Podcast

Today we’re talking about something we see far too often: living with one foot in the world and one foot in the faith. It’s time to make a choice, to stop hedging our bets, and go all in with Christ.

In this episode, we share our own struggles with lukewarm faith and explore what it means to commit fully to God. We look at examples from Scripture—like Elijah calling out the people on Mount Carmel and David’s heartfelt psalm of trust—to remind us that God doesn’t want a half-hearted relationship. Advent is a time to prepare, reflect, and decide: Will we give our all to Him, or keep clinging to the distractions of the world?

Victor and I are passionate about helping you find the joy, peace, and purpose that only Christ can bring. This episode is a wake-up call for anyone who’s ready to stop living a “safe” faith and start living a fulfilled one.

Don’t miss this one, and as always, share it with someone who might need to hear this message. God bless!

Get all the details 👉 here

 

 

 Well, welcome back to the Pew everybody. I’m your host, John Edwards, and here across the table from me as always is my. Co host and cohort, Victor Adams. You know, uh, it finally got comfortable here. It was an ice box in here earlier. Um, I had to wear some layers today because I knew this is like kind of like the out, you know, it’s attached to your house.

It was great. It’s an amazing studio. If anyone wants to come and do a tour, let John know. We’re going to need to do some background checks before that. But no, you’re right. It was cold in here. I mean, some days I stay in the house and work just because. It’s a different heating system and all that. Yeah, it says 55 when you come in.

We all know, well, we all know that, you know, in the wintertime those gas bills can get crazy. So, if I’m not working out here doing calls with parishes and stuff, sometimes I’m just, right now I’m spending a lot of time writing the book. So I can sit in the house when the heat’s already on. Right, I find out why you keep a call for me to stay asleep, uh, stay awake.

That’s right, yeah. Cause I, in the old days Trying to turn your headlights on. Right, in the old days. We were just doing like, you know, no, no video. There was times where I was like this. Oh yeah. John be like, John be like nudging. Cause we were sitting next to each other. We did, uh, The old, uh, what was it?

Cafe? Cafe Catholic. Cafe Studio. Yeah. Studio. Yeah. So you would sometimes nudge me and I’d be like, bless, pray. Praise God. Yeah. Oh, Jesus, here. Yeah. Yeah. It’s . So, uh, so you know, we would, yeah, we used to set up IVs, uh, of coffee for Victor, just a straight coffee in the whole time, espresso shots. So anyways, that’s, that’s the history of this, this kind of story.

So, yeah. No, but it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s, uh, we’re in the middle of Advent, right? We’re going into, this will be the third week of Advent. So, you know, we’re continuing talking about, uh, the things that we’re going to talk about in the context of Advent. You know, we had the episode with Heather Kim and then last week, uh, we talked about, uh, preparing the way of the Lord, uh, and staying awake.

Yeah. When, prepare yourself, stay awake. Staying awake. That’s right. So right on your point of what you were talking about. So we’re going to jump into another topic today that I’ve just really been praying about and thinking about during Advent. Before we do that, I just want to invite everybody. And remind everybody that we do have that pilgrimage coming up, uh, going to Greece and Turkey to walk in the footsteps of St.

Paul with my good friend, Father James Clark from the Diocese of Memphis. That is taking place September 9th through the 20th, um, of next year. We already have a bunch of people signing up, Black Friday and all that stuff. They had sales. It’s already starting to fill up. We’re only taking one bus. That means less than 50 people.

Um, so if you’re interested in going with us, you can go in the show notes and click and register and find out more about the trip there. Or you can go to just a guy in the pew. com, go to our event page and right below our calendar is a whole section on the pilgrimage. And you can download the brochure.

You can do all that there and then register straight from our website. But we’re going to be doing a lot of amazing stuff. We’re going to be walking the footsteps of St. Paul. We’re going to see churches. We’re He wrote letters to places where he preached places where he traveled with Silas and some of his other, uh, disciples and brethren there.

Uh, we’re going to see the Island of Patmos and the grotto where St. John wrote revelation. We’re going to see the house where Mary, uh, was said to have lived her last days up until the Assumption. There’s just so many amazing things the seven churches of revelation Um, and there’s a cruise it’s a four day cruise involved in it, too So you’re in land and you’ll be through the Aegean sea Going to all these islands like Mykonos and Patmos and Rhodes and all these beautiful, uh other places So Folks, if you’re interested in that, go to the link in the show notes below in the description, go to our website, just to get on the pew.

com and you’ll see a pilgrimage thing at the top. Click it and join us there. We’d love to have you also for any of you that are looking to bring us in to help you start and launch vibrant life changing ministry to men, or you’re looking to do leadership summits or have us for conferences and do do multiple things like that.

Then, uh, we are taking reservations and bookings now, uh, through the latter half of 2025 and into the entirety of 2026. So if you’re looking to have us come help you start a life changing ministry for men in your parish, you want us to come in and do a leadership summit in your diocese, uh, to help get groups going in many parishes, just reach out to justgardenview.

com. Click the, the, any of the buttons on the page that say, find out more. It’ll pull up a place where you can put in your information. You can even schedule a call with me. And we’ll get all that set up. So folks just wanted to say that also. Thank you again to all those that gave on giving Tuesday and continue to give each and every day we’re growing those monthly partners in the pew, and it is helping us be able to move forward.

Um, we’re actually moving in a different direction with what we’re doing with marketing and we’re bringing on an admin, and then we’re going to be looking to bring on those missionaries we’ve been talking about for a long time. So please pray for that. And please, if you haven’t give given yet, please consider becoming a partner in the pew.

It really helps us in our mission. You can do that by going to just get on the pew. com too. All right, Victor. So let’s jump into it. So we talked about it. We’re here in Advent, the third week of Advent. And, you know, I’ve just been having this wonderful walk with the Lord personally. Um, you know, we were talking before the show, I was kind of lamenting over some things that have happened at the year that have been a little difficult.

You know, just things I didn’t know were going to happen. You brought your lyre out and you’re singing the harp of David and lamenting. I was impressed, you know, but, uh, it was one, you know, it’s just, it’s some things here at the end of the year. That have been difficult that I wasn’t expecting to deal with.

So the Lord’s been giving me a really great grace to just, you know, sit and prepare the way and, and to wait as you’ve said, and to really just sit in peace. And so I’ve had a lot of time to pray about a lot of things and reflected over 2024. And. Um, a lot of the relationships and a lot of the places that I’ve seen men and, and really just the church men and women in the church today.

And so I was praying their day and I was thinking about some of that stuff and you know, a big problem that I’ve seen a lot in, in the men that I’ve journeyed with and some of the men that are in, in the men’s groups that we walk with, um, you know, people that are just in the church. Um, there’s been this sort of problem of, of just man, this sort of one foot in and one foot out in the faith.

And again, I, I live my life a long time that way. Talk about hokey pokey. Yeah, just sort of this special hokey pokey and, and really just this, this, like this desire to not want to pick and choose a side, right? Like I’m going to try to live in the world and I’m going to try to live in the church. And yes, we have to have jobs.

We have to have things. I’m not talking about like the literal sense of having to live in the world, but it’s almost like, okay, I know that there’s God and there’s all the promises that he has, but I’m not sure that that’s real. And so I don’t want to like put all my time into that and go crazy and give my whole life to God.

And then find out at the end that nothing’s really there and it was all just something someone made up And so I I don’t want to lose what I could have had in my own life So there’s just kind of one foot one one in One foot in one foot out and this kind of desire to play it safe with god like i’m going to do enough with god to where Like god knows who I am and and possibly if if jesus were to come back tomorrow that maybe i’d make it in But I also am going to continue to flirt with the world and the things that they offer, because I want my cake and eat it too.

Like I don’t want to choose one or the other, because what if whatever I choose isn’t a safe bet, right? What if whatever I choose doesn’t turn out to pay out right. In the sense of like, Diversifying your money, right? For instance, well, what if I put it, if I put it all in that Apple stock and it crashes, then I’ve lost everything.

So I just want to diversify my money and put it everywhere, which is a smart thing, but it’s not always so smart to do in your faith because you’re pretty much hedging your bets. And God doesn’t like that. God wants us to make a choice and he wants us to choose him. It’s not about spreading out your, your life and yourself so that you can walk in both worlds and kind of jump back and forth with, you know, whichever, whichever way the balls.

You know, whichever side’s winning, right? Or whichever side is offering you more at the time. But I see that in a lot of lives of men today. I see it in a lot of the people we’re working with. Like, hey, I want to change my life, but I still want to do all the other things I’ve been doing. I just really want to feel better about myself for a little while.

I don’t really want to change. So can I sort of keep walking this life over here and then kind of stick my toe in the life of a Christian? You know, because we’re not just talking about Catholics. It’s every Christian out there. It’s a lot of parts of the faith you see this in. where people are trying to put on the pose of, I’m a good Christian and I’m giving my life to Christ on stuff.

But they’re still over here living fully in the world and they haven’t made a choice. They’re playing both sides of the table. Yeah. Um, that’s kind of like what you’re talking about. The world’s very good. at giving misdirections or distractions. Uh, every day we go about setting the course that we need to do in order to provide, uh, income for our family and to answer emails and to do everything we can.

And then sometimes during that busyness, we kind of like forget that God’s even part of our life. You know, cause we’re distracted by everything else. So that is the, the encouraged, uh, I guess, incursion of misdirection of what the world tells us to focus on. And the danger of that is, is that over time, we not only neglect going to God or spending time in prayer, we start developing our own philosophy.

Yeah. We start justifying, well, you know, I mean, life’s pretty good, you know, I mean, we’ve missed, you know, for, for Catholics, you know, we’re, we’re supposed to go to mass every, every Sunday. Yeah. And that’s just, that’s just the expectation, you know, of, of being a Catholic. Yeah. Um, and not to say that every person that’s not in the Catholic faith, you know, don’t, doesn’t go to a Sunday worship all the time, but I do know a lot of people, cause I came from that, that, uh, that faith that sometimes golfing or, uh.

Hunting or fishing fishing sports. Yeah, right usurp that time, you know, that’s the important part and you know, everyone needs recreation I totally get it. I’m not, you know land blasting people like that because sometimes you just you know Sometimes unfortunately sporting events are always on like sunday.

Yeah, even within the catholic faith. We have volleyball basketball I mean, so it’s kind of like catholic run sports organizations, right? so there is that that that process that sometimes we We don’t know We negate the sense of worship and community worship and we, we, we create our own philosophy and say, well, uh, uh, God loves me, you know, but I believe more spiritual life rather than religious life.

And when we start divesting, you’re talking about, you know, financing stuff, we start divesting faith from spiritual or religion. from spirit, we, that’s what the danger we form, we form our own faith, we form our own philosophy and we get further and further from the truth and we make up our own idea of who God is or who Christ is or who Buddha is or who, uh, you know, uh, Allah is.

And so it gets to the point where we’re, we’re, we’re so convoluted in our faith that we don’t really know who it is we believe in. And then we started to believe more in ourselves. Yeah. And we, you just start to struggle and you’re wearing these masks and things, right? Like that’s the thing. A lot of us, and I know, cause again, I’m not pointing my finger at anybody but myself here, you know, in my past and things.

I would, I would put on the Christian mask and the church mask on Sunday, just like I would the work mask and the, this friend mask and this guy mask. Yeah, for an hour and a half you wear it. Yeah. And wear it. And you’re like, okay, I did enough to check the boxes to. You know, if I die tomorrow, if I have a heart attack, get hit by a bus, maybe God will look mercifully upon me and I’ll go to heaven because I, I did some things and that’s dangerous because you, you start to, it’s almost like you’re, you believe you can earn your way into heaven and that’s not what it’s about.

We’re supposed to be doing things out of love, but it’s like love doesn’t hedge their bets and I keep saying that phrase and. You know, I’m sure everybody listening is familiar, but if you’re not like hedging, your bets is really just, it’s a phrase. It’s like, I don’t want to, I’m afraid of making a mistake.

So I’m going to, I’m going to spread things out. Right. I’m going to put things out there, um, and play both sides of the issue so that I come out either way. It’s that gambling turn, right? I’m going to hedge my bet while things like hedge funds, right. It’s, it’s playing things so that. There really is no opportunity for loss and that you come out smelling like a rose, no matter what happens, but we can’t do that with our faith.

God, you know, what does Jesus say in the Bible? You can’t serve God in mammon, right? Like you can’t. He, he says that multiple times. You can’t have a foot in this and a foot in that. It’s one or the other, right? You can’t put your hands to the plow and then turn back and look back because guess what?

You’re going to have the most crazy line that you, you’ve ever, you know, dug in the sand to plant crops. Like you’re going to be crazy and all over the place. So Jesus tells us that over and over again. But the thing is, it’s, it’s human nature for us to want to hedge our bets, right? Like we’re so afraid.

Of choosing wrong in things right instead of instead of like what is my heart leading me to or what is god calling me to? So we hedge our bets when we’re not sure what to go all in on, right? We want the safe play and we don’t know You know, we we start becoming a little bit everywhere and we get everywhere.

It’s like Trying to do 8 million things well, you’re never going to be able to do that because you can’t, like, you can’t give enough yourself to all these different things to really do all of them well. That’s why people like, very rarely do you see an athlete play football and baseball, Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson’s like, that’s it.

But how many players have ever played in the NFL, right? Or in the major league that weren’t able to do that because it’s, it’s a crazy talented person that can do that. For the most part, we have to concentrate on the one thing, right? And that’s why Jesus says, again, there’s one thing that matters, right?

There’s one thing. And so, We have to quit hedging our bets and this time for admin is a perfect time to do that Like as we’re preparing for the lord, that’s what we should be doing Like lord, where are the places in my life? Like we talked about last week that that i’m not surrendering to you that i’m not giving to you Where are the places that I still have?

My leg over in the, in the, in the secular world. Right. And still trying to live and have my cake and eat it too. Like I want to tell Jesus, I love him and I’ll give him my life. But over here, I’m still doing all these simple things that I know I shouldn’t be doing. And I’m not really making that much effort to stop them.

Or I’m turning all my attention to. to building up treasure on earth and all those things instead of using my gifts for what God wants them for. So there’s a lot of that that I think that we see like guys will come to us and we see it when they come to the group. It’s like, man, I want to change my life.

And I, I just, you know, I need help. And then they start to find help and then they disappear and you see them. You’re like, well, what’s going on? I’m fine now. I felt better. I went to confession. You guys really helped me. And six months later you see them and they’re in the same mess again. It’s because we can’t, it’s like trying to, to stand on two different skateboards and somebody push you as fast as they can down the road.

Eventually because of the curvature of the road, the obstacles in the way, those skateboards are going to start to spread and you’re either going to get cracked like a wishbone, you’re going to fall off and hurt yourself, or you’re going to have to choose one to jump on and with both feet and ride to avoid danger, to avoid falls in the pitfalls of life.

And that’s what, what we need to be thinking about here in Advent is like. I need to start making this choice and and stop being the people that that are really Just giving in to this hedging my bets and and out of fear Trying to live in both worlds because what if what if I give all my life and my time to god and none of that’s It’s all mumbo jumbo right and and i’m just dead and then I missed out on this opportunity to have this amazing life because I, I gave my life to the Lord and did all the things he wanted because again, so many of us look at equate giving our lives to Christianity and to Christ is becoming a servant, like a slave, not a servant, but a slave where it’s not like the amazing life that waits for you is in Christ, but we just can’t get out of the world.

So we, you know, we kind of make a deal with God. We’re like, okay, well, I’m going to continue to kind of do things over here. I need you to look the other way, but I’ll show up on these days and I’ll try to basically live by the commandments and, and I’ll try to partake in the sacraments every once in a while.

And, and maybe I’ll find a little time for prayer here and there. Usually when I need something, but like I’ll try to pray a little bit more than that. Maybe some prayers of gratitude and we wind up living this mediocre life, right? It’s not choosing either side and, and we know what the Lord says about that too, right?

He talks about that in scripture, being lukewarm and spitting you out of your mouth. We’re going to talk about that too, but this is a struggle that, you know, we’re trying to, to live in that world of Christianity and to do things as a Catholic we’re called to do, which is good. We should, but we also have to make that choice in that firm decision of the will.

That like when I start to move over to this Christian life, I can’t be, I can’t play both sides. It’s just like dating two women in your life is not a good idea, right? You’re going to wind up hurting one or both and losing both of them, stringing two jobs along forever that you’re trying to decide because you’re afraid about what if you pick this one or what if you pick that one and you don’t make a decision, you wind up losing an opportunity for both, right?

Because they’re going to hire somebody else. They’re not going to wait on you forever. And that’s why God and, and Jesus in, in parts of Matthew and other parts of scripture is very adamant about like standing guard and being ready and, and keeping watch and staying awake during Advent because it’s this, it’s this, it’s this constant calling to say you have to leave those other things behind.

You have to put that other stuff behind you. And if you don’t, you’re going to always struggle and there’s always going to be difficulty. Right. Well, you’re talking about essentially the soul. Our soul is essential because God created us, you know, God’s creation is our soul, but yet he gives us that, that free will to either love him or not love him, you know, and like going back, what I was saying is like, you know, I think everyone has this Exploratory phase in our life.

What is God in my life? What is my identity in Him? Do I believe in Him, or should I believe in Him? Those are fine. You know, we’re not questioning that. I mean, I did that when I was in my youth. You know, I say, okay, this is my mother and father’s faith, Presbyterian Church. You know, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, but what does that mean?

It means something to them, but what does it mean to me? You know, and, and, uh, by the way, we’re, what we’re saying is like, if, if you know God is important in your life, Christ is important in your life, we’re just, this is a wake up call saying, dive deeper into it. We’re not, we’re not chastising people who are, who are, don’t know it about it because they weren’t taught about it, where this is a call to action, you know, but we’re talking for people who know better like myself and like you, we talk about, we know better and we know that we have to set aside.

What’s in our life is important, and that is serving God, that is loving God, that is loving others, and that is choosing God’s will above our own will. And we’ve had a lot of Hard Knocks Life lessons about how we would go against that sometimes. But for a lot of us, we’ve gotten to the point where we know what’s important.

What is healthy for us? And, and that is what this is all about is that, you know, we’re, we’re pleading for you guys who, who are, have your feet in both faith and also in the world. It’s not a happy place to be in. There’s no good returns on this. Right. You can’t, you can’t ever be whole. I mean, Because when you’re hedging your bet, you, you, you’re refusing to commit to anything, right?

It’s like, I’m just going to kind of be with both and never really fully commit. And you can’t have a relationship without commitment, right? Like you can’t have a real relationship. I remember in college, like I really liked this girl and she was very popular. You know, we started to see each other and then next thing you know, I was like, Hey, so, you know, where are we in the status of things?

Like, are we seeing other people? Are we not? She’s like, well, I like you a lot, but I want to see other people. Like, I want to continue to date other people. And I remember I took her out one night and then like, I took her back to her apartment. And it was early. We went to dinner or something just one night just to hang out.

And then I went and met some buddies at a bar and she was already there with another guy that she like had gone on two dates in one night. And I remember what that made me feel like. I was like. Geez, like I dropped you off like 20 minutes ago, you’re already like out with another guy, right? And it just made me like, I loved her.

I wanted her to love me. I, I, I don’t know if I was crazy in love with her, but I certainly had feelings for her. And, you know, and to see like, to be treated like that is not a way to treat anybody. And when we continue to walk in this light, that’s the way we treat God is like, God, I know you love me and you’re always going to be there for me because you said you will be.

And eventually I might choose that. But until then, like, I kind of want to, you know, I kind of want to keep dating around, you know, I want to date my job and my success and my money and my, you know, whatever else, my addictions and everything else, instead of like committing to the Lord and the Lord doesn’t like that behavior.

