplements here in the USA for men and women at every stage of life. in the supplement's most bioavailable form for maximum absorption and digestion, from preconception to pregnancy, postpartum, menopause, and more. I personally take the postnatal supplements and have been taking them since I gave birth to our last baby, and it has helped me feel healthier than ever after my last pregnancy. You can take WeHeart Nutrition's two-minute quiz to figure out which supplements can best benefit your state of life at weheartnutrition.com and use the code LILA for 20% off your order. That's WeHeartNutrition.com and use the code Lila for a full 20% off your order. It's very beautiful what you're describing and it definitely, you know, it's captivating for me. I think it can get maybe confusing in practice because people see spreading the gospel as more of a, you need to preach the name of Jesus. You need to be very clear about what are, you know, Jesus is the one who saves. saves and then as a Catholic you want people to be able to be in full communion with the church. You also obviously want to respect those that are not full in full communion because I think the Holy Spirit is very much alive among our Protestant brothers and sisters certainly our Orthodox brothers and sisters and so many others. I think this is a good place for Joan to enter back into the conversation because her mission was not some obviously evangelical mission and I think that makes her scandalous I mean, it made her scandalous at the time, for sure. And even looking back on it, if you look at the details of her life, you're like, oh, my gosh. Like, it wasn't like she was going out to, like, convert, you know, feed the poor, take care of the poor. Or, like, you know, preach the name of Jesus in the public square to people that didn't know it. Or, like, go be a nun or something like this. Or be a good Christian mother and raise her kids up. Like, she was out there fighting a war. And the war was even questionable. Yep. Can you share? So, Joan's life is crazy to me. So, like, I struggle with Joan's life. but one of my favorite quotes so when she's on trial she's asked does God hate the English? so she's leading she's trying to get the rightful king of France back on the throne she's fighting for a monarchy we fought to destroy a monarchy that's the story, we're about 250 years of independence exactly, and so she's asked so God hates the English and she says, no he just hates them in France it's just a great answer You know, it's a tremendous answer. Because the English were trying to take over France. Yeah, they belong back in their land, and we'll love them, but we're not going to love them here. This isn't where they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be reigning over us, and so her whole mission is to try to, you know, bring them back to where they're supposed to be, and the French back in rightful authority of their own land. and that's what ends up getting her burned alive twice, which is kind of strange. To your point, the mission doesn't look overtly Christian. It doesn't. But it is. In fact, it's remarkable. It's very fascinating for us to discuss, especially in the context of you saying we have to change the world. Okay, well, what does that mean? If you took Joan of Arc's mission then and put it today in a modern construct or a modern context, I should say, what does that look like well so i'll try to answer by giving an analogy or a story of what i think often happens to people so in fact a guy called me the other day mid-60s super devout christian works in a um engineering company very high up um had a profound conversion experience a couple years ago, maybe 20 years ago now. And he's been wrestling for tons of years now with, I want to go do something Christian with my life. And so he called me, he just says, if you've got five minutes to talk. I said, sure. He says, so this is what I'm hearing. I want to retire. I want to just do mission. He says, and as I was praying, I felt like the Lord said to me, you're exactly where I want you. i've given you the gifts that you have to teach leadership to lead well to lead with integrity to highlight the dignity of all the people that you you know you care for what do you mean you want to go do mission you're on mission as an engineer and he says could that be god i said absolutely i mean absolutely i got a friend of mine he's a football coach very successful had a really jim harbaugh yeah he had a deep encounter with jesus that's what you're talking about yeah all right really oh wow he's amazing and i should just with him big fan i am too i'm like if it's a good football coach it's got to be him him and sarah are amazing people to me and like they're works in progress like i am you know but but they're i mean talk about a guy with courage to be doing what he's doing on behalf of life. We just gave him a life award. I know you did. It was awesome. I was going to be there, but I wasn't able to get there. But I think, you'd have to ask Jim to confirm this, but I think, and I've asked him this in one way or another, he went to Rome, he met Francis. Profound encounter with God. I don't know a more competitive man in my life than Jim Harbaugh. And I think he wrestled with, okay, something happened there. How do I take what happened, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life and still want to win and not be a jerk or not be all about me? And I think he's figured it out or at least he's on his way to figuring it out. But I think what happens is people like him have an encounter and then they go, I have to abandon this profession because it's all about me. It's all about money. It's all about winning. It's all about competition. but it doesn't have to be. So rather than abandon the profession and just let it fall apart and let the enemy reign there, how about you stay in the profession as a disciple? And now you teach what sports is really about, how to be competitive and not be a jerk, how to lead with integrity, how to really care for the people that you coach. And I think that's what he's been doing. I mean, it's extraordinary to me. It is. and at the same time leveraging what God's given him for things like the dignity of the human person in the way that he's doing it. So he and I and Sarah, we did a big event in Michigan because Michigan had a huge ballot issue a set of years ago, not too long ago now, four years ago maybe, which unfortunately just put us in one of the worst conditions in the world as a state. so we're giving a talk to try to help people understand what was on the ballot to legalize abortion yeah at every stage and so I was interviewing the two of them and I just said are you nervous about being here and Sarah said like I didn't think we should do this I didn't know if we should do this I was concerned about it you might lose recruits you might lose your job and he said in front of like 500 men mostly men because most of them came to see Jim Harbaugh and not for life. And he said, so what? It'd be for the right thing. And I think every guy there just went, yeah, what the heck? What am I afraid of? Here's a guy who's national championship coach, super successful. They all look up to, and he just demonstrated. But that's secondary. I think people might look at Jim Harbaugh and say he's already made it. so if he crashes and burns because he says what's true and good and holy and he fights for life and the unborn and whatever else at least he made it first I think a lot of guys and women are kind of like let's keep our head down let's be like undercover Christian not that they fully hide their faith but they're not going to maybe speak about controversial issues they're not going to necessarily stick their necks out too much because they want to make it in their industry he who honors me I will honor the Lord says. That doesn't mean riches and rewards and fame and all that, but it means the Lord's going to honor you if we honor him. And I don't know, at the end of the day, how do you live with integrity when you know I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Or you're not speaking what needs to be spoken. Yeah. You can't look in the mirror. That was what got me to the point where I was. I could look at my face in the mirror. It's like, I'm not living the way I know I'm supposed to be living. This is a horrible way to live life. And when you know you're compromising on what you claim to be true. You can't live with yourself, so then you start doing all sorts of stupid things to numb pain and to escape. But, please God, he brings us to our senses eventually. So I would say to anybody who's in that situation, dare, it's like God's daring you, well, why don't you try it? Try me on this. Try speaking out. Try being bold. See what happens. See how you feel. Being a person of integrity. See how you feel. It doesn't mean being unkind. It just means speak the truth and love. Like, live an integrated life. Be who you are everywhere. As opposed to what I think most people do, which is they put masks on in different contexts, which just reinforces, man, I can't even be me anywhere. Well, that's a terrible way to live life. I don't want to live like that. And also, how are you going to advance the gospel living like that? Yeah, and what's the Lord going to say to me when I die? I stand in front of him, hey, great job. wouldn't it be better to hear well done good and faithful servant that was joan yeah so joan the modern context i mean just i'm just trying to imagine it right so a woman today gets voices she believes is from god and they're telling her to i'm trying to think of a context that we could match what was happening with england and france at the time but you know england was occupying France. France wanted their national sovereignty back. I mean, they were both, well, there was the Catholic, non-Catholic dynamic, right? I mean, England. Yes and no. I mean, it's all Catholic. They were all Catholic. Because this is pre-Reformation. This was pre-Reformation. So, it was Catholics against Catholics. Yeah, although they're more nationalistic than they are Catholic, obviously. I mean, there's a bishop, for goodness sake, who's the one responsible for her death. A Catholic bishop. Yeah. That's the horror of all this. It is the horror of all this. And it helps, I think, for us living now with all that's going on in