Let Yourself Wrestle with God
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2020
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Have you ever felt like God really wanted you to do something, but you just weren’t ready for it? Maybe it’s a big life change, a relationship, or a vocation, but there’s something holding you back from saying yes to God’s call.
People may be inclined to think that this is a bad thing, and might put themselves down, saying they aren’t open to God’s will in their lives. But what if this back-and-forth with God is the one thing we need to really say yes?
When we wrestle with God, we’re not only engaging in relationship with him, but we’re being truly honest with him. He desires conversation with us, and it’s in wrestling with what God wants for our lives that we conform our hearts to his.
We may think we know God’s vocation for us, or his plan for our life, and that may scare us. But the truth is, we will never really be sure what God wants us to do until he really shows us. We can project sometimes. Right now, all he wants us to do is be his: to dedicate ourselves and our lives to him and his works, and to live every day as an opportunity to reach holiness.
Don’t pick a fight with God, thinking we know what he may want us to do someday. But don’t be afraid to wrestle with him today, because it can give us the strength and understanding needed to do his will.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmidt and this is Ascension Presents, two things about wrestling with God. |
| 0:03.4 | That's going to be the whole video. Just two quick, two quick, two brief things. |
| 0:16.3 | Number one is so often people will come to me because they feel bad that they're wrestling with God. |
| 0:22.6 | They feel bad that they're struggling with God. |
| 0:24.0 | They feel bad that God is calling them to do something and they're just not willing to do it right now. |
| 0:29.8 | And I totally understand that. |
| 0:31.4 | But they feel bad about themselves. They're accusing themselves. They're condemning themselves about this wrestling match. |
| 0:38.1 | What most often is the case. I want to say this to you. Maybe that's you right now. |
| 0:41.6 | What sometimes is most often the case is that wrestling match is part of getting closer to God. |
| 0:50.1 | Sometimes it's the wrestling where you get in contact with the Lord. |
| 0:55.3 | It's what you have to actually go through in order to be ready to take that next step of breakthrough. |
| 1:01.6 | Here's what I mean. |
| 1:03.1 | Okay, so for years I was like, God, what do you want me to do? |
| 1:07.1 | What do you want me to be? You want me to be a priest? Not a priest? I don't know. |
| 1:09.7 | And so sometimes there was this wrestling match, even when I got to seminary. |
| 1:12.7 | This is where the real wrestling happens, right? Where it's just like, we can go back and forth. |
| 1:16.3 | God, like, I don't know. Sometimes there's pain and sometimes there's joy. |
| 1:19.1 | But sometimes there's a real sorrow. Sometimes there's real happiness. |
| 1:22.1 | But just like this back and forth to stay away from God in that, to not wrestle with Him, |
| 1:26.9 | would A be keeping your distance from the Lord, would B not being authentic, not being honest with the Lord, |
| 1:31.9 | because when we wrestle with God, we're being honest and saying, God, here's what I truly want, |
| 1:35.2 | but you're calling these somewhere else. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ascension, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Ascension and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.