He doesn’t, and you can’t. You can’t do that in the faith because it leads you to indifference, right? You know, it leads you to indifference and that’s one of the biggest You know downfalls of christianity and the and the people that claim to follow it in the world today Is this just indifference i’ll do enough to check enough boxes But really like i’m indifferent to what happens like I just want to live a good life and whatever happens happens And it’s, it’s pretty dangerous and we’ve got some quotes here from some of our favorite folks.

You know, Bishop Sheen, Fulton Sheen, we’re going to, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, we’re going to quote him. But, you know, he says, by the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward. There are no planes in the spiritual life. We are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore, the pose of indifference is only intellectual.

The will must choose. And even though an indifferent soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it. The talents that are unused are taken away and the scriptures tell us, but because thou art lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. That’s Revelations, right?

Where, where Jesus is saying, like, you got to pick or I’m spitting you out of my mouth. Like, I’m not going to, I’m not going to be the side piece to the world. Right. Like, I hate to say it like that, but I’m not going to be the second option to the world. Like you give your life to me or there’s going to be consequences.

No one wants to be treated like that. And I love what he says. Like. You’re either going forward or you’re going backwards. There’s no flat land where you just get to stop and rest. The faith is forwards and backwards, uphill and downhill. And the, the pose of indifference is only intellectual. It’s, it’s in your mind, the will, your heart, the will has to choose.

Right. And so he really warns us there. And then St. Maximilian Colby, another great man. I mean, he says the most deadly poison of our time is indifference. And that’s what we see is like. I’m going to do enough of this and I’m still going to be this man over here. And whatever happens is like, either way, I sort of win because if I die and there is no God and there’s no heaven and none of that stuff, then at least I got to have a fun, successful, amazing life.

And awesome. I didn’t lose, but if there is a God and I do enough. To where I slide in the back door before St. Peter closes the gate all the way, then, then, Hey, I made it. And, and what did it hurt? Right? So it’s just this crazy place of not choosing and standing in the middle of the road, and when you do that, you get run over and.

That’s what, uh, the last thing I’ll quote here is Francis Chan. He’s a very popular Protestant pastor. I love some of the things he has to say. He says this lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin. They want to only be saved from the penalty of their sin. Right? So like, I don’t really want to live the life.

I just want the forgiveness. I just want the grace. I want the mercy, but I what makes me feel good, but not get penalized. Yeah, that’s it. I don’t really call it sin, but. But just minimize it. Yeah. Yeah. No, you’re exactly right. I mean, it’s just like, I want my cake and eat it too. And that’s not what we’re supposed to do.

We can’t hedge our bets. And, you know, there’s some old Testament examples of this that I wanted to bring out too. And really a bad example and a good example, because at the end of it all, like I said, it’s about committing to and cultivating a relationship with God. You cannot hedge your bets with God’s it’s like I’m either I’m not gonna play both sides of the field I’m either I’m all in like I’m pushing all my chips to God’s table and I’m gonna live my life that way If you don’t then then you’re gonna be pretty disappointed at the end of your life Right, and I think there’s gonna be a lot of so called christians in the world that are very disappointed when that day comes The thing all I have to do is just be saved by the blood of Christ and live a decent life, but not actually live the way that Christ called me to, right?

There’s action that has to take place with our, with our yes to the Lord. We have to, we have to partake in that salvation. It’s not just a one time thing. It’s at least that’s what we believe as Catholics and it’s what I knew to be true because why the heck would Wow, what’s the point of living any sort of good life or a christian life?

If you just get a free pass to heaven, right no matter what you do It’s it’s doesn’t make any sense and jesus certainly doesn’t preach that himself. So This is all about committing to and cultivating a relationship with God. It’s a choice. And, and the thing is like, God always asks people to make choices.

And I love this. I was reminded of Elijah and, and the prophets, right? When he had to basically go to the Mount of Mount Carmel. And, and, and have a one man standoff with like 400 prophets of mm-hmm . Of this, these false gods all God. Yeah. Right. The, the, the kingdom had fallen under the, the, the control and the power of these pagan gods and ball and all this stuff.

And so the Lord calls Elijah. Right. And even the king of Israel was under the influence of Yeah. Of Pagan. His wife. Yeah. All of them. And it happened multiple times in the Old Testament. I. Come on guys. Yeah. It’s like, how many times does God have to show you who he is? But like, Oh, signs and wonders. Well, how many do I have to give you a part of the red sea?

I, I did all of these things. I saved you from the lion’s den. I did all this stuff. Like, what else do I have to do for you? I sent you my son, right? I sent you a King that slaughtered a giant. Like I’ve done all these things, but. So, you know, obviously at this point, you know, we’re in first Kings, but, but, um, Elijah, you know, he goes this mountain and I love what it says here.

I mean, it’s just a couple of verses I want to read. It says, so Ahab sent to all the sons of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel and Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him.

The next line is key. And it’s where a lot of people are today. And the people did not answer him a word so basically looked at him like yeah, we We’re gonna just kind of keep both feets in the same thing right now We’re gonna do enough to keep god pleased over here, but we’re also we’re going to do.

And so He’s calling out to us the way that God is calling us. We’re living in a society like that today, surrounded by all sorts of pagan gods and terrible things that are calling us away from the Christian life and away from the Catholic faith. And away from being the people that God calls us to be.

And we’re standing there in the middle of it going like, well, I don’t know, I kind of like these pagan gods. They’re a little bit more lax on the rules, right? And I get to do a little bit more of what I want over here. And, and, you know, I want to be a better person. I want these better things, but also like a lot of this over here too.

Right. You know, and so, What we’re trying to say through this episode today is what Elijah, you know, said to these people there when he’s saying, will you, how long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. Make up your mind. He didn’t say follow God or go to hell.

He’s like, make a choice, make a choice. You’re either in or you’re out. That’s what he’s saying. That’s what God sent him to say. And so he does, it calls down, you know, they build the two temples in the fires and he pours water three times over his fire and God lights it and everybody converts back to God.

But we shouldn’t have to continue to ask God for signs. We got the greatest sign in the world from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ went all in. He didn’t hedge his bets. He didn’t sit up there and go. Well, you know father. I don’t know like I know you want me to do this But maybe something will happen, you know Maybe maybe the things that we think happen won’t happen and they’ll just kind of find their way back I’d rather sit up here because it’s comfortable and i’m in charge of everything and there’s not all that pain and death and whipping and nails and suffocation and Rejection and all that stuff.

So I’ll just I’ll kind of stay up here. Maybe the last minute I can just kind of swoop down there and snap my finger and fix things. He didn’t do that He pushed his chips all the way in as we’re going to see that starts in this advent season As he can’t chooses of his own will he made a choice right to become flesh to become vulnerable To live 33 years and then be tortured in the most horrible death that anybody’s ever faced Because he made a choice for love You And that love led him to choose us.

Right. And so that’s what we’re talking about here in the faith is it’s time to get off the fence. It’s time to quit hedging our bets. And we need to be like another person of the old Testament. I want to read one more thing really quickly. And then we’ll start talking about closing out here, Victor, but like, you know, David, you know, we, we’ve talked about David a bunch, David, warrior King, David falling to lust and adultery and sin.

David was human. He made mistakes, but at the end of the day, He’s a man after the lo over after my own heart is what God said about David. So we see David in Psalm 16 and he starts to cry out the Lord and it’s actually called a song of trust and security in God. This is what it looks like to make a choice.

David said, preserve me, oh God, for in you. I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good apart from you. Right? Then he says, as for the saints in the land, they are the noble and whom is all my delight. Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows. Their libations of blood I will not pour out, or take their names upon my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup, you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a god, a goodly heritage. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. And the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved.

Therefore, my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices. My body also dwells secure, for you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your godly one see the pit. You show me the path of life, and your presence there is fullness of joy, and your right hand are pleasures forevermore. That’s somebody who’s making a choice.

David says right there. I don’t want, those who choose another God multiply their sorrows. Their libations of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. You are who I choose. You walk by my side. You are my part. You are my steadfastness. This is the men that we’re called to be. That’s like what Joshua said, you know, he said, as for me and my family, we worship the Lord.

I don’t know what you’re going to do, but we’re going to worship the Lord. Yeah. So make a decision and choice. Yeah. And, and, and it changed the dynamic because they came into the, the land with milk and honey, but there’s always been problems. There’s always been people who are wavered, who are indecisive.

And, and that is because probably, you know, in all aspects. Um, with, with the sense of study, with a sense of faith, with a sense of prayer, sometimes, you know, that’s, that’s great, but there’s probably something like a traumatic event or something that happened to them. We don’t know. Yeah. You know, and like I said, I’m not going to go dive deep into that in the, in the behavioral health side, but I know there’s been a lot of people have been hurt by people who have been in the power and authority of the church.

We’ve, we’ve, we’ve recognized this and we’re, we’re sorry to hear that that ever happened and within all kinds of faith. It happens, you know, and, and we recognize that, that that’s probably some people may be struggling with that. And we’re, we’re not getting onto you at all, but we’re saying we, we understand, but, but God is love.

God loves you very much. God, it wasn’t that person that harms you or the person that spoke evil of you or threw you out of the church. That wasn’t God. That was, that was that person’s own faith, their own philosophy that they were letting their lives. Lead their lives and not act as a Christian individual, right?

And that’s God gave his life for yours. Yes That’s what he did. He gave his life for yours He thought you were worth dying for so much So that as we’re gonna see in a couple weeks here as we celebrate his birth that he chose of his own volition Like I said, he didn’t hedge his bets He pushed all his chips the middle of the table and said I’m willing to give everything for them, right?

So and you hear it in John 17 So I am with you and they can be with you as I am with you, right? So that they can be and they can know that you love them as you have loved me. That’s what Jesus says. That’s his whole mission for coming here is to show that love. So we have to be like David, even though it is mistakes, right?

We’ve all made mistakes as you were just alluding to. David still pushed his chips to the middle of the table. He went and he asked for repentance. He asked to be forgiven. Then he lived the rest of his life as best he could in the, in the ways of the Lord. Right. Even though there were some consequences and things for his decisions He still grew that and cultivated that relationship.

That is what the christian life is about. It’s about making a choice It’s saying i’m not going to choose these things anymore. I’m going to choose you doesn’t mean i’m perfect Doesn’t mean i’m not going to fall But it does mean that with everything that I do just like when I go to confession I’m going to make a choice i’m going to make an amendment To live my life a different way.

Right. And I’m going to try everything in my power to make sure that I do that. That’s what the Christian life is called to. That’s what waits. That’s what, if you want joy and you want purpose and you want peace in your life, that is the cost is simply that I’m going to make that choice. I’m going to stop hedging my bets, push those chips in the middle of the table, and then live that way for the rest of my life.

So Evan is a chance Victor, for all of us. To to make a choice and to make a stand right? Let this be the year if you’re tired of it If you keep telling yourself well john, I try and I keep going back to little things Then you haven’t really made a a choice of the will is built as fulton sheen was saying you haven’t really chosen from your will Right you haven’t that choice of the will is i’m going to do this no matter what happens No matter if it kills me i’m going to give my life to the lord So we have to make that choice.

We have to take that stand And we have to let go of the things in the world that will never fulfill us and go all in our relationship with Christ. That’s the only way that we’re going to find the joy, the peace, and the happiness that we’re looking for. So. You know as we leave out here, I just want to say like make up your mind and do it Stop settling for a mediocre life.

Stop playing it safe Like push all your chips to the middle of christ’s table and watch what happens. That’s what happened in my life That’s what’s happened in yours and I know that both of our lives are better because of it Yeah If you spend time looking in the rearview mirror and thinking about what you’re going to lose and what you didn’t get Then you’re never going to be happy.

But if you turn straight forward, you keep your hand to the plow and you look ahead of you and stop looking back and you make that choice to continue to do that, you’re going to have a life that you can’t believe. So folks, again, thank you for listening to the show. Um, it’s been a joy traveling through Advent with you.

We’ve got another great show coming up next week. If you love the podcast, if you. If you’ve just happened upon us for the first time today, like and subscribe, whether it’s on Apple or a Spotify or YouTube channel, whatever it is, like and subscribe, that’s going to help us grow our subscribers, our followers.

It’s going to help us get out in front of more people. And then look, take and copy that link. If you were helped by this episode and share it with somebody in your life that needs to hear it, share it on Facebook, Instagram, share it with somebody that you know, one of your children, your neighbor, whoever it is that may need to hear it.

Because it’s an easy way to evangelize. And if you’ve gotten something out of it, chances are other people will too. So Victor, as we close in prayer here, I just want to read and pray. I want to pray this Psalm because that’s what we do. We pray the Psalms. I want to pray the beginning and the last part of the Psalm and then we’ll end the show.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Psalm 16. Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my guide. I have no good apart from you. Therefore, my heart is glad and my soul rejoices. My body also dwells secure for you. Do not give me up to shield or let your Godly ones see the pit.

You show me the path of life and your presence. There is fullness of joy in your right hand or pleasures forevermore, and the name of the Father of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Victor and I are diving into something really close to my heart—what Advent is truly about. It’s so easy to let this season slip by in the rush to Christmas, but Advent is such a gift if we really lean in. It’s not just about lighting candles or decorating—it’s about inviting Christ into the deepest parts of our lives.

We talk about how Advent challenges us to open the doors we’ve kept locked for far too long—the places of shame, hurt, and brokenness. Jesus came into the world as a baby, humble and vulnerable, and He’s waiting to come into our hearts in the same way.

In this episode, we break open scriptures like John 1 (“The Word became flesh”), Isaiah 61 (“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”), and Philippians 2 (“He emptied himself…”) to explore why Christ came and how we can prepare ourselves to welcome Him fully. We also share personal stories about letting Jesus into the messiness of our lives and what happens when we do.

I’m praying this episode inspires you to make this Advent more than just a countdown to Christmas. Let’s prepare our hearts, invite Him in, and let His light shine in our darkest places.

 

 

Well, welcome back to the Pew everybody. I’m your host, John Edwards, and here across the table from me. Is my co host and cohort Victor Adams. Yeah. I feel like I’ve been on sabbatical for a while. It seems like I’ve been busy, busy band. Tell us all this stuff about, uh, giving a Tuesday. Yeah, it was a lot of stuff, man.

First of all, like we’ve, it feels like sabbatical. Cause I think we did two or three episodes in a row together, like at one time. So it’s been several weeks. I know we thought about getting the wardrobe over here. That way we can change three, three shows in one day. And that guy’s what y’all wouldn’t know, but you know, if he had the same.

Yeah. Cause I think I took my vest off on one of those. So I saw the same under, you know, the button down under it, but the vest was gone. It’s kind of like Clark Kent and his glasses, I guess. I’m a different person. That’s right. But no, we did some episodes together, uh, there. So you and I hadn’t been together in a couple of weeks in here.

And then I had Heather Kim on last week that did the, uh, encountering Emmanuel on Advent and her book. Uh, it was really great to spend time with Heather. She’s great. Yeah, she is. She’s, she’s, uh, she’s a gift and we share a similar heart. Like I noticed a lot of the similar. ways that we talk about the Lord and preach about the Lord.

And it was just, it was neat to get to spend that time with her. I look forward to more opportunities in the future, you know, to, to minister with her and then her husband, Jake, who works with Dr. Bob too. I just love hearing people that just dive so deep in the Holy spirit. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, it’s so encouraging for me to go like, man, I can do that too.

Yeah. Yeah. She’s awesome. And she’s great at that. Um, but yeah, so we’re in here. As a follow up, you know, it’s our first Advent episode together this season, so I’m excited for that. Happy Advent, everybody. Yeah, happy Advent. That’s for sure. Fresh off an Advent retreat with Marie Miller the other night in her own parish, it went really well.

We had a lot of people there. It’s a beautiful night. A lot of people going to confession and just worked with Marie to call people into this time of preparation and understanding, you know, really, even though it’s a season, this is the way we need to enter in and, and the, Posture we need to have in our life all the time.

So it’s been a whirlwind of a few weeks. You know, Jacob broke his arm over Thanksgiving in two places. We’re still trying to get that surgery done and all that. And so folks out there, if you don’t mind, throw us prayer up for my son, Jacob and, uh, healing and for the surgeons, hopefully we can have that done.

But, uh, but yeah, so there’s a lot going on. I’ve just, you, you alluded to giving Tuesday. I wanted to thank everybody, uh, here in the beginning for, uh, All the giving they they gave on giving tuesday and before that we had advanced giving we wound up hitting our goal Um, we beat it by a thousand dollars or so And it was a lot of last minute stuff.

There was a lot of advanced giving there was a lot in between So thank you to anybody that gave whether it was 20 bucks five bucks a thousand dollars, whatever it was Thank you for giving uh in supporting our ministry It means the world and many of you sent nice comments and just kind things. You said You You know, is why you were giving it and all of that.

So thank you. It’s going to allow us to continue to move forward, to bring on the people we need to, um, right now we were in the, in the need of hiring a full time admin. Uh, my friend Derek has been working with me. He’s moved on to another ministry. And so we wish him the best and thank you for all the work he did here.

But we’re going to need some admin work. Uh, so if somebody, if you’re open to that or you have those skills, please apply. Yeah. Apply. You can send me an email at, uh, john at pew ministries. org. And we’ll look at that and see if it’s a good fit. Um, also we’re looking to hire missionaries to bring on the night train to Victor.

So that’s something else we’re doing there. But thank you all for helping us hit our goal. Um, you know, we. We put together a good campaign, a campaign. Derek really did a lot with that. And he was the reason we did so well with it. So thank you, Derek, for that. Uh, and all the work you did, but really folks, all of you that give each and every month, you’re the reason we get to do this and continue to do it.

So thank you. And please know that we’re going to use that ministry to help bring more men into healing and restoration each and every day, uh, through our Paris groups and through this podcast and through everything else. Uh, finally, I just want to tell folks that if you didn’t hear in the last couple of weeks with the black Friday sale and all of that.

Um, we are, I want to announce here again that I’m going to be going to Greece and Turkey. We’re going to be walking in the footsteps of St. Paul. I’m going to go alongside Father James Clark from here in the Diocese of Memphis. We’ve already started filling the trip. I think there’s already 10 or 12 people that are signed up in the first few days of So it’s a limited space.

I think we’re taking 45 people. It’s going to be one bus, but it’s going to be an amazing trip. You’re going to go to Athens Ephesus and Corinth and Thessalonica and all these other sites. You’re, you’re going to be able to go on a four day, a GNC cruise. You’re going to go to all these islands like Mykonos and.

And Patmos and all these places. It’s going to be great fun, but also food and you’re gonna learn a lot. Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s, you’re going to see the culture, the food, the drink, all that stuff, but you’re going to immerse yourself in the New Testament. I mean, really, what, what happened from Acts and beyond, um, beyond the gospels is where we’re going to be.

And you’re going to get to walk in the footsteps of St. Paul. You’re going to see where he preached. We’re going to visit the churches he wrote letters to, obviously, and the ones I mentioned there. Um, we’re going to Be able to visit the house where, uh, the blessed mother was said to have spent her last days before the assumption.

Um, obviously going to get to, to spend time in the cave, the grotto area of Patmos where St. John wrote revelation. Um, and then you’re going to visit the seven churches of revelation. So there’s so much there, places where Paul and Silas preached in so much Greek history and mythology and all that stuff at those places too, that we’re going to see.

So we’d love to have you with us. And I can tell you as always do if you travel with us. I can guarantee you that you’re going to feel seen, loved and heard that I’m going to spend time with you. I’m going to be glad you’re there. Father Cork’s going to be the same way. We’re going to laugh. We’re going to have fun.

We’re going to help you build memories that are going to last a lifetime. Not only are you going to grow in your faith, but you’re going to grow in relationships that you can have for the rest of your life. All of our pilgrims have experienced that, and I can’t wait to bring more and some old ones along with us.

So folks, if you want to, we’re headed to Greece and Turkey, September 9th through the 20th of 2025. So you can check the show notes down below. There’s a link there for the, uh, for the pilgrimage. Or if you want to, you can go to our website and now at the top, it says events, book John and pilgrimages. You can click that and you can find the links there below our calendar on our bookmeet page.