the church in our day and age, and just to remember, well, there's never really been a golden era of a church. But I'm just thinking, like, from the modern context, why couldn't, I mean, someone would look at that story and be like, guys, make peace with each other. Like, get over this. Make peace with each other. I'm just imagining Joan, instead of going to war to win, you know, to get back the rightful throne for the king of France, right? Why wouldn't she just say let's strike a truce? Well, she did tell them to leave. The English to leave. Yeah, and they wouldn't listen. So you go to war you know, so there's reasons, there's just reasons to go to war. I think that's what Peter Kreef would say. There's not so much a just war as there are just reasons to go to war so if you break into my house i'm a i'm a dad and a husband and i just say well you know like my wife and kids are inside that's being a bad father and husband so my my task my responsibility as a person who's supposed to guard and protect them is to ward you off i'm gonna do everything i can to ward you off i'm not going to do that out of violence or anger or hatred. I'm going to do it out of love for them. And if in the process of doing that I have to harm you unfortunately to keep you from hurting them, well that's my responsibility. You amplify that to being the head of a government. That's why you do things at times to protect the people that you care for. But it's possible for same scenario you break into my house and I'm so livid with rage that you did this that I want to kill you, well, now I've made myself to be a murderer. That's a very different case, even though it looks like the same action. So Joan's desire is, hey, I want to get the English out of here. You've got to go back. So she just tells them, she keeps saying, threatening them, saying, God has called me to put our king back on the throne and for you to go back home, go home. Or God's going to lead me to do action. Well, they didn't believe her. Or they didn't want to they didn't want to leave. And so then she does what she does. And what did she do? Just for people to make sure we have the historical account. She needs to crunch into battle. And so here's this, you know, illiterate teenage girl who can't ride a horse, who knows nothing about military, suddenly becomes this incredible, you know, I was going to say horseman, but she's horsewoman, leads the army and kicks the English out. so she got the skills almost super naturally definitely they showed up because the same men who were in the army who were losing time and time this is the middle of the hundred years war they couldn't win a thing suddenly they're fighting with tremendous courage and the courage is clearly inspired by that girl and I think the other context here is a lot of innocent people were being hurt oh yeah so it was not like, oh, just some peaceful occupation. There were a lot of innocent... Is there ever a peaceful occupation? No. And I think that's the other part of this. You could say, you could argue it's absolutely a humanitarian mission. Yeah. As well as a mission of justice. What can we learn about discernment from the life of Joan of Arc? About discerning God's voice and purpose for our lives? Yeah, that's a great question. I think a couple things. The first is, it provokes the question, do you believe God speaks today? Which I don't know that most people do. like speaks in a personal particular way for you. Why would you talk to me? Well, cause he's omnipresent and omniscient and omnipotent and he can be entirely present to you and me at the same time. It's kind of the perk of being God. So he cares about you. That's why he willed you into existence. So if he willed you into existence, he probably has a plan for you or he wouldn't have created you. And not just a plan for eternity, but a plan right now. and he's more excited about revealing it to you than you are in getting it so that's the first step is just look lord i believe you've created me for a definite purpose in my life and i believe you talk so talk help help me to hear you help me to know that and and i think he usually leads us by desires that's how he changed me that's what he did with joan joan doesn't want to do this and then she's got this growing desire to embark on the mission that she's doing so much so that she can get to the point where she's like, I was born for this. Well, I believe everybody is supposed to get to that point. Everybody's supposed to be able to say, I know what I was born to do. Even if that was to be a great mom or a great dad or a good husband or a good wife or a good priest, whatever. You're supposed to have clarity on why God created you. Why are some people called to crazy missions like Joan or more obvious, intense public missions? And other people are called to, yeah, be an engineer and be a dad. Or, yeah, just be a really good school teacher and be a really good husband or whatever that thing is. Short answer? I don't know. longer answer i i think everybody can be heroic most heroes will we won't know anything about until we get home i mean the real heroes are the ones who just do what they do day in and day out love the lord love their neighbor you know like hold the line they just persevere like those are the real heroes other people, it's almost like they're firecrackers in the sense that they burn brightly for a short time. And then they go, I mean, Joan's gone before she's, you know. Literally a firecracker, unfortunately. I mean, by God's grace, obviously she's a saint now, she's a murderer. But I think some people, though, they are afraid to, maybe not even afraid, maybe they just don't have, it's this curious thing, right? If you're living, you go to college, you're trying to figure out your job, your career, you're opening to marriage, maybe you're just kind of a normal kid in America or really any country that's maybe listening to this. And maybe you have a deeper desire for something more that is kind of confusing to you. That's like driving you. You're not trying to like realize it or maybe you're content, but maybe you shouldn't be content. I guess what I'm getting at here is. I my sense of the people, the many people I get the opportunity to meet is most people are not dreaming big enough. They're not aiming high enough. And they're almost accepting like the structures of the world and living within them within a kind of a very, maybe small way. And there could be humility there and that is what God wants in the exact thing that they're doing. That is actually what God wants and they should do it. Or they're kind of, you know, by accident, lukewarm in a sense, or they're maybe afraid or they're not, you know, they haven't opened themselves up to this next step that they're supposed to take. I think everybody wants to be great. And I think most people are afraid of being great. Because I think most people are, either they misunderstand what greatness means, or they're afraid of what the risks might be involved in this. And so we settle all too easily. But I'm just passionately of the mind. I think we're wired for greatness. But the world has deformed our understanding of that. because we've equated that with celebrity. That's not greatness. Greatness is integrity. Greatness is humility. Greatness is love. I mean, that's greatness. Anybody can become famous. I mean, really, anybody can become famous in this world now with a camera and an iPhone. You do bad stuff and become famously bad. Bad famously. Yeah, exactly. That's not greatness. Greatness is living your life with character, living your life with heroic virtue. That's greatness, and that's accessible to everybody. but what that means and the condition for doing that is is having the the courage to be able to surrender yourself to god and say i will do whatever you want and that's what's terrifying and i think it's terrifying for most people because they don't know him and they're afraid well he probably is going to want me to suffer because that's what he does he makes his friends suffer well that's not exactly a really you know rousing way to understand god you're gonna suffer to be sure, but that's because we live in a broken world. But God's not a sadist. He's not trying to inflict pain on people. The beauty of the Christian life is even pain can be used for good purposes. What God wants for you is He wants you to give Him your life and let Him make a masterpiece out of it. One of the images that I have oftentimes, God's creating this mosaic with all these little tiles. And we're all just little tiles. But the mosaic doesn't get complete without you saying to him, you can place me wherever you want. Engineer, stay-at-home dad, farmer, teacher, president, governor, coach, whatever, it doesn't matter. God's going to use you. We just have to give him the permission, here, here's my life. Whatever you want to do with me, do with me. that's why Mary's the model whatever you want to do do it blank check so beautiful and takes a lot of courage and trust yeah which means you got to know who it is you're giving the blank check to yes and that's why we do what the work we do at the heart of it is just we have to lead with preaching the gospel because most people have never heard it. And as a result of not having heard it, they've created their own image of God, which gives all these skewed understandings of who God is, when in fact that's not who God is. God is love. So this one who's asking you to surrender your life to him, he loves you. Like, he doesn't just say that. He's proven it. How? He became a man. What did he do? He went to war for you. Who did he go to war against? The power of death, the power of sin, and the one that Jesus calls the strong man, and he won. And so you don't have anything to be afraid of. Not because he's going to protect you from all harm, because he's the one who holds your life in his hands, and he has no rival. Like to say Jesus is Lord is not the ending of a prayer. It's a reality. He holds the world, your life, my life, in his hands, and I don't have to be afraid of anything. And he's making you, the person listening to this, myself, you, Father, he made us each for greatness and for a specific purpose. I think what you were saying earlier about greatness, it's very beautiful. Greatness isn't like, oh, fame or success in a worldly sense. It's holiness ultimately. It's