Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What's up, you guys? I'm emceeing a Steubenville youth conference this weekend. It's incredible to see the faith of these kids. This is like one conference of many. And there's about 40,000 kids going to these youth conferences this summer.
[00:00:11] But I'm taking a little break from the kids and wandering the grounds here.
[00:00:16] And there's a Benedictine cemetery here behind me.
[00:00:19] All these monks buried here, they all had something in common.
[00:00:22] Long before they were dead.
[00:00:25] They left the world, they exited.
[00:00:28] That's one of the reasons that Benedictines wear black. It's a sign that, hey, I'm already dead. Dead to the world, alive in Christ.
[00:00:35] But guys, it's not because they think the world is bad.
[00:00:38] It's not actually. They have a commitment to hospitality.
[00:00:41] See, they keep their doors open to the world. They think the world is good, but they just think there's something even better than this world. And so they want to start embracing and living that very directly right now. And this is a perfect place to reflect on the Gospel where Jesus said that his Word is like a seed planted in the ground and that some of these seeds try to grow, but they're choked out. And he lists a couple reasons, a couple things that stop us from growing into greatness, from becoming the you that God made you to be.
[00:01:10] And one of the things is the anxieties of this life and a love for money, a love for stuff.
[00:01:18] Mark's translation just says other things.
[00:01:21] Other things choke out the word and it doesn't bear full fruit in your life.
[00:01:26] Paul talked about this in 2 Timothy 4. He wrote about somebody who abandoned them and their mission. Not because of a scandal or mortal sin or because this dude had this financial scandal or sexual scandal. No, just because he loved the world too much.
[00:01:44] So here's the spiritual jiu jitsu that we're supposed to play. See, not all of us get the calling to exit the world long before we're dead. Most of us, most of y' all listening are not monks. Father Weta shout out to you, alright, so you're a monk, but most of us are not. And we live in this world. But whether you're a monk or not, we're supposed to see the beauty of the world. We're supposed to actually enjoy it.
[00:02:10] You know, I see skies of blue, clouds of white. God wants you to see all this stuff in the world, and he wants you to actually love it and to discover him in it.
[00:02:19] His fingerprints are all over the beautiful world that he made.
[00:02:23] But the trick Is this, guys, in Catholic tradition, there are three sources of temptation. Three main things that draw you away from God, the world, the flesh and the devil. Now the devil, that's easy to recognize, all right, the evil one. And you can recognize if there's that inner voice leading you to self loathing or to sin. The devil, the flesh. Well, sometimes the devil could just sit on the sidelines and drink a beer because your flesh has got his job covered.
[00:02:47] Just base temptations and people give in to those. And you know, our lady at Fatima said that souls fall into hell for sins of the flesh like snowflakes. Lots of people abandon the path to greatness just because of basic temptations that they never built the virtue to respond to.
[00:03:03] If that's you build up those virtues, go to confession, lean into the Lord, but then the world, the trickiest one of all, because it's something that we're supposed to deal with, to actually enjoy.
[00:03:15] If you're a layman providing for a family. You know, when the Lord says to not be anxious about money and stuff, well, you still have to make money to save money and maybe you make lots of it. So where do you go wrong?
[00:03:29] Where does the world become a problem?
[00:03:31] It's when our obsession with our concern over our love of this world stuff outweighs our love. Our desires that are attached to eternal stuff.
[00:03:46] That's it. Sounds simple, right? It's not easy at all, though. Listen, how do you make sure that we moderate our love of things in this world when we're supposed to actually really enjoy these things?
[00:03:57] I'm going to give you two tips. Number one, I want you to pause and ask your own heart, what do you desire?
[00:04:05] The spiritual life starts with that question. Jesus, his first words in the Gospel of John, he turned around, saw men following him, and he said, what do you want?
[00:04:14] What do you seek? What are you desiring?
[00:04:17] And then ask, are these desires outgrowing, outpacing or crowding out my desires for eternal things? It's a hard question, but it's something we're all supposed to look at.
[00:04:29] Are the desires around health, around income?
[00:04:33] Again, you're a person living in the world. You're supposed to be concerned about those things. But if your concern about those things is greater than your desires for eternal things, well then your desires are growing out of control.
[00:04:48] That's one.
[00:04:49] So check your own heart. Because sometimes you think without thinking about what you're thinking. But you can also start to will and wish and dream and strive without willing to.
[00:04:59] Your own spirit starts to Go on autopilot.
[00:05:02] And the monastic life is a reminder.
[00:05:06] Don't let your spirit go on autopilot. Stop and ask yourself, what do I actually want?