But folks, we’d love to have you. And again, If you’re going to do it register soon, because it’s going to fill up fast and we’re limited to 45 spots. So hope you’ll join us. Hope you’ll consider it and look forward to seeing you there in Greece and Turkey next year. So Vic, uh, now that that’s out of the way, and we can really focus on where we are in this episode.

And at the end of this year, Um, you know, we always like to do stuff in the liturgical seasons of the church and the church and all of her majesty and all of her, her intelligence and her great wisdom gives us these times of the liturgical year so that we stop and we pause and we quiet ourselves and we reflect on, on what we’re doing.

And, you know, I gave this talk the other night at this Advent retreat with Marie, it was really great and it was a lot of fun. It’s her beautiful voice. It was just, she’s amazing. Um, but I didn’t know what I was really going to say and I started praying into all this stuff and the name of the, of the retreat was preparing the way of love because her album is called the way of love.

And so she was going to present on St. Therese and tie in some of those things to Jesus in Advent. And so I just. You know, called my talk preparing the way of love, the word made flesh. And as I started to ponder and to read and to think about all this stuff, I started thinking about, man, what is it, what I really want to talk to people about and what I want to invite people into.

And while Advent is a penitential season, right? It’s, it’s one that’s often treated like the redheaded stepchild of the church. You know, I said that to Heather on the last episode too. Because when we think of these, these seasons, the church Lent is like, you know, King, and it should be because, you know, we get invited to walk into the desert with our Lord for 40 days.

We get invited into his passion. Um, you know, we, we, we’re there with him at the cross and his life, death and resurrection. Right. And, and, and there’s just, it’s such a powerful time to remember what the Lord has done for us. But. If you really stop and think about it, none of that would have been possible if the God of the universe hadn’t decided that he wanted to take on flesh and be born as a, as a, as a child, as a baby and to go through 33 years of life, um, before he even began or 30 years of life before he really began his mission.

Of redemption for the world as far as you know, what we know and what we see in the scriptures. Yeah. So he took on these things. He made himself vulnerable. He became this baby and was born in a feeding trough in a, in a town called the house of bread. Right. That’s what be mm-hmm. Bethlem means, and this foreshadowing of the Eucharist and all of these things.

But so often as you know, Victor, like we can get into the, the fray of the world and the rat rat race of the, of the season from Halloween on. Right. You hit Thanksgiving, you’re doing all the stuff. You’re, you know, going to both sides of the families doing all that. You’re barely done burping up the turkey.

And then all of a sudden it’s the first day of Advent, which really happened quick this year. You know, it was like Thursday, Sunday Advent. And so. We go from the Thanksgiving and all those things to Advent. And then what is, what really happens? Our mind goes from Thanksgiving to Christmas because quite honestly, they’re putting out, you know, Christmas stuff in July now, 4th of July, there’s Christmas stuff out.

And so the world’s pushing for their commercialism and all those things and to concentrate on Santa Claus and all the Hallmark movies and all that junk instead of what it’s really about. And. So, Advent, a lot of the time, gets looked over. It’s like, alright, let me throw my pink and purple candles out there.

Let me get out my chocolate Advent each day, a little piece of chocolate and eat it. And, you know, maybe try to go to some church a little bit more. But really what it is, is this time of waiting and preparation for the coming of the Lord. Now, the Lord’s already been born, right? We’re celebrating His first coming, uh, as a child in Bethlehem.

Here in Christmas in a few weeks, but really also what we’re celebrating is the, is, is what’s to come. Right. Right. This preparation and waiting for the, for the second return of the King. Right. Where he’s going to come back and, and, and, and bring everything to justice and, and, you know, and, and to, uh, us to fulfillment.

Right. Right. So this is where we are, but for so often, that’s what I meant by being a redhead stepchild, like Advent’s just kind of like, Oh yeah, it’s the purple season. Yeah. You know, candles and wreaths. And then eventually they’ll put up the trees and, and we blow by it. And if we do that, we’re really missing a.

A beautiful opportunity to journey with our Lord and to prepare and to really invite him into our hearts to see not only where To remember that he wasn’t only born into this world But he wants to be born into our lives and not just wherever we are in the moment But like every portion of our lives He wants to be born into every moment every situation every difficulty every suffering every joy is what he wants to be born into and That’s why in the past we’ve had shows called The Word Made Flesh or The Word Was Made Flesh and Has The Word Been Made Flesh in Your Life?

And that’s something I think we’re going to discuss again a little bit today and just really try to bring the further attention to Advent because I don’t want this to go by, you know, there have already been one week in the season that went by and there’s only like three and a half weeks of Advent this year.

So, um, I really want people to be able to enter into this and to receive Advent for what it is. In the moment to prepare for what we’re preparing for, but for the greater vision of really looking at what this means for the rest of your life. I mean, you, you kind of did exactly what, um, I was going to say is that Advent is, is sometimes it’s a blend of Christmas in a sense of, you know, it’s like, almost like we celebrate Jesus, but we don’t really like, um, Um, explore what that means because we’re distracted, like you said, by, by movies and by, uh, gifts and so like that.

But a lot of us know that the connection between the gifts or the connection of the Magi giving to Jesus Christ and then the history for that. But really for me, like Advent is a time for just being thankful, just being appreciative of, of the things that I have been awakened to. In my life, my spiritual sense of my connection with the Holy Spirit, with Christ, but also, like you said, Christ coming down, taking on flesh, becoming human, fully human, fully divine.

And, and also, it allows, I think it allows us to be more sensitive to God. To knowing Christ because he went through a lot of things we’re going through, you know, like he knows what it’s like to, to be talked bad about. He knows what it’s like to be rejected. He knows what it’s like to try to help someone who, who people who refuse, like the Pharisees, you know, like if you only knew why I was here, you would be celebrating my, my, my, my entry into this world, you know, like he would say stuff like that all the time, you know?

And just imagine how like happy he was when people got it and how disappointed and sad that people didn’t connect with what he was trying to say. Um, and, and for us, you know, for, for this season, we had to be careful and sure what we connect with, connect with the loving, the lovingness of a, of a, of an amazing and merciful God, you know, and be thankful for, you know, your family, your job, even though things happen, suffering happens, and it may not have gone the way that you wanted.

But the thing is, is, is, Is that you have things to look at and say, God, thank you for this. You know, thanks for allowing me to, to realize who you are in my life. Thank you for, even though the gifts are great and everything else, but thank you for allowing me to have time with my family, you know, and, and I think we really kind of have to be careful about.

Uh, you know, grading what this, this season is all about. Sure. You know, well, and I mean, it is the way the church looks at it. It’s two different seasons, right? It’s you have Christmas and then you have Advent, right? So Advent is really dispreparing and the journey of the Magi and all these things as we draw closer to Christmas and all of that, but it’s, you know, it draws, it begs the question what you were talking about, which is like, Why, why did the Lord come?

Like, why did he come? And it was to enter into our mess. It was to enter into our brokenness. It was to save us. You know, where the catechism says, um, where Jesus Christ humbled himself to become man, where Adam, um, uh, uh, asserted himself to become like God. Right. So because of that, that assertion of Adam to say, no, like I want to be my own God with Eve, everything was severed.

Everything was broken. And so Jesus comes to right the wrongs, to be the new Adam, where the old Adam, uh, messed up and made mistakes, and where he calls the brokenness and the sin and the death that’s coming to the world. So Jesus comes to restore, he comes to reconcile, right? And that’s why I love really three readings that I like to read this time of year that kind of get me in the mindset of Advent and really helped me kind of start looking deeper into why Christ came, because.

As I said, when you look about Lent, we think it draws us, Jesus Christ is our savior. And while yes, he is, he did come to save us. Um, you know, through his life and death and resurrection, he also came as healer. Mm-hmm . Right? He came as healer. He, he came as, as this divine physician. And that’s really what we hear when we read some of these readings and what he wants to do in us.

So he’s coming to reconcile, which means to heal. He’s coming to heal that broken relationship, and that means that he has to heal things in us, right? Or the things that we don’t want anybody to see. The shame, the things that we have locked away, the, the difficulties. The wounds that we have, the wounds that we’ve, you know, put into other people, like the Lord wants to come into all of that brokenness.

And he chose to do that. He looked at his father and said, I’ll go, you know, send me. And then I will take their place. I’ll take on all of that so that there’s a, there’s an open door. There’s a reconciliation for them to become. Part of the the holy family of God again, right? And and so I love reading John 1 parts of it because it just really gets me into the mindset and and Really talks about some of these truths.

And so I want to read that really quickly So John 1 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We have beheld His glory, glory as if the only begotten Son from the Father. And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.

He has seen and made Him known. Man, I love that and it gives me chills every time I read it. I mean, just all of it talking about the light was coming to the world and the darkness could not overcome it. And that’s what Jesus came to do. All of us have that darkness. And, and again, we have the tendency, Victor, to read something like that and go, Oh yeah, he came in because there was so much darkness in the world then.

Well, look around you now. Mm hmm. Not only in the world around us, but also in our own hearts, in our own lives, the darkness that we can find ourselves in, the brokenness, the, the way we get off track, the way that we get off the beaten path. And the Lord wants to come into that brokenness. And so we say, like, why did he, he come?

And, and what I told people here tonight was, He came to do these things, to reconcile, to call us to repentance, to call us to healing, and to call us into relationship. Like that’s what he came to do, relationship with the Father. And we see that said here in this first passage from John. It says, but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

That’s what we were originally. And then everything was severed when we made mistakes, right? When Adam and Eve chose themselves over God, as the catechism says. And so now Jesus comes to give power to those, to become children of God. Again, this is the reconciliation that he’s talking about that I’m talking about here.

He comes so that we can become children of God and we stop identifying ourselves with children of the world or, or, or. Uh, children of brokenness and children’s of mistake and some of mistakes and all those things. It’s for us to become children of God, right? And so Jesus, it says, as Paul says in other parts of scripture, became poor so that we could be rich in his grace.

He came to pour out his grace over us, which is the only reason that we are ever found worthy for redemption is because of his grace and his love. And so he comes the word was made flesh He chose to bring on flesh and he doesn’t want to just be made flesh 2, 000 years ago He wants to be made flesh in our life right here right now each and every day In the midst of our burdens in the midst of our mistakes in the midst of our problems In the midst of our hardships and our difficulties right of our calamities That’s what saint paul means when he says that in second corinthians 12 9 Like when I’m weak, when I’m strong, come into my burdens, my hardships, my difficulties, because I need you.

And so he humbles himself. And this Advent season is a call for us to remember that and to follow in his footsteps, to humble ourselves and to allow him into our lives for him to be born, not only into this world, but into every possible place in our hearts and in our lives. But Victor, as you all know, the problem is so many of us, this knowledge stays here in our heads and it never moves our heart, which is the place of transformation.

Right. And you’re talking about the compatiwhat is it? Let me say this real quickly, correctly. Combativeness of the heart. Yeah. Where the heart, there’s a lot of wounds in the heart. I think our mind, we, we recwe remember things or remember situations or, but it’s like, we feel everything emotionally here.

So when something doesn’t agree with how we want to feel or how we want to feel at that time, we ignore it. Like I said, if I’m angry, I want to be angry, you know? If I’m frustrated, I’m going to be frustrated. If I’m going to be appreciative, then I’m more appreciative. But if we’re not, like, focused on the emotion that we are at a time, we can dismiss a lot of the things that God’s trying to give to us, or other people are trying to share with us as well.

Um, you know, like I said, I’ve been in the hospital chaplain. Uh, at the VA in the St. Jude Hospital and, um, I’ve been witness to many, many blessings, many miracles, uh, many aspects of the human condition of wanting reconciliation with God. You know, where people carry burdens for their whole lives, and even though they may not be Catholic, I’ll be honest with you, there’s a deathbed confession for everybody.

Yeah. You know, because there’s, there’s this awakening of like, oh my gosh. Um, this is it, and I need to make things right. I need to apologize, or I need to kind of like, I need to do something right now that’s not selfish. Sure. Um, and I wish to God that everybody had that experience, you know? Some people are just going to be the way they are going to be, but, you know, the change of heart is, like you said, the most crucial aspect of being a Christian.

Because when you remove the selfish intentions, or the anger, or the pain, and the hurt that people, other people cause you, and you hold onto that, it’s like you said before in other shows, it’s poison. Yeah. And we’re dosing ourselves with poison, expecting us to be healed, but yet you’re, we’re the ones that aren’t taking the antidote, which is Christ.

No, you’re a hundred percent right. And, and this is why we need in this season of preparation to start asking those things like, Jesus, where do you want to be born into my life? What is it that you know me better than I do Lord? And, and where do you want to go? And, and, and, and trusting him and giving him permission.

That’s why he does these other things. Like he comes to reconcile any, and that starts with repentance, right? Like he calls to. He calls us to repentance. What is the first thing he says when he’s of age and he’s been baptized? What does he say? The first thing in his mission, uh, you know, um, uh, repent and believe in the gospel, right?

He says the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. The first thing he does is call us to repentance out of our, he calls us out of our brokenness and what is repentance really? It’s an invitation. To be honest, to be truthful, to be vulnerable with ourselves, right? We, we all know what we struggle with.

We know the things that aren’t healed. We know the things that are like, uh, uh, a rock in our shoe that every time we stay, take a step hurts. And we were just trying to gently step instead of trying to take the shoe off and remove the rock. And this is what we’re so many of us are. And he comes into this brokenness and into this broken world and into our lives to call us into that repentance.

And out of that vulnerability, it’s witnessed in his whole life. Like it’s bookended in jesus’s life like from the beginning at christmas. He comes into the world as a baby he doesn’t come into some triumphant king as as the Uh as as the jews thought he would as this military messiah that would come in with just armies and destroy the romans He comes in as this little child, as Heather said last week, that could be easily dropped, right?

That could be hurt. And she said, and we did eventually hurt him, right? We hurt him badly. We took his life, but he comes up in this vulnerable state. And then at the end of his life, he’s the most vulnerable man that’s ever lived on the planet. As he stretched out in the crucifix on the wall behind you offering everything, there’s nothing of me that you don’t have.

There’s nothing that I haven’t given right that vulnerability and so he calls us to repentance which is an an opportunity To to to mirror that vulnerability to say lord like I am broken. I am I am struggling. I can’t fix myself I need you. I haven’t been the person I need the things you were talking about on the deathbed confessions Like we don’t have to wait till our deathbed that.

Christ comes to give us that opportunity to be honest and vulnerable about our lives so we can repent and clear those things out and then we can look to heal. That’s the other thing he came to do, right? To reconcile us. He calls us to repentance and then he calls us to healing. And that’s one of my other favorite readings, which I’ve read a bunch of times on this podcast and I want to read again now is Isaiah 61, right?

But it’s this prophecy. And, and, and I love this because it reminds me in, in, in context, in conjunction with the word becoming flesh. Why? Well, here’s your answer. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.

To comfort all who mourn to grant to those who mourn in zion to give them a garland instead of ashes The oil of gladness instead of mourning the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit that they may be called oaks of righteousness The planting of the lord that he may be glorified He came to heal us to reconcile us to the father So that we can glorify God, we can become the people we’re called to be.

And so, so many people, they think, as we’ve talked about a million times here, Victor, like, why should I care about Advent? Why should I give my life to Christ? What could he want with me? You have no idea what I’ve done. You don’t know how broken I am. You don’t know how messed up I am. You don’t know the mistakes I’ve made, what I’ve done to my family and to myself, or what’s been done to me.

But Jesus’s answer is the spirit of the Lord God is upon me. And I’ve been sent. To. Bring good tidings to the afflicted. Every one of us is afflicted. He sent me to bind up the broken hearted. All of us are broken hearted because of our mistakes and falling short of the glory of God because of sin and death to proclaim liberty to the captives.

How many of us are bound, right? How many of us are captive in our own addictions and our own prison cells that we’ve locked ourselves into, right? Because we’re so afraid to let anybody really see us because they may not, they may abandon us. Right. Those inadequacy wounds, those abandonment wounds. Then he says, I’m here to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

All of us are bound to sin, right? To give us good tidings and gladness and all of these things to replace the brokenness that we’ve been walking around in this world for so long. To bring us joy. That’s what he says. I’ve come so that you may know my joy and that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

Right? This is who Jesus is. And so many people see God and Jesus as something different and something that’s waiting to punish them and all that stuff. But here Jesus tells you that. And then guess what? When we’re healed, when we’re set free, when, when our hearts are mended, then we have the opportunity to, to claim this prophecy as our own.

To go out and to do for others this same goodness that Jesus did for us. That’s why he came to reconcile us to bring us into relationship. Well, he brings you and I into relationship Victor so that not so we can sit in it and revel in it go Yay, look at me. I’m a child of God. That’s great And we need to live from that identity and that knowledge But the purpose of that is so that we go out and we tell others that you’re a child of God that has worth That it was worth dying for That God has a plan for your life and all that begins with Jesus choosing to come as healer To do what we could not we couldn’t heal ourselves That’s why he says the light shines in the darkness that light coming into that darkness is the healing he wants to bring in our life It’s just like when you’re in a dark room and you’re in your maybe you’re a kid and you’re scared to death and you’re freaking out And there’s all these fears and And ideas of what could be in the room lurking and waiting for you.

That’s what it’s like when we’re caught up in all of our brokenness and all of our pain and our problems. But if you have a match, if you just like one single match, the light overcomes the darkness, right? It takes away all those fears. It takes away all those ideas of what could happen and what may happen.

There’s nothing but the truth. Right? There’s nothing but the truth and the light shines on all of that. And that’s who Jesus is. So he comes to heal. And this Advent season is an invitation to let him begin to do that as we’re preparing for him to his birth and the celebration of that. It’s an opportunity to let him into those places of our heart, those rooms we have locked away with the hidden things that we want nobody to see.

And this is why when he came to the earth, what did he say? Do you want to be healed? What do you want me to do for you? Right? He always asked people because he came to heal. Ultimately, Jesus came to save us, but he came to heal us too. And because he’s opened the door to heaven again, the healing work starts and continually combating the lies of the devil, restoring our identity, healing our wounds.

So that we can believe he is who he says he is. We are who he says we are and we can be reconciled to the Father. So that’s what he’s trying to do. And all of that is to bring us into relationship. Well, what you’re saying also is take hope in the healing. Yeah. You know, healing, um, that comes from Christ is, The most powerful medicine that there is because it allows you to kind of like let go of the things that Have been the stumbling block for your life, whether it’s like an individual that mistreats you or You know Things that you constantly stumble upon, you know, I mean like just just all this suffering all the pains all the disappointments all the aspects of Failure that you think is failure.

We have to understand that sometimes those are things put in front of us to see You know, how will we react to that? You know, the sufferings are always a lesson of learning of life, right? Yeah, how will we receive it? Uh, as, as a parent, I see my kid going through something that’s tough, and I want to say, how are they dealing with that?

Are they, are they going to persevere? Are they going to ask for help? Are they going to like have trust and faith? You know, I think for a lot of us is that we forget to ask God for help. Yeah. You know, God helped me in this, you know, God, allow me, uh, to, to be able to find what you want me to be. Allow me to be, uh, a perspective of faith to help other people in this process.

I mean, how many times we’ve gotten a phone call from a friend that’s going through something and we just got, you know, we’re not prepared for that conversation. That is a time to say, Lord, help be part of this conversation. Like every time we, we start this show, we begin with a prayer, we end with a prayer.

Knowing that whatever the words that, There may be some script, but majority of it is something that’s just, it’s just a process of a conversation that unfolds itself in front of us. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit and believing in the Lord is going to do what he says with us. And, and yeah, that’s, that’s what he calls us to do, to heal one another, to be there, to be those hands and feet.

And, you know, I experienced that in our men’s group last night. There were some new people that came and they opened up on the very first night and shared some things that, we were Most people wouldn’t share in 10 years of knowing somebody because the air of comfortability and I think is we’ve been able to establish that with the help of the Holy Spirit in our group because people are When you’re able to be open, it allows other people to be open and trusting.