love. Absolutely. But I think what trips people up is like, what does that look like in practice? because, and I'm speaking right now, especially to what I was kind of indicating earlier, but I'm curious what you think about this. My sense of it is a lot of people, I don't know if it's most, but a lot of people aren't really living the amazing adventure that God has planned for them. And there's so much loss and tragedy in that. It's honestly, it makes me want to start crying right now just to think about it. And even for my own life, because there's obviously places in my life on a daily basis, I could be surrendering more, and the adventure would be that much more amazing. And by amazing, I don't mean worldly amazing. I mean amazing in the true sense of what we are made for, which is love, to love and to be loved. Do you get the sense that most people are not really actually living God's plan for them? Because most people, Christians? Yes, I would say many clergy. Even clergy. Absolutely. Are not living God's plan for them. And what I mean by that is we settle for a routine. And so here's the, so like God talks to me in images. Oftentimes this was the image he gave me. I said years ago, I was praying with a bunch of priests. And he brought me back to when I was, you know, in my 20s, I was in the seminary. And I would, you know, I'd sit in the chapel and I'd be reading scripture and lives of the different saints in scripture, the lives of saints in the church. And I would read that. And as a young man suddenly a priest, you know, like time in seminary doesn't show up in somebody's biography. So it's like, it's a sentence maybe. And so the whole rest of my life was up ahead of me. And I would just sit there and go like, Lord, I can't wait to see what you write in my life. I don't think out of ego or vanity. It's just like, I just can't wait to see what you're going to do in my life because you're an amazing God. So like, let's go. Bring on the drama, you know. And then you get ordained or you get married. And I started to just like slide into a routine. And then I hit 50 and then I hit 60. And you can realize. How old are you? And it's like, well, I guess this is just my life. What do you mean by that slide into a routine? This is what I do. You get up every day. You take care of your kids. You celebrate Mass. You go on emergency visits. You preach the gospel. I mean, how in the world does preaching the gospel become routine? But it can. I see. For countless priests. And then as I was praying with this, I felt like the Lord, he's in the chair next to me like you are. And at one point, he was writing this story of my life. and then without realizing it, I had taken the pen out of his hand. And he looks at me and he says, give me back the pen. We're not done here. And so this whole way of praying to learn how to know what to do, the way we would say what you just said is, restores the drama of discipleship. Like the life of following Jesus is anything but boring. that doesn't mean it's supposed to be a thrill a minute that's not the point but to be able to go to the Lord every day and say what do you want from me how do you want me to live my life what are you asking of me don't let me settle into mediocrity that was John Paul's constant exhortation to young people never settle for mediocrity I just keep aiming higher in every category yeah why not Rick who's sitting in the room right now He's, you know, he's fond of using as an example, the Olympic model, like Usain Bolt's got a coach. Fastest man in the world as a coach. How does that work? I'm the fastest man in the world. What are you going to teach me? Right. And yet he wants to get better. Well, if that's true for someone winning medals, great as that is, what's it like for life? Why don't we want to keep getting better? So let's always strive to keep getting better. Always strive to grow and teach me to love better. Teach me to forgive better. Teach me to long for unity better. Teach me to be a peacemaker. Teach me to be attitudes. Teach me to look more like you, Jesus, to talk more like you, to stop posting the way I post and actually build people up as opposed to tear people down. All those things are within everybody's reach, and that's greatness. we just found out by the way Usain Bolt is following live action on Instagram some team member texted me that like a week ago I was like let's get him to our young leaders comment I'm like what's he doing right now he's raising his kids I guess he's like I would imagine he's like semi retired or I don't know but um no pressure on those adventures just I know right like run run I'm like I can't even pop down I don't like running um okay so so much to unpack here about what this discernment looks like to let Jesus take the pen. Because I think most people are like, yeah I want Jesus to have my pen of the story of my life right Then there also the tricky thing of freedom Like well I supposed to make decisions and like I don want to be like an automaton or a robot but at the same time like I can like re my life every day Like there certain commitments you make that are long-term commitments, you know? So what does it look like to discern whether or not you're living? Like if everybody listening to this episode right now wants to do a check on their life? Like, am I living the way you want me to live, Lord? Am I on the adventure that you want me on? Am I on the mission you want me on? How should they discern that? How do they kick the tires? There's a lot of ways to answer that potentially. Here's one of the ways that we would try to begin to walk people through some things individually. So I don't know if you've ever done any form of the Ignatian exercises, but one of the challenges of the Ignatian exercises is you have limited scriptures that you're asked to pray with, and that's the focal point. for the whole day. So Ignatius calls them exercises for a reason. Like, this is hard. Like, prayer is work. At least it can be at times. So we try to teach people how to take very specific questions to the Lord in prayer. That four of them would be this. This would be a way to do what it is you just said. And so you could do this over four days. You could do this over four weeks. But try to go to the chapel or someplace that you encounter the Lord powerfully. And you're going to sit down and the first day or the first time you're going to pray, all you're going to focus on is this one question. What name do you call me, Father? Like, who am I to you? Because the fundamental crisis for everybody is identity. We just don't know who we are. so we often try to construct identities i'm an athlete i'm a i'm good looking i'm in shape i'm successful no you're not you might be but that's not who you are that's just what you do who are you and most people don't know who they are and they don't know whose they are and most people don't know that they're loved when i was in the seminary my mentor said john you're going to discover most people don't think they're good. And your task is to be like the magic coin trick, is pull the little coin out from behind their ear and go, Lila, I see this in you. And man, is it good. And most people don't know that. They've never been told they're good. So the first step before we do anything, before we figure out, like, what am I supposed to do with my life? Just rest in the Father's love for you. And we encourage people, like, ask the Father, Father, what name do you call me? What might someone hear if they ask that question? I mean, my first thought they'll hear, like, I said that to our Lord. I mean, I kind of have some sense of what he would say. Actually, even just saying that it wouldn't just be Lila. It would be other things. What kinds of things do you think people will hear if they ask the Lord? Blank slate, wide open heart, empty mind, Lord, what do you call me? What do you want to call me? Changes every time I do this. I've heard the Lord say to me countless things. I'll tell you. So I was abused when I was a child. Very young. Can't even tell you how that impacted me. I'm so sorry. I've never in my life felt pure, ever. Sexually abused. Yeah. So my root wound would be shame. So as opposed to guilt, my root wound is shame. Like guilt means I've done wrong. Shame means I am wrong. How old are you, Father? I don't remember when it started. It went on for a while. I remember when it ended. How old was that? Eleven. So I went to pray one day with this question. Father, what do you call me? And he said, innocent. Well, I've never been innocent. Ever. Only God could call me that. So the point there is that the Lord oftentimes calls us something to heal a moment in our life. and to address a lie that the enemy tells me and you. Because that's what the enemy does. He sows lies in our minds about God, about us. This is who God is. This is who you are. You're a failure. You're a charade. You're a fraud. You're a disappointment. You're not enough. And on and on and on and on. Those things he just sows constantly in our minds. And without our realizing it, those lies become what scripture calls strongholds that we can't get out of. We find ourselves, my mind is supposed to be the place where I love to go. I love to be in quiet. It's what it's supposed to be. It's not for most people. It's the last place they want to be because it's a place of torment. Because the enemy has just created this prison inside us. So we do all sorts of things to keep the music going. because I don't want to be alone and still and quiet and hear those voices accuse me of things because that's what Satan does. He accuses and he divides. But God wants to demolish strongholds and turn them back into places where we can encounter him and be at peace and just rest. And so he oftentimes will call us names that override lies and that heal moments of our past. How did it feel when you heard the Lord say in prayer after what you had been through? You heard him call you innocent. Like a warm blanket. Like unbelievably healing. But the Lord wants to do that with all of us. You know, it's like the Father has, you know, Mary on our team here. So she would always say, like, the Father knows your name. He knows your name's Lila. He knows my name's John. And sometimes he calls me John. But sometimes he calls me something else. and depending on what's going on in the season of my life it's