Trying to Keep God at a Distance?
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Ascension
4.9 • 7.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2019
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When it comes to trying to control God and keep him at a distance in our lives, there are at least two ways that we go about it. Either we lay low and stay out of trouble, or we excel at whatever task we’ve currently been assigned to. Both strategies intend to keep God out of our lives so we can keep doing what we’re doing, because we’re comfortable doing it. Well, if you’re in one of those camps, get ready because God can call you to something different any minute now.
You may not have even noticed yourself slipping into one of these subtle thought processes that so many of us slip into. That’s why it’s important to give our lives to God at least daily. Try doing it first thing in the morning before anything else. That’s how Fr. Mike does it, and it seems to have worked out quite well for him.
“Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My name is Father Mike Schmidt and this is Ascension Presents. |
| 0:02.7 | So this is the time of year. |
| 0:04.3 | Well, when I'm making this, it's roughly the spring time. |
| 0:07.7 | It's time of year where a lot of priests, they get like kind of, they're either looking for a call |
| 0:13.9 | or dreading a call from their bishop who says either, hey, you can stay in your assignment or |
| 0:19.6 | hey, I'm going to need to move you to another assignment. |
| 0:22.7 | And it's really funny because, by the way, I'm not being moved as far as I know, |
| 0:27.2 | it got me to thinking about just kind of the ways different priests approach the bishop. |
| 0:32.5 | Usually I would bring it down to like one of two things sometimes, not always obviously. |
| 0:37.8 | These are the kind of the two if I don't want to be moved. |
| 0:42.4 | Here are the strategies, the priests employ in order to try and act as get moved by the bishop. |
| 0:49.0 | Number one is just stay off the bishop's radar, right? |
| 0:51.4 | Just kind of like, lay low. |
| 0:54.0 | Don't do anything. |
| 0:55.2 | Like, kind of really, yeah, don't do anything. |
| 0:57.7 | I'm just kind of like no news, it's good news, but you can't complain about it because |
| 1:02.7 | I'm off the bishop's radar. |
| 1:04.1 | The other strategy is to like do awesome, to do so well that like he couldn't possibly move me |
| 1:11.2 | because if I do really, really well, then he has to keep me in this assignment because I'm doing |
| 1:16.8 | so well and he doesn't want to mess with, you know, don't monkey with the system if it's if it's |
| 1:21.5 | working, right? |
| 1:22.5 | Interestingly, neither of those strategies, I think typically work for any priest, but that's our |
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