Yeah, like wow, this is an amazing group You know, I’m saying this from from my perspective of years being there It’s like when someone’s willing to share about something that is a struggle for them That takes a lot of courage and strength to do that. Yeah. And then to kind of like, after you say it, you want to immediately take it back because all of a sudden there’s this quietness and not people are judging.

Yeah. Not that the people judging you is kind of like going, you know, there’s this quiet going, what’d you do? Yeah. Eat yourself. But what you hear is like, I’ve had the same thing. I struggle with the same thing. I know how you’re feeling, brother. I will pray for you. You know, this, this, this support that comes like Christ in, in our lives, that there’s this, this automatic kind of like warmth of the power of his, of his light.

You know? Yeah. It just kind of washes over us and saying, that’s who I want you to be. I want you to be open to, to the people I put in your life. Are there because I put you there or I put that pause you’re talking about the, you know, where you’re like, Oh, what did I just do? That’s the last ditch attempt of the devil to get you to draw back.

Like you’re, you’re, you’re one foot out of the prison cell you’ve been in and he’s trying to grab you by the shirt tail and go, where are you going? Where are you going? Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t. And, and it’s just so free. And that’s why healing is so important. That’s why Christ came right to. Like I said, to heal us and, and it’s for relationship.

Cause if you think about the process, he comes to reconcile. He calls us in vulnerability to be vulnerable, to share about what we’re broken in, to be open with them, to go and ask for forgiveness, to receive that grace and mercy so that healing can begin. And when healing starts, when we start to let Jesus into these places, then what happens, trust, surrender.

Love relationship, right? Think about it. When you meet anybody in your life or your wife or whoever it is, like you immediately didn’t like meet the girl of your dreams and walk up and go, Hey, like I have tremendous foreign problems. I’m this, I’m this, I’m this, I’m broken in this way. And Hey, would you be interested in going out with me?

Like, no, because they would be like, no, what the heck? No, thank you. Who are you? Are you talking to me? But like over time, as we get to know someone and we start to journey with them, And then we start to trust more and more, right? That relationship builds and Jesus starts that relationship by inviting us to repentance, right?

Look, just admit to yourself what’s wrong in your life and then bring it to me when you’re ready. And then when you, when you bring it to me, you see that I am gentle and meek of heart, as he says in scripture, right? I’m not here to punish you. I’m not standing here with a whip to beat you because you’re a moron and you made mistakes.

I am gentle and meek of heart. My, my burden is easy and my, you know, or my yoke is easy. My burden is light. This is what he invites us into in those moments. And then he can look at you and go, look, like now that you’ve seen I’m gentle, we can start to heal and you can start to trust and all those things.

And that’s how we build relationship. That’s how you start to open up to people is when that trust and that love builds. So that repentance and that healing is a desire of relationship. And Jesus waits at the door of our hearts. And that makes me remind, it reminds me. You know growing up baptist both my parents were baptist, right?

And so when we go to their house in mississippi, they both had the same image on the wall and it was this protestant image um of jesus standing outside of a like a home with a door And like a front door of a house and always as a kid was like, why is he standing there? Like there’s nobody else in the picture And why is he just standing outside when I got a little bit older?

Later in my teens, I looked at it one day and I was like, Oh, there’s no door handle, right? So Jesus was standing outside at the ready waiting to be invited in not to kick the door into the storm in But to be invited in right so he came into the world Of his own accord, but now he waits to be invited into our own hearts And the thing is the door handle is on the other side.

Jesus isn’t going to force his way in. He’s not mean He’s not hard on us. He’s gentle and so he knocks and he waits for us To answer and invite him in and so That’s what we have to do And this is what this advent season about is inviting the lord further into our heart And so some of you may be sitting there right now going in in victor This is what some people the other night that when I gave this talk we’re thinking about they were like well Okay, John, I’m already baptized.

I’m confirmed. I do all this great Catholic stuff. I’m in adoration all the time. I’ve already let Jesus in my house. Well, the thing is our home is full of other rooms, right? And think about it. Like if somebody calls you five minutes away from your house and like, Hey man, I’m gonna swing by a minute. And all of a sudden you look around and you’re like, Oh, dude, this place is a mess.

So what do you do? You start throwing everything in cabinets and in closets. You start dumping everything in your bedroom and shutting the door. And we start to lock away these things because we don’t want people to see us as we are. We don’t want people to see these things that we’re ashamed of or that we’re not proud of.

I don’t want somebody to see that. My, my house is a mess or in the context of this, my heart is a mess. And so we let Jesus in with all these things we do as we become Christian, but Jesus wants to go further into the home, into the home of our heart, right? He wants us to open up these doors and that’s what Advent and Lent and the journey of a Christian really is, is allowing Jesus in the front door.

He’s in the foyer. But he wants to go further into the house. He wants to go into these rooms and he wants to rearrange things and he wants to help you get rid of the mess that you, that you, you, you threw away to hide and shame and help you actually get rid of it. And so that’s what this can mean. And I’m so worried in my, in my prayer every day that myself, that you, that others are missing the beauty of this time of year that we’re in, because it can, as I said, be easily I got to get the lights up and I got to go get a tree and, and you know, when is this going to be Christmas time and I got to get all the presents and when’s Amazon having their sales and all that stuff instead of like, man, what a gift.

What a gift. The church in her, in her wisdom through the knowledge of God and the love of God has given us to remember exactly what we are preparing for. And it’s what I just said at the end to let Jesus out of the fourier. Out of the front room of our home in our hearts and into the depths of those homes To really sit and to make himself a place to take up residence so that he can heal us of those things We don’t have to hide those things anymore, right?

We don’t have to throw those things in rooms The Lord has come to reconcile us by calling us to repentance, by calling us to healing, so that we can have a relationship with Him and He can take us to His Father. That is what all this is about, and this is why He was chose to be born into the world. The question is, Victor, are we going to let Him be born into ours?

Right into our hearts into our lives in a more full way than we ever have. That’s the journey of a Christian It’s not a one time thing. It’s not a one time celebration the church and her wisdom We have these same seasons every year because it’s an invitation to continue to go further in our faith each and every day And so as we close out here Victor talking about this and hopefully people will take this to heart I want to read one last verse the third passage Or one last passage, I should say, that I read every year at Advent, and it calls me into remembrance of this.

And then I just want to talk about some things that we can do as we’re, we’re moving forward in this. So this is Philippians 2, verses 5 through, um, 11. Yeah. Yeah. So there you are with that seminary degree. I also saw your notes. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Cheater. I was giving you a compliment. You didn’t deserve it.

No, but. So it says this. Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This is what this is about.

Journeying from our brokenness and the places of shame and all those things, this is why Jesus came to reconcile us, to call us to repentance, to call us to healing, to build relationship so that we can stand up no matter what situation we’re in in our life, no matter what the circumstance, and boldly proclaim that passage I just read.

And how did it happen? Because God did something. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, not to be held on to, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant. So what should we do in this Advent season, the rest that we have here? And I pray that each and every one of you will do after this podcast.

I hope you can hear the passion in our voice and the cry of pleading with you to do this alongside of us is to empty yourself. Of everything forget the pride forget the the shame forget the the disgust you have with yourself and empty it all out So that the lord can come come into your life and to fill it with that Which is good with himself and give you the opportunity that you need to be reconciled and have the power to become a child of god That’s what this is about.

This is every day of our life and what we’re called to So the things I would all encourage everybody to do is start asking god questions right now Like he just pick up the Bible and start to read these passages, the ones I’ve shared. John one, Isaiah 61, Philippians two, five through 11. Sit with ’em, pray with ’em.

As you read through ’em, what stands out to you. And then start to ask God, Lord, like in Isaiah 61, where do you wanna free me? Where am I bound? Right? Where am I in captivity? Where am I mourning in my life? Like what do you, where do you want to go? In my house and in the home of my heart. What what do you want me to do where do you want an access to that?

I haven’t given you point that light shine that light into that darkness and then have the The the next prayer to lord Give me the strength and the courage to trust that you are who you say you are and to let you go in there And do the things you want to do you’ll have the most transformative advent And then realize that that is the work that we need to do every day in our lives, constantly examining ourselves and asking God, where do you want to go?

Where do you want to take up residence? And where do you want to become flesh in my life? So Victor, and to all of you out there, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode. I hope that it will lead you to a greater, uh, repentance and healing and relationship with the Lord and the rest of this Advent season.

As always, we’re praying for you. We’re always going to continue to do that. Thank you for listening today, and let’s take this to prayer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Heavenly Father, you sent your Son, and your Son of His own will chose to take on flesh, and to become one of us.

To be born is a vulnerable baby, to walk this earth, and to die a vulnerable death. All so that we could be called into reconciliation through repentance and healing, so that we could be brought back into relationship. Lord, You and Your Son want to give us the power to become children of God. Help us to take that to heart.

And the rest of this Advent season, help us to let You into the home of our heart. To let you deeper into the residence of our homes, to unlock the doors that we’ve locked, to get rid of the shame and the brokenness and the mistakes, and all those things, to let you shine that light into that darkness, so that we can become the people that we’re called to be, so we can spend eternity with you, and we can bring others with us.

Lord, come into our hearts and set us free this Advent, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

This week, I’m thrilled to have Heather Khym, co-host of the Abiding Together Podcast, join me for a special episode. With Advent in full swing, Heather and I dive deep into the meaning of this beautiful season and how it’s so much more than just a countdown to Christmas.

Heather shares the inspiration behind her Advent journal, Encountering Emmanuel, and how Jesus wants to meet us in our “messy stables”—the broken, vulnerable places we often hide. We reflect on the importance of slowing down, making space for Christ, and letting Him enter our hearts to bring healing and freedom.

In this conversation, we explore some powerful truths:

👉Why Advent feels overlooked and how we can reclaim its importance.
👉How to recognize Christ as the healer who enters our struggles, not just a distant figure.
👉Heather’s personal stories of vulnerability and the real freedom that comes when we let go of control.
👉Practical ways to prepare your heart for Jesus this season, using Heather’s guided reflections and journaling prompts.

Advent is a time to pause, reflect, and encounter Christ anew. I hope this episode inspires you to open your heart to Him, whether that means diving into Heather’s journal or simply carving out quiet time to pray.

🔗 Get Encountering Emmanuel

PS – #igivecatholic on #givingtuesday is now LIVE 🚨

You can give today. Your support creates safe, transformative spaces for men in need. 👉 https://bit.ly/40TfJHs

 

Well, welcome back to the pew. Everybody. I’m your host, John Edwards, and I’m very excited for this week’s episode of just a guy on the pew this week. Victor’s off doing something for Thanksgiving or something. So my buddy, Heather Khym decided to jump in and take his seat today virtually.

And I’m excited to have her on the show folks. If you do not know who Heather Khym is. She is the co host of the internationally popular Abiding Together podcast with Sister Miriam and Michelle. She and her husband Jake are co founders of Life Restoration Ministries, where she serves as director of vision and ministry of the British Columbia based Apostolate.

So she is Canadian by, uh, by where she lives now, part time. She lives in Steubenville sometimes too, but she’s, uh, she also serves as the director of the Celtic Cross Foundation. She’s been doing ministry for over 25 years, uh, as a speaker, retreat leader, Given workshops and conferences. Uh, she also was a student and graduated from Franciscan where she studied theology and catechetic.

So I might’ve said that wrong. If I did, I promise you I’m more intelligent than that, but I might’ve gotten that word wrong. But, uh, she still lives in British Columbia with her husband and her three children. So without further ado, Heather, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here. Thank you so much.

I’ve been really looking forward to our conversations. So thanks for having me here. Yeah, it’s awesome. I know you and I, uh, we met. I guess, uh, what we didn’t talk about this before we started recording, but you and I actually met When I was still part of virtual catholic conference I was one of the guys that founded that during covid and you and sister and michelle came on for one of our I want to say it was a healing conference or something, but we uh, we had you guys interviewed on there you did a show for the online conference during covid and So I got a few minutes with you there in the green room to To me, it’s been a while back.

So I don’t expect you to remember that, but then we got forgotten about that. Yeah, this is great. And then we met at the NEC properly. Sure. Sure. So all that came through sister, I met her first and then was lucky to get introduced to you guys and to start building a friendship there. So, like I said, I’m excited to have you here.

It was great to see you and Jake at the, uh, JP two healing center. All are kind of knitted into this whole, uh, JP2 healing, uh, healing, uh, ministry that Dr. Bob has. So it’s great to, to be in good company with y’all and the work that you guys are doing alongside of Bob and sister and everybody else. Yeah.

Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure. Privilege really isn’t it to be in the vineyard, just, um, trying to help people come along, you know, I feel like for all of us, you you’ve been so vulnerable in sharing your own story, but I think that’s the real stuff, right? It’s like, we’re all on a journey together.

And as much as we can help each other along the way, I mean, that’s, that’s the good stuff right there. Yeah, it is. And I think that comes through. Uh, on y’all show. And then even like the stuff that you post online, I was looking at something you posted yesterday. That was, it was multiple pictures to, to look through.

And it was just this beautiful journey. We’re taking people on like statement by statement, talking about, um, just how God’s there and everything. And there’s a, you have a really unique quality to come across as very genuine and very, not to say other people aren’t, I don’t want to sound like I’m beating up on people, but like you just have, you come across as somebody who’s like, Hey, She just as soon sit down and have beer and wings with you, uh, is she would, you know, talk to you about Jesus too.

Right. So I think that’s very attractive to people and people really relate to y’all. Well, and I think that’s why you guys have the following you do and the, and the folks that are so moved every time you guys have a show come out. Yeah, I think, uh, for me, I don’t really know how to be any other way.

Thankfully, uh, the Lord has stripped a lot of that away along the years, you know, and I’ve realized that actually just being honest about who we are and where we are is, um, is really what the Lord desires. And there’s a lot of freedom that’s come in that for me. It took a long time to be able to sort of settle in to like who, who I am and, and who I’m becoming.

You know, and I think that’s part of it is like, we’re all becoming, and we’re all, like I said, we’re on a journey, but by that, I mean, like we get opportunities to grow. And that also recognizes, Hey, we don’t have it all together, you know, and the more that we can be honest about that, I think it allows a lot of room for God to be who he is in our life and wants to be who he is.

Yeah, no, I do too. I, I, I couldn’t agree with you more. There is a freedom when you’ve just come to realize that you’re not the sum of your mistakes and your failures and that God loves you through all of it. And, you know, you mentioned being vulnerable. I mean, you get up and you start telling people about the things in your life and they, they no longer have power over you anymore once you’ve let God into those things.

And there is a freedom. And I think that’s why vulnerability is so important. Uh, because not only. Is it helpful to you, but it’s also, it gives permission to others to see the freedom and Hey, nobody abandoned them or nobody ran the other way. In fact, they love them in spite of those things. And it’s really, uh, I think what Jesus calls all of us to is just that joy and that freedom to live in who we are in him.

And so I think that’s beautiful. Thanks for, for sharing your thoughts there. It’s, it’s, um, yeah, it’s like you said, it’s a gift to be able to do this. Sometimes when I’m coming here and turn on the microphone, I’m like, Lord, you should You, you, you still, you sure I’m still the right guy for the job or like there’s somebody else, you know, and he keeps telling me to do it.

So I’m sure you kind of feel that way sometimes too, but. But, uh, I’m excited to have you on here today, uh, in particular to talk about something that I know you’ve been working on and has recently come out. Um, it’s this Advent guided journal for prayer and meditation with Ave Maria and it’s called Encountering Emmanuel.

And we were talking before we came on the air, you know, over the last few years, uh, I’ve been picking these up, you know, I’ve had different people doing them every year. And so, you know, went through the one with father John Burns at Lent, I believe. And one was sister, I think it was called behold. And there’s just a lot of, I think they’ve got a really thing, go a good thing going in there.

They have, uh, obviously picked great people to do it. So I know we’re about to enter into Advent. In fact, this, this episode will be out the first week of end of Advent. So I’m excited to kind of talk to you a little bit today about. Advent and, and why it’s important and why you felt led to do this and to write this book.

And, you know, what you hope people are going to get out of it, because, you know, quite frankly, I said this to you as we were, we’re getting ready for the show too. I kind of feel like, you know, advent can sort of be the redheaded stepchild of the liturgical season of the year of the church. Sometimes it’s everybody gets all geared up for Lent and Advent.

It’s just sort of the, the pause between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Right. If you will. And, and, uh, it’s just, it’s so much more than that. And such a, a, a greater opportunity to, to really. Uh, prepare the way of the Lord, if you will. Yeah, exactly. And I just want to say, since this is already the first week of Advent, that people are listening to this, it’s not too late people.

If you haven’t started something, if you don’t have the book or whatever it is that you will want to do, it’s not too late, like in scripture. It says now is the time. So, today is a new day and you can get started on something today. And I love that the church does liturgical seasons for us because often I feel like, and maybe you feel the same, it’s like life is happening to me.

Everything is moving so quickly that I’m like, wait, am I in charge of my life or is life just like coming at me? And so I think liturgical seasons are really an opportunity to kind of wake us up and give us pause to go, Oh my gosh, like. Are my priorities straight? Like what actually is most important to me in my life?

And, and where do I need to allow Jesus to come in? Like what’s maybe gotten a bit out of control or what am I sort of like putting under the rug or I’m not making space for that’s most important. I guess it’s like a reset, you know, it gives us an opportunity to come back to ourselves, to come back to the Lord and come back to what’s most important.

So that’s really the hope for this journal and, you know, for Advent this year, I think is to. Put first. What should be first? Yeah. Make space for that. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. It, it, it’s, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, even when you think about Lent, you know, it’s, I I always laugh ’cause you know, you’ll get so busy, like you were saying and, and starting the year or whatever it may be in that time of year, but.

Then somebody says like, you know, Ash Wednesday is like this week and you’re like, Oh, and you think of the one thing, you know, the Lord wants, and you kind of whistle past the graveyard. Like you didn’t hear it, you know? And, and it is, it’s an opportunity to reset. And, and as we talked about a few minutes ago, I mean, Advent is, it’s a penitential season too.

And it’s, it’s an opportunity to come back to the Lord with, with, uh, with everything in your life. And You know, what I, what I love about Advent is when you start to think about it, and I want you to speak more to this because I know you’ve obviously written a book on it now, and you’ve spent a lot of time here with it, but, um, I just, I love the idea of looking at it, not as just Christ being born as a child, but as Him coming as divine healer, right?

And wanting to come into these places of our hearts and, and, you know, And, and you have this whole period as you’re going towards the birth of Christ to really start to concentrate on that and really start to think and to ponder on those things and, and to offer back to them those things you talked about that maybe you hadn’t in your life.

Yeah, it really was like a lot of the focus for this particular book. I was praying, I mean, you could go in a hundred directions, you know, I feel like there’s so many different scriptures or themes you could pull for Advent. And as I was praying about it, I was thinking, okay, like the two bookends here where we look back.

Uh, to when Christ came 2, 000 years ago, a real event. We focused on that during Advent. Then we also looked where the second coming and this is what the church is, is saying to us. And as I was praying, I was walking down my driveway one day and I said, Lord, what do you want me to say in this book? And he said, I’m coming now.

I’m coming for people now, like, I want to come into the darkness now. I want to come into the places where there’s hopelessness, where there’s anxiety and depression. And I want to bring freedom. And I was like, okay, whoa, like, here we go. Like, let’s do this. So let me get some paper, scratch this down. So yeah.

So every meditation for each day starts with, he comes. And I think what got impressed upon my heart is in that, is that We can often get it mixed up, like, it’s all up to me, I gotta, like, do my self reliant thing that I always do to, like, muster up some grit and, like, get at it, you know, and we do have some decisions to make, of course, but Christ is always the one who initiates, He’s the one who’s already come, and He is coming, and He will come again, you know, so there is a seriousness there.