super appropriate to what's happening right now and it just brings tremendous could bring healing could bring peace could bring restoration um you know like we were with a a group of priests a couple years ago now we did this exercise and everybody thinks like this is never going to happen i'm not going to hear anything we've had people say that before you know like they come back after the exercise and go like this was the stupidest thing i didn't believe it was going to happen can i tell you what he said everyone hears something oh yeah everyone hears something they might just hear their name or they might hear son or they might hear beloved but that's the Lord I mean the Lord so it doesn't have to do something grandiose but it might be you know so this one guy he lived a pretty fleshly life before he was ordained and his peers called him slayer because of how he would pick up women oh not his priestly peers his peers no his peers back when he was in his 20s well that's what the lord called him when he went to chapel but it was of a completely different kind now because now he's fighting the enemy and he's trying to rescue people who are in a place where he once was and so it was the same word completely different meaning and so the the lord just has a way of knowing what's going on inside that's the first step in in like what do you want me to do with my life, Lord. Then the second one might be something like this. We ask Jesus to reveal these things. So we don't want to brainstorm. It's not like pray storming. So we just say, Holy Spirit, help me to hear you. And we're going to go before the Lord. We're going to be something like the rich man who runs to Jesus, because that's what you're doing. I'm running to Jesus. I want you to know what you want me to do with my life and we ask the Lord, Lord, show me the one thing that's most holding me back from wholeheartedly following from being all in. That's a big prayer. Oh yeah. That's why you don't start with it. You start with father. Who am I to you? The good news, bad news. Yeah. I got to, I got to start with that because that's, that's what's going to give me the courage to go through these next two exercises. So you start with that. Who am I to you? Lord, there's my identity. Okay, I know this. I'm convinced of this. You've spoken to me. Okay, now with that in mind, what's holding me back? And in that man's case, the Lord puts his finger on something which this guy never would have suspected. I mean, like wealth is a sign of blessing from God. What do you mean my riches are what's holding me back? So this guy gets angry. It says that we often translate as he went away sad. He didn't go away sad. He went away angry. like how could that be what's holding me back from following and so the lord has a way of putting his finger on something that we might just be really surprised by for a lot of us i think it's trust you want to know what's really holding you back you don't trust me you don't trust that i'm good and i'm going to take care of you and it's going to work out yeah and then i'll be enough for you that'll be enough because i'm not promising you it's going to be easy right that's not the promise i'm not promising you i'll keep you from pain That's not the promise. Like that's nowhere in the gospels. In fact, here's the promise. You follow after me. Here's your cross. Boom. And then we listen and the Lord will have a way of speaking into that. What's the one thing most holding me back? And so you might want to pray with the passage of the rich man. Can I ask you about that interpretation of the rich man that you just kind of alluded to? So typically when we hear that passage, we think, okay, he just really loved being rich and he didn't want to give up the money and all the lifestyle, whatever else. And so he went away sad because he's like, yeah, I don't want to give up the money and go do whatever Jesus wants me to do. But you had a slightly different take. You said he felt angry, almost like, oh, all along, this good wealth that you gave me that I thought was from God, you're telling me that's the issue? Tell me more about your interpretation there. So the Greek, which I forget the word roughed up my head right now, but the Greek can be translated not just as sad or sorrowful, but as angry and disturbed. Like, how could that be it? Because again, so in the time of Jesus, and we see this all throughout the Old Testament, right? Wealth is a sign of God's blessing. Yeah, Job, when he lost his wealth, then God's blessing had been removed. That was the interpretation. Yeah, so how can what is a clear, tangible sign of your blessing be what's holding me back? I think the lesson there for a lot of us is oftentimes our gifts are what holds us back. What does that mean? We hide behind them. We can almost make them into idols. We end up worshiping the gifts more than we worship the giver. So we're afraid of surrender. So the rich man, it wasn't even that, he just needed to surrender his wealth. He needed to surrender it. The gift needs to be surrendered, and it maybe needs to be used in a way that we haven't been practiced at or that we're not expecting. But it's just, we have to do the blank slate either way. Yeah. Or the blank check, I should say. We have to do the blank check. Yep, that's right. And that's hard to do. But that's why, again, I've got to know him first. you know like put in a typical example for a catholic i'm about to get confirmed what's it mean to be confirmed i'm going to say to jesus send me wherever you want well how am i going to say that to somebody i've never met and no wonder most kids who get confirmed like leave the church shortly after because they never met him we're asking to do things that they've they couldn't possibly do because we've presumed they've already met him so that's what we're going to do here we're going to ask him in his kindness and this is good news like you know you go to the doctor you got pain you go to the doctor the doctor says well here's your source of pain oh thank you okay well that that's a good diagnosis now i can treat it what if there's a bunch of stuff well he's going to show us the one thing oh you think that's well no there's not just one but there's one thing that's most important start with one that's why the question is show me the one thing that's most holding me back from wholeheartedly following. You're following, I'm following, but I'm not wholeheartedly every day following. Should that be a daily prayer? Yes, I think so. And connected with it is, help me to trust you. And I surrender this thing. That's why Our Lady is the model all throughout this. Because Mary is anything but passive. Mary's not passive. Mary's actively receptive. She receives from the Lord and then she cooperates with Him. So we're not puppets. to your point about freedom earlier. God's not just going to say, go do this and not have me be involved. He wants my will to be involved, and he's like, yes, I want to do that. And I can only say that to somebody who I know and I love and I trust and I know who loves me. That point's so important because it's about unity, right? Love is about unity, and you want to have unity with God's will. That is surrendering your will, but it's also uniting your will, most importantly. It's uniting. It's not like you become a robot to God and now you're just like, God, you know, animate me or whatever you want. It is a little bit of that, but really you have a will. You have freedom. You want it to be completely aligned with God. Yeah. Marriage is the example of it. Yes, it is. Yeah. You know, like you're not a robot, but I mean, like the purpose of, you know, the purpose of being free is to be able to choose to love. Well, and I've been realizing my husband and I have been talking about this lately. it's like you're discovering what you are together. And it's this uniting of your wills, but then you're discovering this third person, which is God. It's God, right? The Trinity, obviously, in the marriage is you and your husband and God, your wife and God. And then you have this whole new life that you live together as this new unit. And it's very exciting. Yeah, I mean, that's what, you know, so technically the church would say, well, that's communion. What's communion? It's many becoming one without ceasing to be many. but you take on this new life right well living your own life we're now one in marriage or i'm one with god in this relationship but i'm still me but i'm i'm brought into a new and really profound unity with somebody else you know whether it's marriage or our life with the lord or friendship that's what communion is and so we're still our own persons but somehow we've grown to be better, more fulfilled, more alive because I'm in this relationship. And to be in this relationship, I have to actually give myself to you. Otherwise, it's not a relationship. And that varies depending upon the depth of the relationship. But that's what makes friendship so rich. And I don't think most people live friendship with God. So again, that's why that first question is what it is. There's a third question. so the it'd be great to just think life's like being on the shore of lake michigan with a good book and a drink in your hand but that's not life life's more like june 6 1944 at normandy we're born into a battle and we have an enemy and he hates you and he hates me and he wants to destroy me and he wants to destroy you so the third question is you you go before the lord and I say, Jesus, in your kindness, reveal to me, like, what is the primary strategy of the enemy in my life? Wow. So first idol, then primary strategy of the enemy. Could they be the same thing? They could be. So the image here for me, because again, I'm visual, is I ask for something like the mindset of a spy. So imagine hell has a mission control, because it does. Paul talks about our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the machinations or the schemes or the strategies of the devil. So hell has strategies. That's the bad news. So gospel means good news. Most people don't experience the gospel as good news because they don't know the bad news. The bad news isn't bad. The bad news is horrific. but once you know that and then you come to see who jesus is and jesus is stronger than that one now the gospel is not just news now the gospel is good news i mean like really