[00:05:10] And is it aligning with the desires that God has for me for eternal things?
[00:05:14] But then number two, empty your bucket list. Shave it down a little bit. What desires do you have that you can actually get rid of?
[00:05:23] Arthur Brooks has a great tip on how to do this. Every birthday he takes an assessment of what his bucket list is, the things that he really wants to accomplish in his life. And then he thinks, he asks himself a question. And he writes about this in his book From Strength to Strength. Anyway, you got to get it. It's a great book.
[00:05:39] But he imagines his life with all those worldly, all this side of eternity desires fulfilled and the kind of person he'd have to be to get them.
[00:05:50] Then he imagines the kind of person he is if he's just content without.
[00:05:54] I'll give you an example. Let's say you have this desire, this growing dream for your vacation home in Hawaii.
[00:06:00] Cool, that's a fun, that's a fun dream to have. But actually stop and think about it because some people can dream and dream about things like that and go on Zillow all the time for something that's actually just not even gonna happen. And it becomes tips. From fun into spiritual energy drain. It just becomes those other things that crowd out spiritual things. So he takes an assessment about, you know, what kind of person would I have to be? Would I have to get a second job? How stressed out would I be? How worried about the other property would I be? He asks those honest questions and then he imagines himself just as a 70 year old guy, content without.
[00:06:33] And then he'll just say it out loud because sometimes you have to say something with your mouth to inform your heart.
[00:06:40] I just, Lord, I just surrender that desire to you. I give it up, I check it off the list without it being fulfilled right now.
[00:06:49] Kind of cool, huh? But listen, all those desires that we take assessment of and maybe the bucket list items that we empty, it's not because they're bad. And again, this is why the temptation that is the world can be a tricky one.
[00:07:01] It's because there's something better. There's something better that the monastic life points to even when these guys are above the ground and walking around here and now. And that something better is the love of God.
[00:07:12] Guys, when I asked my wife to marry me, I was turning my back on all other women.
[00:07:20] Why? Because they're bad? No, because I had found one. That, for me, was my calling in life, was the something better. And so I left a whole world behind me for the love that was before me. This is the Christian life.
[00:07:34] This is how we're to moderate our desires that are attached to this world, our dreams that are connected to this world. Guys, at this ministry conference, dude, I love doing ministry. I really do praise God for it. And I've given up a lot to do it.
[00:07:48] And right now, thank God, I'm doing well enough financially to be comfortable with my family. But that wasn't always the case. As a layman doing ministry, dude, there's been times where I was so broke that I had the painful experience. I don't usually share this. The painful experience of not being able to make car payments. This is when I was young and in ministry and a dude from the bank came to my house, said, sorry, man, I gotta take the keys. And I watched him drive away with my car.
[00:08:17] Really painful. But I'll tell you what. For all the stability that God has allowed, you know, me writing books and stuff like that, to create in my life, if I had to choose to go that broke again or leave ministry, I would 100%, because I value these eternal things more. I would 100% prefer to go broke a second time because there's an eternal value that I'm conscious of that I've informed my mind and my heart about that. I value that more than financial stability and having more stuff.
[00:08:54] What's coming between you and the kingdom?
[00:08:57] What are you valuing more than eternal things?
[00:09:01] Ask your own heart, what am I desiring? And what bucket list items do you need to thin out to put the kingdom first so that his word planted in you would grow and grow and grow and grow. And not that you become less than, but that you become the person that God's created you to be.
[00:09:18] And the beautiful irony of that is, and Jesus promised this, when you give up things for me, I give you a hundredfold back. In this life and in the next with persecution, he actually threw that little tag in there too. But the way that we get it all back is this. It's the same way St. Francis experienced. Guys, Francis gave up everything. He radically embraced poverty.
[00:09:36] But you're not gonna find a saint who reveled in the beauty of creation more. See, because having given up everything, he wasn't going through life afraid and grasping and holding on to everything. He was just receiving everything with open hands as a gift.
[00:09:49] Or think of Carlo Acutis, who one of the very few videos we have of the guy. He says in Italian, I am destined to die.
[00:09:58] I think people overlook the mystical life this kid had. I think that he knew as a young man that he was going to die young.
[00:10:04] And then he grins at the camera.
[00:10:08] Basically, I'm not afraid of it either, because ultimately I exist for eternal life.
[00:10:15] Carlo Kutas, pray for us. St. Francis, pray for us. And all you monks buried in the cemetery behind me who are with the Lord, pray for us. I love you guys.
[00:10:45] So young people aren't that into their faith, are they? I don't know, man.
[00:10:56] When they discover who they are in God, there's joy, there's freedom that the world can't give.