It’s around Advent that’s actually really good. Sometimes we hear serious news, we go, Oh man, that just sounds like hard, you know, but to just know he’s, he’s already, he’s already coming. He’s initiated. And for us, the opportunity is to respond and to open our hearts. Just like our lady did. It’s like the Lord came to her, the word came to her in the annunciation and it was like, what will you do?

You know? And she was like, well, I’m afraid. And then she said, yes. And I’m like, could we? You know, allow our lady to teach us something in that could we this Advent, like, be like her and open up ourselves in a real way, like a real way for Jesus to come into our life. And, and, and that’s the hope. I mean, all of those meditations that, that I wrote are just like real things that have happened.

that have happened in my life that the Lord has been, you know, just teaching me along the way that I think he just wants to teach all of us for what it’s worth. I think if people just read the book, it’s like, you’ll probably disappointed at the end of Advent. It’s just going to be a book, but, but if you actually do what’s in here, which is at the end of each meditation, there’s a time to pray and a time to, Like journal a little bit and go under the surface in your own heart.

And I think that’s where the real stuff is gonna happen, because that’s the opportunity for Jesus to meet you right where you are. Yeah. And I, uh, I couldn’t agree more because I, one, when some of these start first started coming out, I, you know, that’s what I did. I’d read it every day and go, okay, I read it with, you know, every other.

You know, reflection or daily journal, you know, book that has, uh, some sort of, uh, daily inspiration. And if you just, you know, get up, pray, read it, throw it on the bed and say, okay, I checked off another thing. It’s not going to be as helpful as it would be if you sat down with it the next year. I got one of those old black and white like, um, Mead high school books and just started journaling every day.

Like I’m going to do this and I’m going to sit down and I’m not going to blow off what it’s asking me to do. And I’m not going to tell myself I’m, I’m too busy and I have ministry stuff to do, so I don’t have time to pray or like sit with God. And when I did started doing that, these books really started coming to life and the Lord started shining a light.

You know, in the places like you’re talking about that he wanted to speak to me. And I think that’s the beauty of it. You’re a hundred percent right. Like we all struggle with the same things. If I’ve come to learn anything in the last few years of ministry, it’s like, we all, we’re all struggling with the same stuff.

Like there’s not, I don’t care if your theology is super sound and you can quote the Summa in your sleep, or if you’re just a beginner, we all struggle with the same stuff. And that’s where Christ wants to meet us. Isn’t that every day, every day, um, Just whatever we have going on in the moment. And so I’m excited for people to start doing that with this.

And I saw that you have, like, you broke it down for those who haven’t had it yet. Like you’ve got. You know, your introduction where you’re kind of talking about why and what you’re doing here and what the hopes are. And then every one of these books comes with, okay, like, how is this organized and how should I go through it?

So you’re not guessing at it. There’s a lot of stuff that starts leading you and encouraging you, encouraging you in specific ways to go through it. But then. you know, you, you break it into four different weeks that are titled four different things. And I thought maybe we could kind of jump into that a little bit and talk about, you know, those themes and why four and, you know, where are you starting and where are you going?

Yeah. I mean, I had that kind of idea. Okay. So Jesus wants to come, like, how do we, what do we nest this in? And what, what I was drawn to was the four reasons for the incarnation that we find in the catechism. So it’s nested in, not just like, Oh, some ideas Heather had, but What the church teaches, what Jesus has revealed as to why he came.

So, the first week is Jesus comes to save us. The second week is Jesus comes to make us sharers in his divine life. The third week is that he shows us how to live. He’s a model for holiness. And the fourth is that he shows us God’s love. And so, that’s important for us to note. Jesus came for reasons.

Mm-Hmm. , he’s very intentional about why he was coming here. And, and all of those things don’t just matter in the grand scheme of like, oh yes, the church says this, and as the world, you know, we should understand. It’s like, what does this mean for me? And that’s where this book is going. Like, in every single thing, this, this advent, it’s gonna be okay, that’s great.

This stuff out there, this, this scripture, or this idea, or this teaching, or this saint said this, but what does that mean for me? And what is my response to that? You know, also, and, um, yeah, so I, I love that there was like themes that were, I mean, obviously so clear that we could jump right into, um, but yeah, we’re going to keep going under the surface.

And for some people, they might be like, Oh man, I don’t, I don’t want to, like, I work really hard to stay away from those places. Why are you sticking your finger in it? You know? And I would just say. You know, take a breath, and maybe there’s some reasons there that are wrapped up in some misconceptions that you might have about who God is or who Jesus is.

And I think we all have them. John, I’m sure you could name off a few that you’ve struggled with in your life and maybe still do. And I could say the same, and there’s usually reasons. Why? It probably makes sense if I, you know, if people were to share their story with us, it would probably make sense why they believe certain lies or have misconceptions about who Jesus is and who God is.

And when we actually invite the real Jesus to come and meet us, what can happen there is that it shatters those misconceptions and then we could actually be loved by a God who is love, you know, where we could actually receive. fear and his tenderness and his kindness. And even, you know, the conviction that comes with, whoa, I need to change some things in my life.

Ultimately, he’s a God that wants to love us into freedom. You know, he doesn’t just want us to have better behavior. Although we should probably have better behavior in certain places, but, but that’s not the point, you know, and I think sometimes we reduce. Yeah. Our religion or our practice to just like, okay, I got to do this stuff.

I got to check the boxes. I got to, you know, like be a good boy or be a good, good girl. And we forget that this is like one massive love story that we’re in. And we actually are really desperate for a savior and we have one. Yeah. And we have an opportunity to experience that. Yeah, you’re man. That’s beautiful.

And that’s the truth. I mean, I. I was sitting there, you were talking about all the things in your life. And I’m like, yeah, I’ve got a giant scroll on the wall. I could just unroll across the room with everything. I still deal with in trouble, you know, struggle with and all those things. We have them, but like you’re saying, I can remember, um, being in the jail cell when I was, you know, in trouble.

And, and, uh, and I had been so ugly to God, like when my mother died and I blamed him and I. And I had just been so, uh, contrary to him and had given up on him, but he never gave up on me and in that gel cell, like he came into that moment when I just remember feeling a presence and going like, okay, what do you want?

Like, you’re probably here to punish me even further. And instead it was nothing but love. He was nothing but love. Like he just, he walked me through so many things in my memory and the things and just, you know, I, I began to feel great repentance in the moment and the need to, uh, in the realization that.

My life had gotten so off course, but, um, but yeah, he was gentle. He didn’t come in. And I think that a lot of men in particular, you know, we have a lot of men that listen to the show, obviously, but a lot of guys can feel like that. God is like a father figure. They had that maybe wasn’t the kindest or was very authoritative or punishing.

And the, you know, God’s kind of. On a cloud is a cosmic police officer waiting for us to die so he can punish us. But no, it’s just this great love of sending his own son and then Christ and his willingness coming here to, to do exactly that, to enter into those places. And. You’re right, we, we, we close our fist, we, we put up barricades, we double lock the doors of our hearts and, and don’t want them to come in.

But man, when we can find the courage, and sometimes that comes in rock bottom moments, sometimes it’s just a moment of grace, but I guess all of them are moments of grace. But, uh, when we finally meet them, we, and you see who, as you said, Christ really is, it blows you away. Like it blows you away that the God of the universe cares that much about you, you know?

Yeah, exactly. I love what you’re sharing there and just your, your vulnerability. And although I, I haven’t myself been in an actual jail cell, I can say, I feel like I’m, there are places of my heart that are in prison. You know, that I, I need Jesus to come into those places too. And one of the misconceptions that I had for a very long time in my life growing up was that God was far away and he didn’t care.

He was just unmoved by my suffering. And it was just like, he was just like this distant figure in the sky, um, with his arms folded just waiting for me to get it together, you know, and, and that experience that you’re talking about there at the end of him shattering those. Misconceptions and, and me actually being able to experience his close proximity and his care for me has been one of the most healing and powerful things in my life.

And, and is that not what Advent and Christmas is all about is like Jesus comes close. He doesn’t stay away as his distant, like in heaven, you know, wherever that is, if we can even imagine it, but he actually came to this earth, like you can go to the sea of Galilee where, where he walked on those shores and, and he became a human being and he became so little and vulnerable.

So it shows us like he didn’t come to intimidate us. Like he just came vulnerable with nothing, like as a little baby. Who would do that? It’s ridiculous. You know, we think about like, he actually let humans hold him. Like we could have dropped him. We could have hurt him. We did hurt him eventually, you know, but he came because of his great love for us.

Yeah. And because he does, he wants us to know he doesn’t want to be far away. And again, like that idea and that truth, um, we want to become a reality for us this Advent. And that’s, uh, I think that’s the thing we have to remind ourselves, especially as Catholics. I mean, I was a convert, you know, I was, grew up Baptist and there’s obviously a huge focus on personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Right. And you hear that a lot. And in fact, I make jokes about it. When I give a talk on the most important thing in personal relationship with Jesus Christ is I’ll always say, and yes, it’s Catholic because so many people hear that. And they’re like, that’s that Protestant stuff. But But really that’s what he wants and, and the, you know, he, he wants to come for relationship and, and wants to come close, as you said, like he, he chose not to stay distant to, to, to show himself to us.

And, you know, you talked earlier about how you read something matters. I think that’s important with scripture as well, too. That we, when we read it, it’s like, okay, well, here’s the adulterous woman in the glass houses and all that stuff. You can read it that way. Or, or what is Jesus trying to do in my life today?

Like, what is he, who am I in this today? Am I the woman on the ground reaching up, begging for mercy because I made a mistake? Or. Am I, am I Christ in someone else’s life, you know, reaching a hand of mercy down? Am I a Pharisee who’s standing in judgment over somebody in my life or, or an apostle that doesn’t know what’s going on?

Like, who am I today in that? And I think it’s beautiful that you said that because everything in our faith, we’re not careful, can become rules and regulations. And we can forget that all of that is the pathway and the interstate or the road to deeper relationship. And it starts here in Advent, right? The church starts here.

with Christ coming and as you said, becoming this vulnerable little baby. And when you start to even look into the, the nuances of Advent, like where he’s, he’s born into a feeding trough, you know, as he would, he would give himself as, as the Eucharist, uh, throughout the rest of time, uh, Bethlehem house of bread.

You know, you start to look at these things and, and you can’t make this stuff up, right? Like it’s, the Lord had all of this planned out and it started with him coming, not only to come into that, into that feeding trough, but to come into our hearts. And he’s there every day at mass waiting to do that.

Right. And, and, uh, I just, I, that’s what I get chills when I start thinking about all that with Advent. Mm hmm. Totally. And I mean, that he would come into a messy stable. I mean, wow, that sounds a lot like my heart, you know, so it’s really hopeful. It’s like really hopeful, like scripture, like you said, when we get into scripture, we can start to see the real Jesus.

And that, that also blows apart our misconceptions. And one of the questions that, you know, I think many of us need to ask is like, what if it’s true? And some people are like, what, like what? Like we sort of like assume we think it’s true, but do you believe that that’s true? And that he is the same one now as he was then.

He has the power to do the same things now as he did then. So, um, my dad, I don’t, I don’t know if you’ve heard this story, John, but when I was a senior in high school, my dad, he was a very capable businessman, very successful. a great negotiator. He could just work a room. Like he was just really good, competent, you know, he was always fixing everybody’s problems and helping out so generous.

And then he was diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s large cell lymphoma and they said he had three months left to live. And I mean, nothing will bring you to your knees like moments like that. And I think we all have them in different ways, whether it be somebody passes away or, you know, a deep suffering that we have to journey through where it strips us of our, our false idea that we have it all together, you know, and, and takes away our ability to be self reliant.

Cause we’re like, I actually can’t fix this. And it was, the cancer was all through his body. It was in his bone marrow and in his bloodstream and tumors all in different areas. And. He read this scripture one night when he was in the cancer clinic, and they were about to do a scan the next morning, and they just said, you have three months left to live, you need to get your affairs in order, and he read the scripture about the healing of the leper.

And he just lay there and he was like, he said, I prayed for myself for the first time. I never felt worthy to ask God for anything before, but he read that scripture and he was like, it was that. What if it’s true? You know, I think like that came into his mind. Like, what if it’s true? And so he just prayed and he had this incredible experience of the presence of God and his like power rushing through his body and he went in for the scan the next day and they knew there was tumors in his abdomen, his spleen, all the lymph nodes all over and they came back and they said, there’s nothing there.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And he lives next door to me right now. I didn’t know. I thought you were going to tell me he passed and now all of a sudden, what a beautiful story. Yeah. Yeah. And I share that. I think as I share it a lot now, um, because I, I think there is a real sort of like belief under the surface that we’re like, he can’t do stuff anymore.

Jesus is powerless in some way. And not to say that he’s always going to do that because that would be heaven, you know, that if he healed everything and you know, hurt every desire or hurt like that, like ultimately that will be satisfied one day. But yes, he can right now. And if the answer is not yet, then he will come with his presence, which is even more incredible than just the pain being taken away.

You know, I think the holiest people have suffered and, and in their suffering, they have learned deep intimacy and friendship with Jesus. Yeah, I can, I can tell you, you know, I alluded to my mother passing and being angry at God. And I can remember the first time that I ever went to a doctor’s appointment with her, because I was in a very bad state of life.

I mean, I was addicted to all sorts of things. I was selfish. I was buying into everything. The world tells a man you should be money, fortune, fame, you know, accomplishments, all that stuff. And I remember I live right around the corner from the cancer clinic that she was going to. And, uh, they had sort of, they had a, Uh, they both were the same part of Mississippi and they had moved back down there.

Uh, but they still had a home up here in Memphis. They were trying to sell. And so she kept her appointments up here. And, and, uh, one day I was just making sales calls and I remembered out of the blue, like, I think mom has a doctor’s appointment. It’d been weeks since I saw them because I was always too busy and all that stuff.

And so I stopped by there and I go in and, uh, and I said, you know, it was miss Edwards here. And they said, yes, who are you? I’m her son. And they sent me back to the office and, or to the room. And I’m staying there and my, my father was not a very, uh, mostly capable guy. So he kind of looked at me like, son, when I came in, but my mother was overjoyed.

And that was the day the doctor walked in and said, like, you know, you must be John. Uh, Proving my point. I wasn’t around very much like my sisters that were there for her all the time and uh, she said it’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry. It’s under these circumstances, but um, and she turned to my mother and said, you know, she’d had some heart issues.

So they chose to stop the chemo to do heart surgery and then the cancer spread. And it went, you know, from her breast or lymph nodes and her lungs and then into her brain. And so the doctor looked and said, Ms. Edwards, I’m sorry, but you have, you know, two weeks to a month to live and I followed them back to their house in Midtown and, and, uh, they were getting clothes to take down to the farm so they could go by, be by themselves.

And to your point about your father, like I opened the car door and all six, eight, 275 pounds, my mother was like maybe five, three and a half. And I just fell into her lap and started crying, you know, and just said, mom, this isn’t right, this isn’t fair. And, and I’ll never forget. She just, she just sat there rubbing my head.

And I always tell people that’s why I’m bald now. She rubbed the hair right off. But like. But I remember just laying in her lap, it, you know, 35 years old, whatever I was at the time. And, and her just saying, it’s okay, John, like I knew this could happen, but I love Jesus. And I’ve known Jesus my whole life.

And while I’m going to miss you and, and, you know, I won’t get to, to be here for a lot of things. I know that I’m going to be with Jesus and I know that he’s going to be waiting for me, you know, and I. I just remember being angry, you know, because I was selfish and I was like, no, I want you here and he can have you later and all that stuff, but just being so impacted by the fact of like, you just found out you’re going to die.

You just found out like, this is it. Like, there’s no, you know, you can pray, but, and maybe something will happen in the case of like your father, but. But I just remember going like, what faith? And I honestly think when I look back at that, yeah, the jail and all that stuff. But I really think that that moment was the beginning of a turning point in my own journey of like just being hit in the face with what real faith and real relationship with Christ look like, you know?

And so my mother did not, she didn’t make it. I was there at her bedside when she passed with my family and I looked, watched her look at my dad and say, I love you. And him say, I love you back and, and, and, and pass peacefully. But, um, yeah, it just, It goes back to what you’re talking about, just this relationship and in somebody that had, it just spent her life trying to grow that and saw him and everything, um, was just so beautiful to witness, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. That, that, thank you for sharing that. Those are really sacred moments, aren’t they? Yeah. Like sacred, sacred moments. And, and I think for, you know, people listening, they’re probably right now going, Oh, wow. Yeah. That, that makes me remember this, you know, part of my life for a suffering, a deep place of suffering.

And, and what we do in those moments really matters. You know, what we do from the Those moments of suffering really matters. And it sounds like for you, you know, the anger and then deeper into some, some other things other than God, you know, eventually brought you back to him. And I think it’s because those are sobering moments where we have to face ourselves and we have to face what’s actually going on under the surface, you know, and for you, it sounds like it was exposing a lot of other things that were under there, you know, and eventually like you came to, came to where you need to be.

And, um, and so I think for people listening right now who are being reminded of deep places of suffering, the hope is that Jesus also suffered, and that he can take the most horrible things and make them into something beautiful. And although I, I’m telling you, you know, my dad was healed from cancer, there’s tons of other things that, you know, we prayed for that it’s like, oh, the answer wasn’t yes.

The answer was no, no or not yet. And um, and even some of those places now in my own life, but the presence of Christ there is changing everything for me. It really is like, I’m, I’m less going to the other things that I used to just drown my sorrows in. And the more that I come to him, the more I’m just like, Oh wow, like you’re, I’m still hurting, but like your presence here is so healing for me.

It is what I need. You know, it’s what, it’s what we want. And, um, I think the more we get honest, just to go back to where we kind of started, you know, it’s like the more we can get honest about those places, the more we can experience the relief of Jesus. Yeah. You know, it’s like, if we don’t get honest about that, then we’re just carrying it all on our own.

It doesn’t go away. We know that it’s just right under there all the time. It’s coming out in all kinds of ways. If you asked other people around you, they’d be like, Oh, I can see it. Even if you think you’re good at hiding it, like they can see it. It’s coming out in your anger and your selfishness and your, you know, whatever addictions you might be going into.

And so it’s like, Hey, what if we could just be honest and just said like, Lord, I need you in our desperation, like actually really need you. And then we could experience the relief of him. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I, uh, you mentioned the Holy land earlier and I’ve walked in those places and I’ve been in that I went with father Larry Richards a year ago and.

Um, you know, but a pilgrimage over there and it was really powerful. And I remember one of the moments, um, you know, I, I’m not a guy that’s just like, okay, I’m going to give a lecture at every stop and all that, you know, I’m just like, Lord, if you moved me to say something, then, you know, then I will, and we were, um, at the healing pools, you know, uh, where Jesus says, do you want to be healed?

And, uh, he moved me with a group of people that were sitting there and I said, the guy said, do you want to say something? I was like, yeah, I’m not really sure what. But the Lord’s moving me, I opened my mouth and just the Lord started speaking. And, and, uh, and I just remember reading that passage and saying people to people like, do you ever wonder like why he didn’t call the person by their name?

Like he could have, he knew their name, like Josaphat, do you want to be healed or whatever? And instead he says, do you. Do you want to be healed? And the fact that I think the Lord did that because he knew thousands of years later that people would be reading that and that he would want them to be asking themselves that question, right?

Like, do you want to be healed? And where in your life do you want to be healed? And that’s, that’s who Jesus is. If you look at everything, every interaction he had with anybody healed, it was never like, Hey, I’m the son of God. And like, you know, I’m just going to come over and fix this for you real quick.

And just to, you know, to have an example, to show people that I am who I say I am. Amen. It was always very relational, you know, what do you see? What, what would you like me to do for you? Uh, do you want to be healed? Right. And that’s who God is in that gentleness. And, uh, sometimes I miss my old, uh, Protestant Bibles that had like the, the things Jesus said in red, right.