really really good news so we're going to ask for mindful that jesus has defeated the enemy he just hasn't destroyed him yet lord help me to like peek into the blinds in mission control in hell and see what's on the screen for John's life? Or what's on the screen for Lila's life? What's the primary strategy of the enemy? And then we just ask the Lord to talk. And then there's a fourth exercise. Wait, before he gets to number four, what are some examples of what it looks like when you peek behind the screen to see people you've done this exercise with? Fear. That's the biggest one. Meaning the enemy's strategy is just to be paralyzed with fear, to not live the life of fear. a massive tactic of the enemy. Pride. That's probably the biggest one. Fear is right behind it. Shame. Unworthiness. On and on and on and on. Division. Hatred. Unforgiveness. That's probably right there in the top three. Idolatry. I've put something else in front of God. have you when people have done this exercise done now thousands of people and probably many more than that that have done it even not directly with you um have they have some people been given more of even a vision of you know what could happen if they kept on living their lives the way they did and didn't change course i've heard people speak about these sorts of severe graces sometimes of like getting a glimpse of oh no if i don't like wake up out of my stupor. Yeah. Look at all the things I'm going to lose in the eternal sense. I mean, not even necessarily losing heaven as much as losing, I guess, the crown. I mean, I know that sounds maybe odd, but like all of the souls, right? That could have been all the omission, the sins of omission, where you're not in mortal sin. You know, you are going to confession, but there's this whole unlived life in front of you. You just settled for mediocrity again. Right. respect to that word as opposed to aspiring to be great. And can that land you in hell? Oh, gosh, I'll let God answer that. I pray hell is empty. Yeah. Except for the enemy and his little minions. But it is scary when you think about, you know, all I could die tomorrow. I want to go to confession. I want to repent of my sins. Like, how many sins of omission are there? Are countless. Right. Because that's what most people actually are doing most of the time. And most people never confess them. It's what they're not doing. In Matthew 25, you know, the judgment of the nations are all sins of omission. That's what Jesus says. I was hungry. You did nothing. I was thirsty. You did nothing. I was naked. You did nothing. I was lonely. You did nothing. I was sick. You did nothing. I was in prison. You did nothing. You did nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. You buried your talent and you did nothing. Yeah, precisely. Man, that passage scares us. It's scary. Whatever's out of me. And then he said, I do not know you. and there was the wailing and then actually you have the teeth. I mean, he didn't go out and murder somebody. The poor guy just got scared or whatever his reason was and just stuck his talent in the ground. Right, so don't bury your gifts. So that's where this is all going to. What are the gifts? What do you want me to do with them? But I want to pause that for a minute because I just feel like it's so convicting for me and I hope it's convicting for everyone listening because this life, it's not just about avoiding sin. It's not just about trying to not sin. It's not just about rejecting sin. Sin is just like the negation, right? It's about creation. It's about love. It's about the action of our wills. And that's the whole adventure, right? But we can't do that without being in communion with the Holy Spirit and working with, you know, our Lord and all the teams of people. We're going to get to that in a second. And that's like, you have to go and live, I guess that's what I'm saying. You have to live. You don't just like to hold up and not sin, like go and live your life. And that's going to look messy and chaotic or scary at times even. Yeah. But so back to Joan real quick, because I think that's the beauty of the saints. So, you know, unfortunately for those of us who live in this country, we don't know saints. We know celebrities. And celebrities don't usually inspire us to be great. They inspire us to be vain. I'm not saying that's your intention. but but to to be familiar with the saints to to know a june to know a katherine to know our lady to know sebastian to know you know um pier giorgio for saudi to know maximian colby is to see all these people in ordinary states of life married ordained young old healthy sick who lived great lives and so to know the saints like when i was so you know i was fortunate to live in Rome for four years or so. And I didn't know anything about the saints when I moved over there. They were names on a church. And then I move over there and I knew nobody. I don't understand the language. And I had to really learn how to pray. And I learned how to pray and I met the saints. And, you know, you walk into St. Agnes because that's where Agnes's head is. So suddenly I get to know Agnes, you know, or you go to St. Sebastian's catacombs because that's Or Sebastian dies. Or I was fortunate to lead people down to Peter's grave. And I got to know Peter really well. You go to St. Paul's outside the wall, and Paul's no longer a statue or a name. Paul's a man. And so to expose yourself to great saints, genuinely great men and women, who oftentimes just did really ordinary things extraordinarily well, is to go, I mean, this is what converts Ignatius of Loyola. You know, Ignatius is the typical man. He's living for himself. He wants to be attractive to women. He wants pride. He wants ego. He wants vanity. He wants wealth. Gets his leg almost blown off. Lying in bed. Asks for a book about, you know, celebrities of that time. They bring him the lives of the saints. He reads the lives of the saints. He's like, why can't God do that in me? And then Ignatius starts the Society of Jesus and the Jesuits. Well, like, that's what's supposed to happen to all of us. but it won't happen if I don't meet God and I don't meet his friends, but you meet God and you meet his friends. And then just like Ignatius or Joan, you say, Hey, I want to be great, but I don't want to be great for me. I want to be great for you. Who cares if anybody ever knows who I am, give a flip, but I want everybody to know who God is. And that's magnanimity. That's what Joan has. That's what's behind. I'm not afraid. God's with me. I was born for this. That's not pride. sounds like pride but it's not pride that's magnanimity god gave me gifts i want to use them to glorify him i'll let him worry out all the details and and he's done that with every single person there isn't anybody who's not a masterpiece even if nobody knows who you are because that's not greatness greatness is just responding to what it is that he's given us to do in such a way that pleases and honors him and helps change the world even if it's just this neighborhood or my house. That make sense? Yes. Inspiring. That's how you live life. That's greatness. Not being on TV. You need community. We can talk a lot about community, but you need the people that have done it and we can prove they've done it. We know they've done it. We have confidence they've done it. There's such diversity of the saints. That's what's so inspiring. You can find a saint for any random thing. How many canonized saints are there? There's thousands of them. There's so many of them. I guess we do know, but I don't know. And then there's private devotions that one can have, too, to people that are holy that have gone before us. And there's so much wealth in that. Yeah, and, you know, like Hebrews talks about in Hebrews 12, you know, since we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses. So this is an image that the Lord gave me years ago. I love watching football. So I came home one night. I'm watching a football game on a Saturday night after Mass. I turn on the TV. It's two teams I could give a flying flip about. But I'm watching it anyway. and it's a packed stadium and everybody's got white pom-poms and they're all on their feet screaming and whatnot as I'm sitting there. And the stadium's a two-tiered stadium and it's bouncing. It's so obnoxiously loud and the game hasn't started yet. It's the pregame and it's like this. And as I'm watching this, I felt like the Lord said, John, that's heaven. And it brought me immediately to Hebrews 12 and that passage after Hebrews 11, which is the great hall of faith and all these heroes of the Old Testament. And then the author of Hebrews says, since we're surrounded by them, now run the race that's set before us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. And the imagery there in Hebrews is clearly athletic. Like we're on a field in a stadium and in the stands are the saints. And the saints aren't watching us any more than people go to a football game to watch a game. you don't go to a football game to watch a game you go to a football game to change the outcome that's why you want to play at home because 80 000 people on their feet by your cheering yeah you inspire me to do things that on my own like i could never do football games that's why the cheering is gonna make that's true that's why people want to play loud enough they always win that's right that's why the home field's called the 12th man wow interesting right because i can do something in front of a huge crowd, you know, whether you're a gymnast or a football player or an actor that I could never do on a stage, you know, in junior high or in my backyard in front of mom and dad. But somehow these people cheering for me, oh, that that rouses me to greatness. That's the Saints. The Saints are watching. And so they've handed us the baton. like we did our part we were great you be great and then come join us but don't join us until you run the race don't join us until you finish what it is you gotta play get out there get off the bench and play that's exactly right that's the beauty of what communion enables us to do that's why we need friendship that's both with the saints and in heaven and the saints here on earth. They inspire us to do great things. They inspire me to do great things. I play, I inspire them to do great things. I asked you to share more about number