Where you could just look and flip it open and boom, there’s something, I mean, Jesus obviously wrote the whole thing, but like to have his spoken words, they’re highlighted. I could often flip to those things. I know we have some Catholic Bibles that do that too. But. Um, just to really go to those places because every time I, I need him, I open up that book and he has something to say to me, right.

And even in this Advent season, I, you know, I think about some of the things that I like to read and, and, you know, I want to hear if these are some things you like to go through too, and then maybe jump a little bit more into the book. But, um, Just, you know, John 1 where it’s talking about the word was made flesh and why he came and the world that was in darkness and he came to be a light like this time of year in particular like I read that and I’m almost I’m trying not to cry right now, like thinking about it, just this loving poetry that the Lord wrote through John and, and just this, this vision of why he came and then it ties back to Isaiah 61, right?

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me and why did he come to, to free those who were bound and to heal the brokenhearted and to, to comfort those who mourn and like, how could you not? Want to believe in that God, right? Like not the one that’s like the punishing in the crowds that the world tries to tell you he is and all that stuff.

But the one that is core is the Von Heeler. And it just wants to come into your life and he wants to make it better. And he wants you to, to realize that he’s your friend and ultimately the best friend you will ever have in your life. Right. And. I don’t know. Sorry, I could go on and on. I’m supposed to be interviewing you instead of talking.

That’s beautiful. I love it. Dude, you’re speaking the truth. You’re speaking the truth, and you’re speaking from your heart. And, and I, I do think you’re absolutely right. This is, this is what life is all about. This is why Advent is such a incredible time that we’ve just started. You know, it’s an opportunity for us to come back to our senses again, right?

It’s just like, okay, let me just clear out the clutter and get, get quiet again. And that’s an important part of Advent is that we would actually make space. So I know it’s a busy time. I know there’s going to be like a thousand Christmas concerts and parties and gift buying and traffic’s going to be terrible.

And you can’t go into the store without, you know, probably getting frustrated, but Hey, what if we could be intentional and maybe even put it in our phone, you know, on our calendar, like I’m going to get quiet for 20 minutes, like before my day starts, or maybe at the end of my day, how it, whatever works, um, to just try to make some space.

Yeah. To reprioritize again. Yeah. And that’s the thing, folks. I mean, I, I know we’re all creatures of habit. Like you’re saying, we can get busy and we can say we don’t have time, but like you, when you do, if you can sit there and you can, and you can promise yourself, like for this Advent, I’m just going to take 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever you can muster.

And I’m going to get intentional about being quiet and sitting with the Lord. And this book, Encountering Emmanuel, is a good way to do that because I know when I sit. Yeah. If I don’t have something to guide me, oftentimes I’m off to the races and my mind’s everywhere. And you get more frustrated. All right, Jesus, I gave you time.

And all I did was thinking about, you know, what’s coming on Netflix later or whatever, you know, and, and you get frustrated and you quit when, when in fact, like that’s, you’re giving in very easily to the evil one. Who’s trying to keep you from. That time, but to have something like this, that’s a guide for you.

And it’s, and it’s a disease, like you’re going on a journey. It’s not random stuff. You’re what you seem to have done here. Heather is to, to give people a place to start, to journey alongside of them. Uh, you know, gently. Uh, as a surgeon would maybe poking and prodding at a little places to, to make people feel something and know that there’s something there that needs to be looked at, but, but then to guide them through it.

Right. I mean, just like with the Lord, the Lord doesn’t come and go like, you know, come up and flick you and go, did that hurt? Good. You know, he’s there to, to point those things out and then to help comfort you in those places that you need comfort. So with this, um, you know, it’s, it’s, It’s day one, the first week, you know, to start on, um, the first of Advent.

If you didn’t have it, I’m sure you could take, you know, catch up pretty quickly, uh, through that there’s short meditations. But I see here, like you said, we have Jesus saves us and then Jesus make us, uh, makes us share in the divine life. What would you talk about that just for a minute? Like what you mean by Jesus makes us share in the divine life?

Because I think sometimes people hear that. And then they’re like, okay, what does that mean? Like divine life, like what does that mean? Am I going to start glowing? Am I going to levitate? Like, what does that mean? Wouldn’t that be awesome? Yeah, it would. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think just simply a lot of the meditations in there are like the first one is he comes into a family.

Like that’s what it means to share in divine life. Jesus came so that he would take on flesh and that we could then become a Adopted sons and daughters of the Father, that we would be one with him, that Jesus is our brother, you know, like that’s crazy, like the Savior of the world, the one we were just talking about, that like did all those miracles in scripture, like he’s our brother, you know, like that’s some of the meditations as you, as you go through Advent, it’s like, this isn’t just a story, like this is real, this is really real.

And so, um, sharing in divine life also means that we have power. that has been bestowed on us in our baptism, and as sons and daughters of God, we have an inheritance, you know? So, we have divine power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, Scripture says. So, when we think about, oh man, I got, there’s so much I have to do, or like, this is so hard, it’s like, you’re not supposed to do it on your own power.

You actually can’t. So, we get to be dependent, uh. on God for who he is, because he wants to pour his very life into us. And he has just knit us together into his family. That’s, that’s powerful, but it’s also healing because it also means you belong. And I think for the, for at the core, for all of us, Oh my gosh, like I’m sure everybody listening to be like, Oh, let me tell you 10 stories off the top of my head of where I’ve been rejected.

Oh, yeah. Where I’ve been left out or where in my family there’s so much brokenness or where in relationships I’ve messed things up so badly that like now there’s just fracturing all over the place and to just know, hey, it was never meant to be that way. And the way back is Jesus. Jesus is the restorer of all the fractured pieces.

And one of those main places being fractured is family. And community, you know, and so it’s like, Hey, we have an opportunity like to receive from the family of God. So the places that have been broken for us, like God wants to fill those places with himself, with, with the family of the Trinity. Um, and then there’s a deep security that I think we can all experience that comes through that.

Like once we’re rooted in that place, There’s a lot of other things that we don’t need to depend on. We don’t need to prove ourselves, you know, to belong. And so those are some powerful themes that I think, again, we want to move beyond it just being an idea into an experience and something that we believe and something that we can go, no, I, I am a son of God.

I am a daughter of God. And that, that, that means something real to us. Yeah, and that’s a place we all have to go because if you if you ask most people who are you they I’m a doctor I’m a lawyer. I’m a police officer. I’m a this I’m a that and we’re we’re not identifying ourselves with the one thing That is actually our identity and it’s good.

So many of us don’t believe it and that’s the beauty of of these liturgical seasons Advent Lent, you know But it’s also the beauty of being able to journey through them looking for those answers, right? I mean, I I I know that one thing in my life that I struggle with a lot, and I still do, if I’m not careful, my wife’s very good at pointing it out for me, but, uh, is, is control, right?

Like I want to be in control and control is an illusion, right? And we fight against it so much because it’s just not something we’re supposed to have, right? Like that’s why it’s so difficult. And while we get angry and all these things and, The Lord wants to take that from us to, you know, you let go the steering wheel and you see that you’ve white knuckled the steering wheel.

So long you have arthritis, right? Like you just have been trying to control your life and the Lord wants to come into that. So. Yeah, and, and one thing about what you said here, and then we can start to kind of, uh, you know, just, just talk a little bit more about this as we go to close, um, about where people can find it and, um, all those things.

But, you know, to your point of, of, of not feeling seen and, and the Lord wants to come and restore, you know, we, Paul George and I, you’re another one of your friends did the restored men’s conference. The first one for the healing center last weekend, or yeah, two weeks ago. There was a guy that I was walking past when Paul was talking in the hallway.

It was just he and I, and he wouldn’t looking up at me, you know, and, and, and I just kind of walked by and the Lord moved my heart to tap him on the shoulder. And I just said, Hey, uh, I’m glad you’re here. And he kept walking and I kept walking and he came up at the end of the conference and he said, uh, He goes, why did you touch me and talk to me in the hallway?

And I was like, I don’t know if this guy, if I did something wrong or what, but I just, you know, Lord, give me the words to say. And I just said, I know what it’s like to be in places and not to feel seen, you know, not to feel seen and to feel like you don’t matter. And the guy just crumbled. He just buried his head in my chest, started sobbing.

And so many people are like that in the world. And, and to your point, this is what Jesus wants to show us is that he, yes, he came, but he still comes every day to meet us in those places and to, to journey with us. And it’s just such a powerful time, even, you know, here on the third day of Advent, right?

It’s, it’s not too late to start to pick up and folks, I mean, this is just a beautiful work by a person that has, you know, in Heather, that is, you know, She’s obviously told you here, some things that she’s been through and that she struggled with and, um, how the Lord has met her in those places. And, you know, we’re Catholic speakers and evangelists.

That doesn’t mean we’re fixed. Uh, we, we both still have those places the Lord wants to come into, but. I think for any of you out there that they’re looking for Advent to be more than just something on the calendar and the chocolates you eat every day and the purple and pink candles you put out that you really want something, uh, powerful to happen, that this is a wonderful place to start in this book that, that Heather is, um, you know, gifted the church with, uh, through her gifts that the Lord has given her.

So Heather, anything else you want to say about it or, or just invitation for people there as we come to close here, you’ve been really kind with your time. I want to honor it. Yeah. I mean, I love how Avi Maria lays out these books. One, we talked about this a little bit. It’s simple. There’s the reflections are like a page, a page in a little bit.

So I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t like feeling like I got homework and I’m just going to get way behind or whatever. So, so this is super easy. And then there’s brief prayers in here. Um, and then three, two or three like journaling questions that you can sit down with that you can ponder throughout the day.

There’s space to write them right here. So you don’t even have to get another book. Yeah. Uh, All of that I think is really intentional. Like some people might be like, I don’t journal or whatever, but, but maybe you might wanna try because it does actually help you to get below the surface and it gives you a little bit more time to ponder what’s going on.

And for some people you might be listening to John and I talking and go, whoa, I don’t have a whole bunch of stuff like this. Like, does everybody really need to be healed? Well, you know, like actually Pope Benedict talks about how healing is like the point of the whole Christian journey if you zoom out, you know, like that, that’s what it’s all about.

And, and maybe some of us. Just are unaware of the impact of certain things in our life. And it allows us time to be more self reflective, which I think we’re really lacking today because it’s so noisy all the time. So it’s like a great opportunity to get quiet. The other thing I love about this, because we’re talking about belonging and just people, you know, not being noticed and stuff like that.

There is a group guide that goes along with this for free that you can get on the Ave Maria press website that has, The prayer to open the questions for your group. It’s laid out so simply, you don’t even have to think about it. You just got to show up and invite some people so you can do it on, on zoom with a friend or, you know, at your house with a coffee or at the parish or whatever it might be.

And, and I think that that’s also a great opportunity for relationships to also go a bit deeper. Sometimes it’s hard to take those steps and be like, Oh, we’re going to talk about God and like our faith. Like that might feel a little weird with certain people. So the book kind of does it for you. It breaks the ice for you because, uh, the questions are right there.

You’re just answering a question, you know, instead of bringing it up yourself. So yeah, I think those are all valuable things. There’s little videos that go with it each week. We’re going to do it. Yeah. Companion videos. Yeah. And we’re going to do, we’re going to do Yeah, exactly. In our podcast, Abiding Together, we’re going to do it each week.

So even if you don’t have the book or you’re not going to get the book, you could just listen to the podcast and the discussion about it and then just ponder some things, um, and engage that way. So there’s a whole bunch of options and I know there’s lots of other books and options out there. And I would just say, don’t overwhelm yourself.

Just pick one thing and get quiet each day. And invite Jesus to come, you know, that’s the whole point. And I, I mean, I opened, uh, page 20. So in the first week and there’s three questions, I mean, what is the one place in your life right now where you’re not free? Where, what do you desire Jesus to do about that?

And what is holding you back from stepping into freedom? And I mean, that’s simple questions, but very, very powerful and very thought provoking. And folks that’s what you’re going to find in this. And The Lord, uh, the Lord wants to lead us back to him and that’s what this season is for. And I personally can’t wait to dive into this book.

I’m going to, uh, probably have to buy another one cause I’m gonna have to arm wrestle my wife for it every day. I would imagine. So, uh, I’m going to get another one. In fact, I’m headed over to the Catholic bookstore here in a minute after this. So I’m going to pick up another copy and folks, I mean, Heather, you’re, you’re a gift to the church.

And so folks, if you, if this is your first, um, encounter with Heather, if this is the first time you’ve ever heard, Um, who she is or what she does, uh, do yourself a favor and look further into the work that she’s a part of at abiding together and, um, through her life restoration ministries with Jake, her husband, and, uh, so many other things.

So Heather, like, I want you to just spend the last couple of minutes here, just telling people where they can find more about you, how I know you speak. So if you want to, you know, talk to about how people can book you to maybe for a mission or for an event at the church, please, please feel free to. Thank you so much, John.

Yeah. Uh, so I I’m personally on Instagram quite a bit, or Facebook, but mostly Instagram. Um, our podcast is abidingtogetherpodcast. com. That’s with Sister Miriam James Hyland and our friend, Michelle. And then, uh, Yeah, our ministry, my husband and I have is called life restoration and people life restoration.

ca so they can look us up there and Jake has a great podcast as well called restore the glory that he does with Dr. Paul, our good friend. And, and so, yeah, just even people who are like, I really want to learn more about what is it, what is healing all about and stuff like that. That’s a, that’s a great resource for people as well.

Yeah. All right. Well, Heather, um, you know, I really appreciate your time. It’s just a joy to call you a friend and to get here and to sit, sit here to get to sit here with you and talk about things that a lot of people don’t talk about, you know, wounds and healing and, and just this invitation that the Lord has for us this Advent.

So, uh, thank you for coming on. Thank you for taking the time. I hope we get to, to actually be in the same place sometime to get to spend some time and maybe grab some of those blessings. Beers and hot wings, but then we were, we were joking around about, but, uh, the best to you and your family. And, uh, if we don’t talk again, Merry Christmas and happy advent to you.

Yeah. Thank you. You too. And John, I do want to say like you also are a great gift. Especially to men. I think what you’re modeling with just vulnerability and openness and your heart that just desires God, you know, you, you have a heart that is like burning for Christ and I can see that. And I know that that’s a great witness to a lot of men in particular.

So thank you for what you’re doing to build the kingdom. Yeah. It’s a joy. I mean, I think he would say the same thing that Jesus Christ did something for me that I couldn’t do for myself. And so, uh, you know, the response is to do whatever he asked. Right. And so what we try to do the best of our ability, we don’t always get it right, but we try the best we can.

So, but Heather, thank you so much for the kind words and, and, uh, I will be praying for y’all again. Thank you for your time. And folks go out. I’ll Uh, to Ave Maria Press, or I believe Dr. Bob has it on his website there at the JP2 Healing Center, I believe. Amazon has it. Just go out and grab this book and make sure that you are journeying with the Lord through Advent.

Thank you again, Heather. Thanks so much. All right. God bless.

This week, Victor and I dive into the heart of Thanksgiving—not just the turkey and football, but the true meaning of living a life of gratitude every single day. In this special Thanksgiving episode, we reflect on the importance of being thankful for everything—both the joys and the hardships—and how gratitude can transform our lives, bring us closer to God, and even unlock true joy. 🙏

Oh, and big news! We’re announcing our 2025 Footsteps of St. Paul Pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey! Get ready for an incredible journey through biblical history, breathtaking views, and moments of spiritual renewal. 🇬🇷🇹🇷

Get all the details (and special Black Friday savings!) here

PS – Advanced giving with #igivecatholic on #givingtuesday is now LIVE 🚨

You can give today. Your support creates safe, transformative spaces for men in need. 👉 https://bit.ly/40TfJHs

 

  Will welcome back to the pew everybody. I’m your host, John. Edwards and here across the table from me as always is my co hosting cohort, Victor Adams, John. I just love wearing this shirt. It’s my favorite shirt. You had it on for the last two, two weeks. Yes, it has been washed, has been washed. That’s right.

Well, actually we filmed these back to back. It’s probably not going to serve the reels. Well, when people are going to look at like, Oh, I already saw that because we’re dressed the same, but. Just give us a chance, but no, man, I’m excited. It’s Thanksgiving week, dude. It is. It is. And, uh, we have a lot to be thankful for.

And sometimes we forget to be thankful for things that we have in our lives. Yeah. I mean, thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Like I’ve always loved it. I have always enjoyed it. Um, you know, I, it’s the last, it’s really the only time that my, so my mother’s family, she was the only child. So we don’t have a lot of family on that side, right?

At all. Like just like third and fourth cousins and people you never see, but like three times you’re like a funeral or something, you know, uh, for somebody you probably never met, you know? But, um, my dad’s side, he’s got all his brothers and sisters that are still alive and they have kids and they have kids.

All that stuff. So we actually get to see everybody on thanksgiving because we’re we’re we’re converts So we’re we’ve come from protestant family. So we don’t I only have one sister. You have two sisters Yeah, so a lot of our friends that we know have like multiple. Yeah, well my cousin like or my uncle, uh, My dad’s brother and his wife.

They were catholic. So they’ve got like seven kids See, you know and they were all older than me, right? You got a baseball team right there. Yeah, that’s right That’s right or a good story. That’s right So it’s like, yeah, we never, we never, uh, had to search for people to play hide and go seek or anything.

Well, count the parents, you know, there’s nine of them. Yeah. But no, I mean, there’s a lot to be thankful for, and I’m excited to get into talking about that this week. We’re going to be talking about Thanksgiving, like living a life of gratitude, which is a lost art for a lot of people in this world, including myself sometimes.

But before we do that, like I have a big announcement, Victor, I wanted to make and something I’m grateful for too. Do I know about this? Uh, yeah, we’ve talked about it, but I forgot to tell you I was doing it Um, but we are announcing another pilgrimage. So, uh, we were supposed to, in 2025, go to Mexico and then to the Holy Land.

Obviously with the Holy Land, there’s still a lot of things going on there. We don’t think it’s going to be ready to go. So we’ve moved that to 2026, uh, in the hopes that we could go there. And then we had a trip to Mexico, but some things didn’t work out with the dates and things I had scheduled. So that one didn’t work as well, but it didn’t work out in the long run.

But we did just now schedule another pilgrimage, uh, with our good friends at Select International Travel to Dita and Matt and all those folks over there. They’re a great company. We love to travel with them. But, uh, I’m announcing that Father James Clark, who went with me to Italy. So for any of you that went with us to Italy, uh, Father Clark is going to return as a spiritual director in this time, uh, September 9th through the 20th of 2025.

So next year, September 9th through the 20th, we will be leading together a pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey to follow in the footsteps of our boy, St. Paul right here. Awesome. Yeah. So dude, I’m so excited. Like you’re going to get to go to the seven churches of revelations. You’re going to get to go to the churches that Paul wrote letters to.

Smarter than Philadelphia. Yeah. Ephesus and Corinth and all those places. It’s a land and a sea trip. So we’re going to go, obviously you’re flying over there and then we’ll have days where like in Thessalonica and we’re traveling by bus to places. Uh, but then there’s a four night, a GNC cruise. So you’re on the ship for four nights.

So you’re not having to move hotels all the time. You’re actually on a boat. You’re going to go to all these beautiful islands. And one of them is Patmos. So we’re going to go to the island where St. John was exiled and wrote revelations. Uh, actually going to be at the grotto where St. John wrote revelations, which is freaking amazing.

I can’t wait to be there. Um, also we’re going to go to Mary’s house. So the light where she was said to have lived out the last days of her life Before her assumption we’re going to get to go there and all the places that paul preached with silas and all these other Followers of his it’s just i’m so excited.

St Paul is the patron saint of our ministry as you know victor And I just love it because some i’ve been to the holy land and now you get to go and continue the new testament By walking the footsteps of St. Paul and seeing the early church rise and to, to grow into what the reason we’re here today. So folks, that’s going to be available.