three, but you were just about to get to four and you alluded to it. So the fourth is based on everything you've revealed, Lord. What name you call me. The thing that's most holding me back from wholeheartedly following you, the primary strategy of the enemy, what you've revealed. Now, based on all that, what's the single most important thing in my life for me to focus on? Where do you want me to attack? You know, or what's most important right now? And that's how you make plans. That is such a great four-step process. Well, I was going to say it works, but he works. It's so good. I love that. I wish everyone was taught that. That's why we're trying to teach everybody that. And we can do that individually, like I can bring those questions to the Lord. And then you and your husband can do that collectively. So you can ask as a married couple, what's our name? What's our... The first question would be different. The first question would be, Lord, what's the single biggest gift you've given to us as a married couple? Wow. I love that. We got a lot of gifts, but what's the most significant gift we have? And then you do the same. And then you do, what's the biggest wound in our relationship as a couple? What's the thing that's most holding us back from wholeheartedly being the couple and mission that you created us to be? What's the enemy's primary strategy against us? And then based on all those things, Lord, where do you want us to attack? So we teach bishops this. We teach pastors this. We teach married couples this. We teach business owners this. We teach anybody this. So you encourage people to do this exercise individually in prayer. and it could be done, you think it has to be broken into four days or could it all be done on the same day? It's too much to do in one day. Give it four days. That's my prayer is a lot. We can do as many as three in a day, but four in a day is a lot. So save the last for the next day? Yeah, but we do. The finale? Yeah, although it's kind of a downer to end on, like, what's the enemy's primary strategy in my life? So you might do two and two, depends on what kind of time you've got. If you go to bed with that, you have the bad dreams. Yeah. So do it individually, ideally over four days, and then do it as a married couple. you mentioned priests and you mentioned bishops and business owners. Are you, you recommend that in addition to doing individually, they do it with their leadership teams leadership team So those with whom you lead whoever it is So if you got people with you who know the Lord talks they know how the Lord talks to them They have a biblical worldview You can be at least reasonably comfortable in engaging in healthy conflict because you're going to have to have some healthy conflict. If you've got those kinds of people with you, then you can't. So you and I are husband and wife. We can go into chapel together and we can pray on the same question. We can come out. We'll go out for dinner afterwards and go, what did you hear? So you recommend that the prayer be done not physically together, but you separate and pray and then come back together. I'd go together. If you're doing them collectively. Collectively. I would go together. But would you recommend not doing this collectively with a leadership team unless they've done it individually first? Yes, that's a great question. and sharing with each other the answers that they got. Individually. That's pretty personal. That's why it works. Because what that does is it just builds vulnerability. So now when we're going to go in and start talking collectively about what the Lord's revealing, we already know each other in a much deeper way than we ever knew each other before. Do you think all business owners should do this? No, not unless you believe in God, believe he talks. And you've got the people. you got to have the right people with you you can't do this with people who are not believers it'd be pretty difficult or you or you couldn't and you couldn't do this with people that there's just like issues with like existential like yeah you know there's not like a peaceful harmonious relationship already that that pre-exists we have to you know like we would say you've got to be able to be brutally on uh brutally honest with each other without being brutal to each other do you think that this process is essential to build truly world-changing organizations and businesses? I would never try to do it without it anymore. This, this, this so transforms every person we've ever, I mean, it's transformed me, it's transformed us as a ministry, it's transformed everybody we've worked with. I would never try to do this. Otherwise, what happens is we resort to brainstorming or best practices. Well, good grief. I don't want to, there's nothing wrong with those things. That's fine. Let's utilize brainstorming. Let's utilize best practices, but I don't want to rely on those. I want to rely on what he's asking us to do, because just because something worked for, you know, like all these other places doesn't really just going to work for me because I'm a unique couple. I'm a unique family. We're a unique business. We're a unique organization. And God's got a unique plan for us. So utilize those other things, but don't use those to make decisions. Let him tell you what the decision is informed by those things. Right. So we'll let the data inform us, but we're not going to rely on it. We're going to rely on what he reveals in prayer. How did you come up with this, like boiling this discernment process down to these four questions? There's a distinction. So we think there's actually a principle, and then we think there's a method of applying the principle. The principle is simply this. We have to learn how to restore the initiative to God. That's the principle. So Cardinal Council of Mesa, who was the Pope's preacher for decades. He gave an address to all the bishops 8, 9, 10 years ago, something like that. And in it, he had this great line. He says, you know, the apostles and the saints, they didn't just pray before they did their work. They prayed in order to know what to do. We need to learn how to do that. We do. So the principle is learning how to pray in order to know what to do or what we call restoring the initiative back to God. Why didn't they put this in Scripture? Well, they did. It's called Our Lady. It's in Luke 1. She's doing the four steps? She's not doing the four steps, but she's certainly restoring the initiative to God. So that's the principle. I mean, it would be helpful, though. The method of these questions. I mean, not to sound crazy here, but when I think about, like, obviously, Holy Scripture is, you know, it's God's Word. It's inspired, you know, divinely inspired everything else. But, like, I think this question of, like, how to discern things, how to figure things out, how to know who I am, It's plagued the human person since the beginning of time, really. As soon as we fell, we got all messed up and didn't know what way was it right side up. And there is, I think, a very beautiful simplicity and clarity in this mechanism that you've been employing. I should say deploying. Yeah, we think so, too. I mean, it's, you know, the things we would say about what God's given us, everything he's given us is very simple. It's just not easy. but things have to be simple when did you start using the four steps? do you call them the four steps? no, so again what we teach is the principle the questions are in application of the principle, but the principle is not limited to those questions a couple could go into the Lord or they could go with their family and bring all sorts of other questions about what the Lord might be wanting to put on our hearts that we want to get clarity on but those are the places that we might suggest you start but it sounds like the principle is like you said, you're receiving from the Lord. You're letting him be in command. Him be the Lord, truly the Lord of your life. And you have to ask questions. I think that's the Lord. You have to knock on the door. You have to seek and you will find. You have to ask and you will be answered. You have to ask. And I think we've lost the art of asking good questions about our own lives and our own futures. Oh, yes. And the Lord will speak if we ask him. And he wants to ask us questions, too. Like, annoying questions. Like, do you want to be well? which is a really annoying question. Do you want to be well? Yeah. Do you want me to heal you? Yeah. Do you want me to heal you? Like he says that to somebody who's been sick for 38 years. Do you think, my gosh, what a, and you think that's because they just given up and they were kind of like resigned to their. I don't know. When he asked me that question, I say, I don't know. Cause I like my, I like some of my illnesses. They're why they're my excuses. They're why I'm not better. I don't know how I'd live without these. Wow. You know, in a strange way, they can even become your identity. Yeah, that's who I am. No, it's not. You're my son. You're my daughter. That's who you are. So do you want to be well or what would you like me to do for you? You know, imagine asking a guy who can't see that question because Jesus does. Hello, blind man. What would you like me to do for you? Well, I'd really like to be able to see. But in order to say that, I have to have the faith that you can actually do that. So I don't know that I have the courage to say that. So the Lord asks questions, we can ask him questions too. And he loves it when we ask him questions. Then we just have to be ready for whatever he says. One thing that I feel that a lot of people, along with what you just shared, which is so powerful, those four questions, is, you know, Lord, do you want me to dream of something? Or is there something more of like that? I'm not thinking big enough, Lord. And I think this is an area in my life I've had to practice because I think when we want to be humble, we want to be obedient servants of our Lord. It's not about us. It's about him, everything, right? So I think there's a fear of greatness because people are afraid of being proud or they're not wanting to get sidetracked or go the wrong direction. How do you counsel people? So we'll go back to Joan, because I think that's a spot-on challenge for lots of people. We're all tempted to pride. We all have an ego. We're all prone to be vain. Everybody. Magnanimity, which is what Joan has, is literally greatness of soul. That's a heck of a virtue to have. So greatness of soul is just this awareness of you're a great God. you don't give chintzy gifts to anybody and i'm your creature and not just your creature but your son or your daughter you've entrusted things to me i want to make a good return on these so help me arouse within me a desire to do great things not for me again but for you and then you know like hopefully we've got people in our lives who can speak into our lives when when we're prone to go astray and go, hey, it's becoming a lot about you right now. But here's a question. If you never hear that. Never hear what? Oh, are you going a little much to yourself? Like, are you doing this for you? Or is it meaning if you never take the risk? Because I just think about the parable of the talent. So I think you mentioned it kind of haunts you. It definitely has haunted me in my life. And I'm sure the guy who buried the talent, maybe you could have an interpretation. Well, he was like, I don't want to like be too cool for school. I don't want to. it's not just I don't want to fail or I don't want to work hard or I don't trust the master. It could also just be like, I don't trust myself. Oh, yeah. And so I'm afraid that I'm going to whatever the hang up is, but it might be he was afraid of his own pride. Yeah, it might have been. But so, again, there's that fear again. That's a huge stronghold of the enemy. So we need to be in this deep communion with the Lord. And then we need deep communion with others who can rouse us to do great things that we can do great things with. and who will be loving, honest, close enough friends to us and us to them that we can say, hey, this is not anymore about God. That looked a lot like about you. Like, I need that. We need that. Otherwise, if you're a Lone Ranger, you're in trouble because the enemy will play all over that. Look how successful you are. Look at what you're able to do. Look at this. And it's just like, just start entertaining all sorts of thoughts. And then God has a way of dealing with people like that. He just pulls the rug out and lets you fall on your face. And you're like, hmm, what do you think now? How independent are you? You need me. And that's a good thing. But if we have friends with us, it spares the step of him pulling the rug out from under us and us landing on our face, which happens often, I think. what kind of changes have you seen in people's lives who for the maybe first time pray like this security peace joy these sound like buzzwords but they're not i mean like security is really amazing um confidence um excitement with regards to um like we're fired up again for mission it's like god could have created you to be alive at any moment in history he chose now like god chose me to be alive now and so for every person to come to realize that like wow i got a purpose for my life right now and and the lord's revealing that to me in all these different ways that he reveals it to me and so i'm i'm living my life not as an automaton and It's certainly not in a boring fashion. I'm living my life in this drama of friendship with God. And he's saying to me, hey, why don't you collaborate with me today in recreating my world? Would you like to do that? Because I love this world. That's why I made it. And one day I'm going to remake it all. But in the meantime, I want to use you as like my working instrument in it to help me get this part of the world back. and I think when people experience that oh it's just exciting especially when they experience it together then they go on mission together they don't just keep the machine running they go on mission together and they engage and they get enlivened and they're confident as they go out and doing what they're doing together whatever it is as a couple as an organization, as a parish as a presbyterate, whatever the case might be and oh and by the way the one who's sending us, he defeated death. He defeated sin. He defeated Satan. He has no rival. He's the one who's calling us to go. So let's go. What advice do you have for business owners or nonprofit ministry leaders who are trying to put together teams, but maybe they're in the secular space. And so they're not like necessarily just going to hire or they want to be open to not just hiring Christians or people who would be able to pray like this. But at the same time, if they want to have a transformational maybe business, certainly nonprofit, they want to be able to use this approach of really receiving from God's spirit. What is the plan uniquely for this entity or what should I do? Yeah, a couple of things come to mind. So every organization has to have clarity in its culture. Like, who are we? Why do we exist? How do we behave? Like, those are really important questions. so i can be so let's put in a for-profit company you know i can be a seriously devout disciple of jesus and not have to you know hire only believers but everybody that i hire they'll want to know well what is this organization all about like what do we do how do we behave what is our purpose for existing. And so I want to invite people into, I have to, as a leader, I got to cast a vision for what we're about. Otherwise you're going to be frustrated. You're going to have a job. I don't want you to just have a job. I mean, that's not very fulfilling. You want mission. Even if you're not a believer, you want mission. So this is what we're about. You want to be a part of it? Yeah, I do. I'm a serious disciple of Jesus. That's great. That's fine. I'm not, but I love the mission. So I'm in. So I think we have to, if we're leading something, we have to know why we're doing what we're doing. We're not just trying to make money. But if I'm a disciple of Jesus and I'm leading something and I want people to help me lead, for profit, not for profit, I'll do much better if the people who are helping me lead think the way I think. They don't parrot me, but they have the same worldview that I have. Because now we can go as the leaders and we can pray about all sorts of things and then we can continue just to impart vision to those that we're entrusted with the task of leading so that we're doing whatever we're doing. Do you think parents should do this sort of exercise and this sort of prayer with their children? I know parents who have. One of the guys on our team, he did it with his, he's got eight kids. He did it with his children, age 30 to 13. As a group? As a group. They all went away. They said, we're going to pray with these things. He and his wife had done it before him. For the family mission? Yep. So had they done it individually before that, all the kids? or they were going to do it and then do the family mission. I don't know if they had done the four individual exercises alone, but I know they did the four together. The husband and the wife did them themselves first about the family, and then they invited the kids to pray into it. Kids got the same answers that the husband and wife got. Stop it. 13 to 30. Do you think families have missions? Absolutely. And marriages have missions? Absolutely. The mission of a married couple, simply, I think, is to help the other know who God is. So my dad, my dad was my hero. My mom and dad were married 66 years. My mom went through a horrible trauma of a divorce, a really bad divorce when she was in college. My dad, when he married my mom, knew my mom's wounds. so she was the only daughter of my grandfather who had walked out on her mom left her feeling rejected discarded unloved even though she in the world's eyes had everything so my dad knew his mission was to heal that you know that the anima christi prayer which i love you know the one line is within your wounds hide me which doesn't mean protect me from getting hurt it means wherever there's pain Lord in your body place me like use me as a salve to heal that so when you get married please God you know each other's lives and sometimes we end up pushing each other's buttons which is not the purpose of knowing each other's lives but in knowing each other's lives we're supposed to be able to say to the Lord Lord I know that's his wound use me to heal it and so my dad who was super successful he made his life's goal i'm going to let you know this is to my mom that you're not rejected and not discarded and not unloved and he just demonstrated that over and over and over again so my dad died first and right before my dad um it's just we started the funeral we're about to process down the main aisle and my mom's in a wheelchair at this point she wheels herself over to my dad's casket and she puts her hand on his arm. And I just happened to be standing there and I think she was utterly oblivious. And she looks at my dad's body and she says, Honey, because of you, I know who God is. How beautiful. That's the purpose. That's the mission of marriage. Marriage is a sacrament, visible sign of an invisible reality. Visible sign, you. Just you. Just Lila. I think a lot of couples just start to forbear with each other or just sort of tolerate each other instead of really dynamically developing an intimacy that is moving towards growth and healing and restoration. Because that work can be so complex and there's so many challenges. It's so fraught, right? but it sounds like what you're saying is instead of forbearing with the wounds of the other or the issues or the unresolved stuff of the other, the prayer should not just be like give me patience, let me just deal with this person the prayer should be like help me be healing, not that you wouldn't go out and be the doctor but help me be healing in their lives yeah, don't, yeah great, I love the distinction there it's not Lord help me to fix them it's help me use me to be a means by which that pain can get healed. Beautiful. Because that's what the Lord wants to do. That's so beautiful. And it's possible. Have you seen it? Healing happen in marriages. Oh, yeah. Have you seen guys after they've worked with you and your team, like totally change their life, blow up their lives? Oh, yeah. Almost, almost universally, everybody goes through these week-long immersives that we do. They leave utterly transformed. that's why we say it's not like it's not that it works it's that god works because god wants to do this god wants his world back he wants people do