It is, it is actually now on the select international website. There’s a link in the show notes. It’s on all of our social media as well, and our website. So you can go there and find the information. Um, it is going to be limited to one bus, so it’s going to fill up quickly. That’s 50 people or less. So it’s going to fill up quick.

September 9th through the 20th. It’s a beautiful time of year to go to Greece and Turkey. You’re going to get to see some of the, the Greek, uh, uh, history there too. Like some of the Greek mythology stuff and some of the, some of, uh, the sites of just some of the Greek ruins and things like that. So it’s going to be an amazing trip.

Plus you get all the food and some of the most beautiful, breathtaking places in the world on some of these islands. So I hope you’ll consider joining us and here’s the big news. All right. If you’re listening, listen to this. This Black Friday through Sunday night, so basically Thursday night at 12 a. m.

when the clock turns to Black Friday until midnight on Sunday night. If you sign up for our trip, if you register and pay online with a credit card, your deposit, right then and there. You’ll receive 250 off per person. So if you’re a couple that wants to travel, you’re going to say 500 bucks by signing up this black Friday through Sunday, if you miss that, and you want to sign up on cyber Monday, you can save a hundred dollars off that day.

But if it were me, I’d want to save 500 instead of 200. So folks. Excited about this wonderful trip. We love to lead pilgrimage If you if you haven’t been with us I can tell you all of our pilgrims say that they feel seen loved and heard That we don’t over bear, you know burden them with talk after talk after talk when we speak when we’re inspired somewhere When we feel the holy spirit move us and it’s really something that’s practical that can be used in your life That goes along with the sites and the places that we are father clark is an amazing spiritual director His homilies are fire The masses are awesome, and he’s just a ball of fun to be with.

So folks consider joining us and going on not only the the land part, but the C part. It’s all one trip. Uh, we’ll wind up in Athens before we head home folks. It’s gonna be an amazing journey. So you can go to select international.com and select and, and search John Edwards. The trip will come up. You can register and put your deposit there and save the $500.

If you’re a single, you can save the two 50. But folks, it’s going to be an awesome trip. So please, if you want to go with us, we’d love to have you sign up on Black Friday because people are going to be able to save money and that trip is going to fill up quick. So you want to go with us, get on the stick, uh, right after Thanksgiving, Black Friday to that Sunday night.

So Victor, how’d you get that out there, man? Hopefully no one skipped over that because it’s important. I hope so too. I mean, if they did, we’ll put it in, we’ll have plenty of social media and there’ll be emails going out as well, too. Right. But. But yeah, that’s something definitely think about, uh, people skipping through it, but, uh, you know, sinners, you’ll have to go to confession.

But anyway, let’s jump into the episode. I’m thankful for the savings people are going to have on that pilgrimage and for the opportunity to go to Greece. So that’s one thing right there that I am in Turkey that I’m thankful for. But. You know, Vic, it’s, it’s, it’s Thanksgiving week. As we said, it’s a holiday.

We both love, I mean, the food, the festivities, all that, but it really is centered around Thanksgiving, right? It’s it’s the whole reason for the holiday. As we know, the pilgrims landing here being thankful for a new start, grateful for a new life and freedoms that they didn’t have. Uh where they came from overseas and and so that’s how the whole thing got started and all of that But you know, it seems like it’s kind of lost It’s just a lot of that the gratitude piece kind of gets lost in all of it as you say is unique to america.

Yeah um because people were leaving other places to come to a place where they could uh have freedom and you know, and that was the subtext or pretext of kind of like What we became today as a government, you know, democracy, freedom, you know, and being able to, to worship you want to worship, you know, and, and find yourself in the country like this with the freedom.

Um, and also freedom to worship is not given everywhere, you know, and, and that’s, we should be very thankful that we can go to church. We don’t have to worry about like any violence or being threats against us because we, uh, Or Christians living in a Muslim country or Christians living in a communist country or Christians live in a dictatorship because, um, a lot of those things are pretty much, uh, secret and, and by going out and doing stuff that you, you risk your, your life.

Right. Well, and I mean, the holiday is awesome. Family, all that stuff. But it’s all right. I get too dark. No, no, no. You’re good, man. No, you’re good. The, uh, you know, you, you know, that’s true. Like we live in a great country and that was something I was going to talk about too, You know, even the least of us here in the United States have it better than a lot of people around the world.

Like you go to a third world country where people don’t even have a roof over their heads or anything to eat every day or clean water. Like, and we talk about like how bad it is for us when something doesn’t go our way that day, or we didn’t get the promotion we wanted or, or, you know, they didn’t have.

Whatever we wanted when we wanted it, right? Apple was out of the newest whatever iPhone or whatever And so we when we don’t live lives of gratitude man, like everything in our life gets shaded And so thanksgiving is a great reminder That we need to be thankful for what god has done for us in our life and what he does and that includes everything The good the bad the ugly All of it, the indifferent, we need to be grateful for all of it, but not just one day a year, 365 days a year, we need gratitude because people are always like, well, I’m not joyful.

I’m not happy. Well, when’s the last time you’ve been grateful, right? When’s the last time that you’ve actually stopped and gone, you know what, I’m going to quit focusing on all the negative. Cause we have such a proclivity to the negative, right? It’s just like, I’ll tell a joke. Um, sometimes when I’m speaking.

And just say, you know, when I could do a, you know, get finished talking and 99 percent of y’all say, man, that was awesome. Good job. But wow, you changed my life. Or, and then one of them go like, eh, what do you think I’m going to think about all day? Like all the way home, the plane ride, the two hour car ride back to the airport.

I’ll be like, man, I’m terrible. And I suck. And like, I should just quit. Because we, we focus on the negative and we do that a lot in our, a lot in our lives, a lot, like what I didn’t get, what, what should have been mine, uh, what somebody else has that we don’t, we get very envious in our lives. And we don’t often just take time to thank God, even for the small things, like the fact that I woke up today, right?

The fact that. You and I are sitting here with, with all this stuff and able to just sit here and, and, and, and to, to speak to people around the world, uh, to try to help them. Like that’s something to be grateful for. But so often, like I said, we all focus on the negative and what hasn’t gone our way. And you know, what, what, uh, what hand we were dealt that we didn’t appreciate or whatever.

And we live that way, man, we’re missing out on the call of Christianity and the opportunity to be The, the light of, of the world in all circumstances. Right. And before, you know, the show we were talking about, cause we do a lot of prep, you know, sometimes it seems like we just, John has a lot of great notes and I just try to follow his lead, but we were talking about this, like some things we, we, some things that could have been maybe tragic, something that.

It wasn’t good at time, but it gives us, uh, a proceeding process to come to God. Um, and what I say, because if you listen to several of our shows, you know, I, I, I allude this all the time where, you know, when I was 20, I had, you know, after two years of pain, they discovered a tumor in my spinal cord, a swanelman.

Spinal cord sheath, um, and it was one of those things where it’s like either I’m going to walk or I was going to be in a wheelchair rest of my life, depending on how well the surgery went, you know? So I had to come to grips as to kind of like, you know, what, what my will is, you know, and be at peace with it.

And, and once I did that, like that was what, that was my initial pool to really defining myself as in, in Christ. Who am I in Christ? You know, am, am I going to throw myself into Christ’s heart to where I allow him to dwell in my heart? Or am I going to be the master of my own heart rest of my life? And so that allowed me to be, you know, uh, more open to kind of realizing that when I’m not in control of my life to, uh, I, I need help.

And three, I love God. And, and I will serve him the rest of my life. Um, and so that tumor, I call him Charlie, by the way, because he, that, that, you know, that tumor, although it grew probably since I was an infant, uh, pushed me. Um and prodded me to kind of really get away from my own self destructive attitude or my thoughts And and of course correcting me to kind of be more direct in what my life is to be how to live how to treat others How to be a responsible person in this world um, and You know, a lot of us are kidding around these, these tragic things that happened to us, maybe it was a car wreck or like you lost your mother, you know, a parent, um, we’ve, we’ve probably were felt abandoned by a parent that left a divorce, whatever, and went their own way, but stayed in touch with Christmas cards and phone calls, you know, like that, um, a lot of things that were hard for us to deal with.

Um, but the, the thing is, you know, some of those things that happened to us, strengthen us. It allows us to say. This is what I want to do when I have kids or, or I will never do this, you know, um, and we have to kind of really be thankful for that. Even those bad things happen to us. Suffering allows us to be course corrected to, to really understand who we are in Christ.

Yeah. I mean, even the bad, we can be grateful for the lessons is I agree a hundred percent. I mean, people all the time. Um, there, because I share my story everywhere I go basically as part of what we do, uh, along with the other talks and things we give, um, you know, people are like, man, don’t you wish you could have just skipped all that or don’t you wish that didn’t happen or don’t you wish.

And I used to say, yeah, like, of course, man, who wants to go through all that pain? Like I, hell yeah, I would have rather just been a good person and like not screwed up and all those things. But that’s not the hand I was dealt and I wouldn’t be the man that I am right now if it wasn’t for those things.

Right? Like, yes, I would, do I regret the pain I caused my wife and my children and everybody else in our family and, and all the embarrassment and all those things? Of course I do. Uh, especially the pain I caused to myself too. Like, you know, and, but at the end of the day, God used that suffering for something else.

And, and now I know that like, I never want to become that person again. And now I know what it’s like. To be in those positions to be able to help others get out of them It’s one thing to say like hey You shouldn’t be doing drugs and you shouldn’t be in this place and you shouldn’t be in the situation You are and you just need to get out of it for somebody who’s never been in it, right?

He’s never experienced it But part of the reason this this podcast works That this ministry works is because I can look people in the eye and be like I know i’ve been where you’ve been And there is hope and there’s a way to come out of it. And because of Of, of the great, the gratitude I have to God, it spurs generosity in me to want to give my life back to God to go to help other people.

I’m not trying to say, look at me, but that’s the thing, right? So if I hadn’t gone through those terrible things, I wouldn’t understand what so many other people have gone through and be able to relate. And this ministry wouldn’t be in existence. And I don’t know how many countless people, I mean, we’ve been listening to by over a million people now around the world, just in this podcast, not counting videos and.

Other people’s stuff we’ve been on. I mean, Matt Frad’s show has got over like 70, 000 views than when I told my story the second time. Like, all of that came out of it, and people’s lives have been changed. They’ve emailed, they’ve, they’ve donated, they’ve done all these things that let us know like, hey, you’ve made a difference in my life.

And none of that would have been possible if it hadn’t been for that pain and that suffering and those hardships that you and I both have gone through in our life that made us stronger. So like, gratitude is not just about like, oh, I got a new, I, I, I show up to work today and my boss gave me a thousand dollar Christmas bonus.

Like, thank you Jesus. Yeah. Be grateful for that. That’s an awesome thing. But we have to be grateful for all of it. You know, and that’s where a lot of us mess up. And here’s the thing, like, a lack of gratitude Leads to a damaged and forgotten relationship with god That’s what happens like when we forget to be grateful and we just start like the things in our life We just start taking as windfalls of our own merit or of coincidence We forget there’s a god in heaven that loves us and wants to bless us I’m not talking about like in the prosperity gospel.

I just mean that there’s a god who’s responsible for everything That’s allowed to happen to us in our life good and bad And when we do that It leads to an unholy like self reliance, right? And so we start going, you know what? I did this. I made that this, I’m the reason this happened. This house is because of my work, right?

That we have, or this family has what it has because of what I am and who I am and what I’ve done. So it leads to self reliance, which leads to pride, which leads to destruction of relationships of family, friends, everything else. And that’s the danger of not living a life of gratitude because you start to think, man, it is, it is on me.

It’s the same thing with being like a speaker. I can go somewhere and I can easily forget, you know, if I’m not careful. Somebody goes, man, that was, thank you so much. Like, thank you for helping me. And that podcast, like last week, it literally kept me from taking my life. I’ve heard that before. Right. And I could go, well, man, I am, I am hot.

You know what, right? I am, I am all this in a bag of chips and easily start to move away from God and think it’s all about me. And that’s the same thing can happen to any of us when we forget to be grateful in our lives of what’s happening. Right. And really remember who is. The star of the show in all of our lives God and his son Jesus Christ So the thing is man, we have to realize good or bad.

Everything is gift. Everything is gift That’s john paul ii for you the theology of the body. We are gift. Everything is gift. God is gift Our life is gift. We have to live that way that everything is a gift good and bad or in the middle Right. It’s something that god uses to as we talked about in the previous episode to help mold us to help rebuild us to help Restore us and when we live that way You We live good lives.

We live joyful lives and we don’t. We, we, we, we find ourselves away from God and forgetting about who he is and who we’re supposed to be in him and what we’re supposed to be doing. And we fall right into the devil’s hands. And so there’s a lot of saints that talk about this, like even in adversity, you know, St.

John of Avila says a single blessed be God in adversity is worth more than a thousand acts of thanksgiving and prosperity, right? That, that thanks that gratefulness in, in the moment, the joy, the, the, the Job moments, right? Blessed be the name of the Lord, right? When he’s sitting there just getting pummeled, right?

Blessed be the name of the Lord is what he keeps doing and keeps doing in the midst of losing everything in his life. Um, you know, St. Gianna of, uh, Molia. I can’t ever say that name right, but I’ll just say St. Gianna. The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that he in his goodness sends to us day after day.

That’s another, another good advice. St. Ambrose, no duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks. So this isn’t just about a day. Like in november where we get to go. Let’s have a turkey and make all the fixings and watch football and get drunk Or whatever else you’re doing, right? It’s it’s a day to that should spur on like man We need every day should be thanksgiving in our lives for what god has done for us First and foremost the fact that god cared enough as we’ll see in advent to take on flesh and to choose to come willingly from the throne of heaven down here to live as a man and to go through what he went for us.

Like that point alone, we should always be grateful for regardless of anything else in our lives. Well, you know, we talked about gratitude and I think, you know, for me, my, I’ve, I’ve, Boil gratitude down to even something like, you know, thank you for the breath in my lungs. Thank you for my heart beating today.

That way I give another day of gratitude towards you allowing me to be here. Allow me to be a husband to Christy. Allow me to be a father to Lily and Ella. Allow me to be friends to my friends, you know, and allow me to do work to help others with their needs. Find, you know, recovery or define healing, um, you know, and, and I think a lot of us, we, we kind of tend to forget what gratitude is and how to be grateful in many aspects of our lives because we think that we, we’re not, we’re not performing any type of ministry.

You know, our job may not be doing something, but we say this all the time. Like if you have coworkers, you know, and you know, something’s going on in their lives, let’s check in with them. Yeah. Find out how they’re doing. Are they, they need help? I mean, I mean, our, our neighborhood’s amazing where when someone’s sick, you know, you’re going to have 12 casseroles.

Yeah. You know, like all the time. I’ll move over there. Right. Yeah. Actually, I don’t want to get any fatter. Yeah. But I mean, that, that, that is what a caring community, that’s what a caring individual, and that’s how we operate if we’re living in, in the grace of faith and, you know, with Christ in our heart and, and, and doing everything we can to, to make our neighborhood, our world, um, our city, um, a little better place to live.

Yeah. Well, and that’s the thing when you’re living in gratitude, you’re willing to take on the hardships that come with it too. When you’re living in true gratitude. I mean, people will ask me, Dude, it’s gotta be hard to like quit a job and take, you know, a million percent pay cut and, and worry all the time, right?

Like there’s always turnover in the ministry and is there going to be enough money and donations? And is there, you know, what’s going to happen here? Is somebody going to call for work? And those used to be worse early on. We started now, you know, we’ve, we’ve established a ministry and there’s, there’s a lot of work that we should be grateful for that we have piled up as I talk about all the time while we need more support to hire people.

But, um, but the thing is, man, like At the end of it all in the hardships is what spurs that gratitude. Like people will ask me, John, like, why do you take on all that? Like, just, you could just go get a sales job and like be comfortable again, but I wouldn’t be happy. And it would be contrary to God’s will.

Because at the day, this is what I tell people all the time. Like God, Jesus Christ, it’s other for me. I could not do for myself. And that great gift deserves a response in my life, right? And the response has been i’m going to quit everything and i’m going to and i’m going to walk Behind you beside you wherever you need me to go.

Jesus. I’m going to do my best to try to to give back to you I’ll never be able to fully repay you but i’ll do my best For the rest of my life that I have on this earth to do what you’ve asked me to do as a disciple. Now that doesn’t mean that everybody out there needs to go quit their job and, and, you know, we’ve got to have to have prudence and the right call and discernment, but at the same time, to your point, how can you live that gratitude in your life every day?

How can you meet that person at the water cooler and, and be there for them in a moment when they need it? How can you, um, do some act of kindness, right? And. Like, we’re going to go tomorrow night in our men’s group, you know, we’re going to have, um, a service night and we’re going to serve, we’re going to make sandwiches for St.

Mary’s Soup Kitchen. Very simple thing to do. Go spend 185 or whatever at Sam’s on bread, peanut butter, and Ziploc bags. Uh, the soup kitchen goes through 600 sandwiches a day, especially at this time of year when it’s cold or when it starts to get colder. So we’re going to sit there for an hour and a half.

We’re going to laugh. We’re going to enjoy each other’s company. We’re going to make fun of each other. We’re going to lift each other up. We’re going to do all the things that guys do in a good Christian way in a room while we’re getting peanut butter all over ourselves, all over the table and all over the bread, hopefully mostly on the bread.

And we do, we do clean up the tables for the kids. Yeah, that’s right. All these peanut allergies and such that didn’t exist when we were children. But, uh, but yeah, we’re, we’re going to do all that and, and we’re going to throw in 10 bucks a piece and we’ll spend an hour and we’ll have five, 600 sandwiches to take to the soup kitchen.

It’s one day. You know, but it’s gonna feed a lot of people and we do it out of gratitude, right? Because our faith is not a sit back and just take for granted what’s been done for us It’s how do I go out and now live as the hands and feet of christ in the world? So that’s what we’ve got to do and the joy that so many people say they’re looking for like i’m just not happy I’m, just I don’t have purpose.

I don’t find joy. It’s because a lot of times we’re not living in gratitude We’re taking everything for granted, right? We just we just we just take everything for granted and nowhere else in the world as much as this country Right where everything’s handed to us. Everything’s easy not for everybody But but you have opportunities that aren’t there for a lot of people in other parts of the world um We don’t know what it’s like to go and have to live in the in the garbage heaps of guadalajara Digging through the garbage for food, right?

So um This Thanksgiving week, you know, we’re not trying to depress everybody. It’s just trying to bring a reminder back that, that this week is awesome and go and enjoy it with your families. I know I’m gonna, I’m going to go to my dad’s for like the entire week and I’m going to be writing on the book and thanking God to have the opportunity to be able to do that and a job that I can work from anywhere and in the kids that are going to go down there and see their cousins, they never get to see, I’m going to be grateful for all of that stuff.

But in the midst of it, my hope in my own heart, and I’m sure in yours, is that this is a reminder that like every day We need to be grateful. It’s not just when there’s a, you know, a deep fried turkey hitting the table or whatever else But every day of our lives that we need to spend it in gratitude No matter what place we’re in a place of despair a place of joy a place of hardships a place of comfort Um, we need to always remember why we’re there in the first place And in that gratitude even in the difficult things like lord, I don’t understand this I don’t understand why like I lost a parent or I lost a job or anything But As far as the parent, Lord, thank you for giving me the time and the memories I had with them.

Thank you for letting me experience that wonderful person. It took me a long time to get there with the birth of my, not the birth, but the death of my mom. But now I can look back and instead of being angry at God as I once was, I can say, Lord, thank you for, for giving me the, the time. years I had with her on this planet to see what an angel she was, or the jobs I had for a certain amount of time that provided for my family before I had to, I’m in this hardship of trying to find something new now, Lord.

And when you live in gratitude, the Lord is going to continue to give you a fish instead of a snake, as Jesus says in the gospel and your, your faith and your gratitude is going to be rewarded and you’re going to be able to go out and live in generosity and help others in the name of Christ so that they too can live in gratitude.