like super dramatic things afterwards like quit something start something you know we've seen people step off the teams realizing i can't do this oh meaning like i'm opting out i'm not you don't have to find me i can't i can't do this like this is this is asking too much of me and that's a great thing because that now they're going to find a better place for them to be wow right so that's a good thing this is not for me yeah and We've seen other teams just go from like maintaining status quo to suddenly we are wholeheartedly in the game, whether as a chancery office or a bishop and his team or a pastor who's just like we're just suddenly turned on to whatever God wants us to do. Amazing. Have you done marriage retreats? With this? Yeah. We've had married couples come to us for some of the immersives. You could totally do marriage retreats, not to give you more work. I know you guys are a little busy, but. We loved. It works in every context. Yes. As long as you've got the ingredients of I have a biblical worldview, we can have good, healthy debate. And we believe that God talks. Let's go talk to him and let's talk about what he says. All right. I've got to ask, you know, we've got to wrap in here in a minute. But what does this mean for the ecumenate, for ecumenism and for unity in the church? Because I get the privilege and I was raised Protestant. I became Catholic. Folks know some of my story on the show. But we interview a lot of different and have a lot of different people on the show, different faith backgrounds. and you know my my one of my deepest goals and hearts and missions is christian unity i think we're all supposed to be one and in many ways we are we're one in baptism we're one in the name of jesus but there's more to the faith than um the name of jesus means so much right and how we live together and how we how we're supposed to break bread you know the eucharist is i believe the soul you know body blood soul and the ability of jesus so um what does this look like to do this kind of on-mission work between Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox. So imagine what would happen if Christian leaders, rather than sat around and had a bunch of apologetic conversations about why we aren't all one, said, you know what, why don't we scrap that? Why don't we just go into a place where we all feel comfortable praying and we bring him some questions? Together. Yeah. Yeah, because only God's going to fix this disunity that's there. And sometimes we're not sure what God's will is. In this case, we know what God's will is. Jesus' fervent prayer is for the unity of all those who believe in him, so that the world will believe that the Father sent the Son, and so that the world will believe that the Father loves them the way he loves the Son. So we know this is a passionate desire of God. So what if we actually went into wherever we're going to go to pray, We're going to say, how about we take an hour and we ask the Lord, all of us together who love him and who are saddened over the disunity that exists between us and who want more but don't know how to fix it. And brainstorming isn't going to fix it. And no one's shown us how to fix it. And me giving you a catechism doesn't fix it. How about we go ask him, Lord, you do what only you can do. Because this looks like a way. We need a way out of no way. That's what we need. And this is what you do. You bring dead things back to life. In hopeless situations, you give hope. So how about we go ask them, Lord, what's the biggest gift that we have as brothers and sisters? That should be the question. That'd be the first question. What's the biggest gift? That'd be the first question. Just like a married couple. The good news, bad news sandwich. Yeah. So what's the biggest gift you've entrusted to us? Beautiful. Then, what's holding us back from being in unity? What do you think it is? I don't know. I don't know. Different groups of people? I don't know. It might be because I think, I don't know how God's going to do this. The Catholics might get, oh, you act too judgy, and the Protestants might get, come on, just accept Rome. I don't know. I don't either. That's why people ask questions, and it's like, oh, we have to go ask him. I don't know what God's going to answer, but I do know he's going to answer, because he wants to fix this. He wants to heal this. He wants his body together. Then we ask him, what's the enemy's strategy, his primary strategy against us? And he'll speak into that. and then we're going to get to, okay, based on what you've revealed as our biggest gift and our relationship as brothers and sisters, even though we're separated, what's the thing that's holding us back from being together on mission to go out and share the gospel and change the world? What's the enemy's primary strategy against us as believers? Now, based on what you've revealed, Lord, where do you want us to attack? Oh, wouldn't that be amazing? Oh, yes. What if Martin Luther had done that? We wouldn't have had. but we could have had because you could have hardness of heart you can hear from the Lord and you can say I don't want to do that but less likely if I'm with other people doing it that's true because you'll call me on yes that's true and we will discern together I don't think that's what the Lord's saying I think this is what the Lord's saying what if all the Protestants say well you're supposed to give up these parts of your Catholic faith and the Orthodox say yeah you're in the wrong Catholics and the Catholics are like come on guys you know where you belong but I don't think that's what the spirit would do I don't think that's what the spirit would do I don't think that's what the spirit would do I think our experience every time we do this the spirit might not do that, the spirit would not do that but people's own but again, if I know you love the Lord and you want union like I want union you're asking with sincerity then we trust he's going to speak and we should be able to discern how do you know if it's God it's in the court of scripture leading me into charity can I ask about the meeting you did recently or is that off the record no I think it's great just share how did it go did you guys do this and what happened no we didn't do it yet why not too early you're building bonds yeah I think so you can't love what you don't know and so I think the primary purpose of 25 or so of us who just got together from all over, you know, Orthodox, Evangelical, Protestants, not Evangelical, Roman Catholics, religious, ordained, lay, everybody, just to get to know each other, just to knock down walls. And then I think what's got to happen next is some of those people, I don't know who it is, I don't know if I'm part of that, it doesn't matter. We got to go do this now. Now it's just like, how about we don't talk now until after we pray? Well, and I think that group of 25, you can strike up groups of 25 everywhere. That's the thing. This is a project that if someone's listening and they're interested, I mean, do this for your marriage. Do this for your work. Do this for your nonprofit. Do this in your family with your kids. Do it as a pastor. But if you are the privilege of having friends that are different faith backgrounds and you love them and they love you, then you could do this with them. Yeah. And if you're really going to do the discernment, it can't be 25. That's why the next step. Yeah. How many? should it be eight at the most what if you have 10 kids you're doing a couple away for the weekend yeah let a couple free let them run around or something that is so funny well you yeah i guess like that that is what about the spouses similar what do you mean i'm sorry that i'm going a little on tangent here but i'm imagining what about if you have you know seven children they're all married with their own kids can you oh you could yeah i mean you you can apply these things in so many different context. The principle is the principle. The principle is let's restore the initiative to God. Let's ask the Lord to show us what does he want us to do? As opposed to just ask him to bless what we want to do, which is, I think, what most people ask. Right. Like, this is what we want to do, Lord. Please bless it. Well, scrap that. How about we ask him, what do you want me to do? What do you want us as a family to do? What do you want us as a couple to do? How do you want to uses and mission because again here's the world out there which is is at each other's throats right like everywhere this country and every other country we're at each other's throats and we're all looking for someone to fix this and so many people mistakenly think politics is going to fix this politics can't fix this politics is important it can't fix this because the key to problem solving is to define the problem. The problem's the human heart. Politics can't fix the human heart. Only God can. And he wants to. That's what he does. He takes people who used to hate each other and not make it so they tolerate each other. He makes it so they love each other. So let's ask him to do that. If we do that first as Christians, what a witness that would be to the world, then maybe they'd start paying attention. Amazing. Very exciting. Father, thank you. What a gift to get to here. Any final thoughts? Any last words from Joan? And also, how can people find your work? So our work is easy to find at x29.org, A-C-T-S-X-X-I-X.org. or you can go to rescueproject.us is another way to get to some of the work that we've created, which is this video experience, which is all online, which is free, which is our way of preaching the gospel. Last words. So my dad's 10th anniversary of his passing is coming up. He'll be here in a couple of weeks. And my dad's life was summarized by the words, be great. That's the last word. I think that's God to us. I made you for greatness. Go be great. Whatever that means, go be great. Live a life of courage. live a life of integrity, live a life of virtue, be great, do something with yourself. Every person I've created is special. So let me use you and let me exploit the gifts I've given you to change this world, which I so love. Amen. Thank you so much, Father. What a blessing. Thank you so much to everyone who has been subscribing. If you aren't already subscribed, be sure to hit that subscribe button. 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