And it goes on and on and on and on. So Victor, before we jump into how to use any final thoughts here. No, I mean, like I said, you know, gratitude is, is a, is a powerful way to live in a daily aspect of your faith. And, um, you know, just, just make it happen, you know, like find the littlest things to do, you know, and, and do something without being asked to do.

And then you’ll find that’s how it starts. And then just remember to folks to be grateful when you turn on your regular cable programming to watch football and it’s not there because they decided to share all those. Thanksgiving games on Netflix. If you don’t have Netflix, just be glad that, that you’re there with your family.

Right? So just kidding here at the end guys, but look, there’s so much to be grateful for, we got to spend less time thinking about the things we didn’t have, the stuff that doesn’t go our way, the issues in our life, the, the things that, you know, the, the, the, the ball that didn’t bounce our way, all that stuff.

We have to stop thinking about that stuff and we have to be grateful. And so how do you do that? One, thank God for giving you life each and every morning. As Victor said, thank Him for giving you breath each and every day. Thank you for waking up. That in itself is a gift, that you get to spend another day on this earth with people you love, the people that love you, and you get a chance to live out this wonderful thing we call life.

Two, look back over your day and give thanks no matter what happened. Right? The examination of conscience. At the end of the night, it’s not just examining, like, what did I do bad? It’s what did I do well? And you can look at both of those things and go, Lord, thank you for the experiences I got today. That trial or that tribulation, I didn’t respond well today.

So thank you for letting me learn from that so I can be better next time. Right the gift that I got that unexpected amazing thing that happened today lord Thank you so much for being a blessing and a good father in my life All those things we can look at and be grateful for Then stop counting what’s missing right?

Like that’s the worst thing you can do is start looking around being envious being jealous of what everybody else has Comparing what you have or don’t have while somebody has a leg up or you don’t nobody gets any better and nothing changes that way You have to sit there and go Lord the lot I’ve been dealt is what I have and I want to make the best of it and Lord and help me to Live in that gratitude and be thankful for everything.

I’ve been given no matter how much or how little it is Three or four sit down and take your inventory of all you’ve been blessed with right just my kids my wife my everything, right? My friendships my relationships the church I get to go to the food on the table Whatever it may be and then three five or five.

I keep saying three five Finally make a commitment to look for opportunities to be a blessing to somebody else in your life If you want gratitude to continue to be a repetitive and to continue to be birthed in your life each and every day Go be generous your gratitude spurs generosity. It makes that joy That’s where you find that joy when you find joy not in doing for yourself, but for doing for others So when you live in that gratitude You find that generosity that you want to give to other people.

And then the, the rep, the, the reprocity in that, the gift you receive back is the joy that you’ve been looking for. So make a plan in your day, no matter what you’re doing, like to make some small act of generosity out of your gratitude. You know what? I’m going to do something nice for somebody today. I’m going to quit thinking about the things that, that I’ve been thinking about that didn’t go my way or whatever.

And I’m going to get out of myself and go do something for somebody else. And I promise you, you’re going to find the joy that you’ve been having trouble finding in your life. So folks, again, uh, just want to thank everybody for tuning into the show today. Uh, thank you to all of you that have given for giving Tuesday.

We still have that available up until December the 3rd. We’re trying to hit that 50, 000 goal so we can bring on people to help in this ministry so I can be grateful not to have to travel every weekend like I have over the past year. Um, so I can have somebody else to be grateful for being a blessing in the ministry.

Uh, they can go out and help other people and also so we can build that platform, uh, where men could find continued, uh, Growth and content and ways forward in their own faith life Uh, and finally too don’t forget tomorrow’s black friday save that 500 or 250 On the trip to greece and turkey with us, please sign up tomorrow I’d love to meet you to travel with you and to be a blessing in your life I’d be grateful if you do so victor Let’s take it to prayer in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.

Amen. Heavenly father You So many times in our life, we can look at the negative things. We can look at the way that the ball didn’t bounce our way or something we didn’t get or something we lack. We can be envious as we look at others or jealous of what they have we can covet their relationships or their things Lord this thanksgiving help us to remember that it’s not just about one day of being grateful It’s about every day in our life about waking up and remembering that we are heirs to the kingdom That we are your beloved sons and daughters, and that that in itself is something worth being grateful for.

Help us to look at all the things you’ve given us, good and bad, as opportunities to grow into the people that you’ve called us to be. And Lord, help us always to return thanks with our gratitude and let it spur generosity in our lives so that we can go and find the joy and give joy to people who have none.

In your most holy name we pray. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

This episode is for anyone who feels like they’re silently carrying the weight of the world—brokenness, shame, or wounds you’ve never been able to share. You’re not alone, and you don’t have to carry it by yourself anymore.

Last weekend, the JPII Healing Center hosted the first-ever Restored Men’s Healing Conference, and it was powerful. Men from all over the country (and even other countries!) showed up with open hearts, some for the very first time. These were men who had been silently suffering for years—dealing with wounds from abandonment, addiction, rejection, or just feeling like they’re not enough. Over the weekend, we watched God work in incredible ways as men opened up, shared their stories, and allowed Christ to step into those broken places. It was humbling and hopeful.

In this episode, Victor and I unpack some of the key takeaways from the conference and dive deep into the struggles many of us face but rarely talk about. We’ll cover why we feel like we need to hide our pain, how self-reliance is a trap, and most importantly, how God’s grace can reshape the broken parts of our lives.

Here’s the truth: Healing is possible. You can start today. You don’t have to have it all figured out; you just have to take one step forward. Let’s talk about how.

PS – Advanced giving with #igivecatholic on #givingtuesday is now LIVE 🚨

You can give today. Your support creates safe, transformative spaces for men in need. 👉 https://bit.ly/40TfJHs

 

  Well, welcome back to the pew everybody. I am your host, John Edwards. And here across the table from me as always is my co host and cohort, Victor Adams. John, happy, um, I guess Tuesday, right? Yeah. Happy Tuesday. Yeah. That’s exactly when it’s going to go. And, uh, I will, I want to congratulate you because I knew you had an intense planning period for the, uh, JP two healing conference.

Yeah. Um, that you were planning for, and it happened already. Yeah. So for those that were there, who listens to us and drove all the way there to be part of it, I know you want to give updates for everyone listening. Sure. Yeah. And first of all, I’ll give a shout out to like Mark Huss and Tim Lair and some of the other folks that listened to us that came from around the country.

I mean, it was an amazing conference up at Christ the King in Ann Arbor, uh, Ralph Martin and Peter Herbeck’s parish got to go over to Domino farms and renewal ministries and Ave Maria radio did several shows there, but. Uh, Mark Huss and Tim came from like Erie and, and Tim and Mark came from, uh, California.

I think we had like men from 10 or 12 different states and two countries or something like that. That joined us. And so, uh, yeah, I did it. I don’t know, but yeah, it was great. You know, we have people all the way from Florida everywhere. So it was an awesome conference. I just want to say thank you to Mark and Tim, both those guys support the ministry and they’re always, uh, just there.

And Mark was sitting front and center. So shout out to you, Mark, for being there and, and for, uh, taking the time off work to be there and say thank you, Tim and every other guy that was there. So we’re going to talk about that conference today and just, you know, Going to talk about silent suffering men, because I really saw a lot of that.

I mean, we see it every day in our ministry, but, uh, there was just something really special that we’re on this weekend and I was really proud to be a part of it alongside with Paul George and, you know, to, to kind of put this vision, Dr. Bob had out into the world. And, uh, I think it went well the first time we can’t wait to do the next ones.

But before we jump into the episode and start talking about what we’re going to talk about today, uh, I just wanted to remind everybody that. Uh advanced giving for giving tuesday. I give catholics giving tuesday started yesterday, november the 18th on monday So it is now live you can give to uh this ministry at any time now for I give catholic and folks Let me tell you it’s really needed because right now we are trying to raise the money to be able to do two things.

One, to bring on a missionary, to be able to train, to go out and do the work. Cause it is just evident that my life is getting more and more busy with a lot of different things, whether it’s working in healing ministry with the JP two healing center, or just our work with diocese and parishes. I mean, we have a wait list for all of that work.

We need to bring on some folks and start with one. You got to start with one. to train, to go out and to do these missions and to launch these groups so that we can get to more of the people that are waiting for us to help them. So, uh, I traveled a whole lot. I mean, over 40 times this year, I think. And, uh, you know, that’s, I want to be a good husband and father in the midst of this ministry, right?

I don’t want to be telling everybody else to be a good husband and father and then never be home. So, uh, my first vocation is obviously to my wife and children. Uh, the second is to this, uh, ministry. So. I want to bring on other people. It was never supposed to be about me. It was supposed to be about bringing on other people that could go on and keep this thing going if something should happen to me Or or just someday when god tells me I can sit down for a little bit, right?

So we’re raising money for that The second thing is too we’re wanting to build an online restoration and discipleship platform uh where we can build courses and and uh And just content for men to be able to go through to keep walking in that journey towards virtue and holiness towards being a better husband brother, father and son.

So we put them in groups where they can be in community and all those things. But then the men can use these to continue to grow with the group or on their own. So those are the things that we’re looking at doing right now. But those things take money and just hiring somebody alone is an expensive task and you have to be able to help someone support their family.

So folks, we’re trying to raise 50, 000. That’s our goal for this giving Tuesday. And so like I said giving started yesterday advance giving the actual giving tuesday day is december the third But you have from now until then to be able to support us if you’d like to Folks, there’s a lot of people that have been helped by this podcast They’ve told me or by our events or just the other things that we’re doing right the other videos or conferences and things like that We’ve been on so i’m just asking you all to consider giving so we can continue to grow this ministry And we can help other men that need it and the way that you may have needed it at some point in your life so Folks, if you want to give to us on Giving Tuesday, there will be a link in the show notes below that’ll click.

You can click and go straight to our I Give Catholic webpage for Pew Ministries. You can donate there, or you can donate on DonorBox. org. sp, our regular donation platform. Both of them count, and both of them will help you. We’ll, uh, we’ll go towards our goal of 50, 000 no matter where you give, so you can go to one or the other.

Go to our website and click donate, or you can go in the show notes or any of our social media feeds here this week, and you’ll see plenty of places where you can give through I Give Catholic. So folks, thank you for listening to that. It is a huge ask. It’s a big goal, but I know we have plenty of people that listen and plenty of people that have been, the Lord has helped, uh, through this ministry.

And so. Just really praying and hoping that we can pick up the support. We need Victor to do what we need to do to move forward. So thank you for that. Um, also we will be traveling again in the beginning of the year. So go to our website. Uh, we are off from any more traveling for the end of the year. So we’ll get to spend some time here, the holidays with family, but, uh, We’re back at it in January through May and we have openings all through the midway and latter half of 2025 and into 2026.

If you’re looking to start a group, to have a mission, or to bring the Restored Men’s Healing Conference to your parish, just let us know by going to JustAgainstThePew. com and clicking the Book Me tab. And signing up or filling out the form there and we’ll get with you. All right, Vic. So let’s jump into it.

So we’ve been talking about the conference, obviously spent the last few minutes talking a little bit about that. And it was a huge experience, man. It was just awesome. You know, I think there was 150 or so men in attendance and about 30 or 40 online. So 200 for the first, very first one, which was awesome.

I think our goal was trying to hit at least a hundred, um, you know, for the event. And that happened. It was at a very charismatic Paris, one of the designated charismatic Paris’s in the country. And, you know, great people like Peter Herbeck and Ralph Martin and Pete Burak and Dr. Mary Healy. That’s the parish that a lot of them.

Uh, you know, work in and attend and, uh, and it’s just a very wonderful parish. And so going into it, Paul and I were both a little nervous, right? It’s the first time we’ve done it. You’re going into a parish. It’s pretty formed and pretty amazing, especially in the charismatic movement of healing and those things.

But man, I got to tell you, it was a grace. It was, it was just a real grace. And as we got started, you know, Paul let off the first night I emceed when he was speaking, he emceed when I was speaking. So Thursday night, we took men through the four stages of salvation history. So Paul did, uh, you’re a good man.

So starting with creation and the fact that we were made good, and we went through that. And then Friday night I did, you’re a broken man, which as everyone knows, and you included, I’ve got a PhD in brokenness. But, um, you know, we let everybody through that and into confession and adoration. And then Saturday we finished up with Paul in the morning with your redeemed man, you know, Christ has come to redeem us.

And then I finished up the day and the conference with, uh, becoming a restored man. So it’s really in the vein of what we do here all the time and it was great to get to work with Paul. But it’s so funny because after the first night so many men walked up to Paul and I and they were like Dude, this is completely different than what I thought it was going to be.

I thought this was going to be another like You know, grab your sword and go out there and man up and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be a man and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, well, are you disappointed? And they’re like, no, this is what we need. Like I’ve needed something like this. I’m tired of making the same mistakes.

I’m tired of living the same way. I’m tired of returning like a dog to my vomit, if you will. And I need something, the man up, the pull yourself up by your bootstrap just doesn’t work. I’ve been trying to do all this alone and, and it’s not working in my life. And so it was really cool to get to hear that.

And I got to tell you as, as the conference went on and on, we just continued to, to have men come up to us and just share like their brokenness, right? I, I, you know, I spoke about, you know, my being molested when I was younger, which I never really speak about. When I’m at events, but the Lord worked in my heart to do that.

And there were so many men that came up and like me too, I was molested by my father or my uncle or my mother’s boyfriend or some other thing. And, you know, guys just weeping right there because they’ve never admitted it before. Um, Paul talked about his brokenness, uh, and, and his, you know, mother putting him in a U Haul and leaving and not knowing where his father was and all this stuff and having, she having different relationships with men growing up and, you know, And never really feeling safe and abandoned and all that stuff.

And so there’s a lot of people coming up and talking about abandonment wounds and drug addiction, of course, with my story, pornography, all of those things. And it was just, it was crazy to see how many men reacted to this and just received like, no, I want to know how to be vulnerable. I want to know how to share this and I want to get this out.

I want to know how to be better. I want to know how to forgive. And so that’s what we saw in the conference. And. You know, it just reminded me how much men are convicted of their shame and their brokenness. I mean, one guy in particular, he came up and, and he was like, your, your talk really meant something to me.

And he was just standing there and all of a sudden this tear just started. He didn’t start crying. A tear just rolled out of his eye. And he just, I said, what’s going on. And you know, he told me I, I was married, but I’m living with another woman right now and my wife sent me here. My, my wife actually told me I need to go to this conference while he’s living with another woman.

And like, It’s just crazy how the grace of god works and all these guys had stories like that and it just it was so Powerful man To to see this and even we had small groups and you know How hard it is to get guys to start talking in small groups even when they know each other But these guys didn’t know each other we sent them into small groups the second night or the first night And they were coming back going like, I can’t believe how much stuff guys are sharing.

Like guys are really opening up and sharing. So it’s just a grace filled event, but it reminded me how many men are out there with a smile on their face, silently suffering every day, right? They look fine from the outside looking in. They seem to have everything, the tiger by the tail, but inside they’re a broken mess.

And this is what we continue to see in the world for men in the church and, and through the relationships that we have with men in our own group. And we see around the world. Right. I think, you know, when we talk about spiritual intimacy, we think of as like the, the grand, like the large community, but really how did their early church really start by like small groups, people in small homes, you know, or in the catacombs, like a small gathering of people where they, they worked together.

They, they ate together, they spoke together, they worshiped together and they shared each other’s burdens. Yeah. I mean, and, and I think this is kind of like, An allegory, but also kind of like a message to a lot of us in the traditional worship style where we just go on Sunday We receive the Eucharist, which is great for our healing, you know But the also things we forget to be part of a community of faith Because we go there and we may see people and say hey, how’s it going?

We got to go off, you know, gotta go to lunch all stuff plans for the rest of the day But what I what I love about what we do In this ministry, is that we tap into men and women too, because it’s a platform that can be, you know, utilized for both. But it allows them to kind of really open up and find out that there’s a lot of things that they never talked about, that they’re fearful to share, that they had no idea that what they’re holding on to, the secrets of the trauma, really is still holding on to them.

You know, and not able to be free or feel free. Um, and sometimes we negotiate these, these emotions where like, you know, well, I’m old now. I don’t know why I keep dealing with this. Why is this such an issue for me? But whenever you speak in front of somebody else, that’s why confession is so important.

Yeah. When you speak to a priest in the persona of Christ, Yeah. What you’re doing is not talking to the priest. You’re talking to Christ in the sense of like verbal admittance. Yeah. God, forgive me. God, help me. God, you know. Help me understand why this is happening in my life and you’re admitting it exists, right?

You’re meaning it exists And and I think that’s why those groups are so important because we’re all admitting that that we we put on this persona That everything’s fine. Everything’s okay We have many of our topics are like this it shows that we we go through the world trying to emulate somebody else but not Be okay with ourselves.

Yeah Yeah, and we’re constantly stripping off, we want to strip off those masks, but we’re constantly putting them on because so many men are afraid that people are going to abandon them. Like I’m going to lose things or people are going to think I’m gross or disgusting and like even God looks at me that way.

I mean, I can’t tell you how many people came up and talked about their father wounds. Like, That they just felt like there was no way god could love them one guy like paul asked, uh in his uh, You’re a good man talk He said I want you to close your eyes and go back to a time where you have a memory where everything was good like maybe when you’re a kid and you had no worries and no concerns and And there were men that came up that said like I tried to remember one good memory in my life And I don’t have one right like I try to remember one thing Point in my life where I felt I was good or that things were good and I don’t have one.

I can’t think of anything and can you imagine going your whole life like thinking? You’ve never been good. You never will be. There were never any good moments in your life. Any of those things, you never felt peace or love or joy, right? If it was, it was fleeting, right? And that’s where that brokenness comes in and steals that joy and that happiness.

And that innocence, you know, innocence from the fall, it comes in and it robs us of those things. I remember, like I’ve mentioned my kid that molested me, man. Like that was a moment. That robbed me of my innocence. And there was a lot of moments like that, but in different ways. But the thing is like we, you start to build this false identity of yourself inside, like I’m not good enough and I don’t deserve to be loved and I’m broken and I need to be discarded and I need to be thrown away and, and I just, no one will ever love me and I need to be here by myself and, and just deal with this.

This is what life is. It’s just torture and pain and, and, and, and anxiety and worry and all this stuff. And it doesn’t have to be like that. Like that’s why Christ came. But so many guys don’t believe that they even deserve a chance. to be healed, to be restored. And you know, there was a couple of guys like, and here’s the thing, like when you, when you, when you’re trapped in that, like what is the response of a lot of men?

They get sick and tired of not knowing how to fix themselves, right? Of not knowing how to get better. So they lean in to trying to, Oh, uh, you know, overcome that inadequacy. So like, okay, I feel inadequate. So I’m going to be arrogant and aggressive. This is where a lot of the toxic masculinity stuff that they throw around the world comes from when men are actually acting out of their woundedness and their brokenness, and they’re trying to overcompensate.

And then they become just, just these, these guys that are living out of pain that want to hurt other people or. That don’t care if other people are hurt because they feel like I’ve been hurt my whole life And I want retribution or other people should feel what I feel and so i’m gonna be this toxic man Man, when so the pendulum swings the other way and men act out of that and they overcompensate that way When the real path to, to becoming the man you want to be and getting through this stuff is actually that vulnerability is that opening up and not trying to be this big bravado John Wayne, I don’t need anybody or anything or this very, you know, overly masculine toxic personality.

But being a man who’s willing to just to admit that brokenness and open up, you know, go ahead. Well, I’m just saying, you know, again, this is the movies come to my head when you’re saying this, like, uh, for those that watch Wall Street, you know, Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas and, um, Charlie Sheen, who played Bud Fox.

So there’s a, there’s a quote in this movie that I just, at the end where, you know, Charlie Sheen is trying to do everything he can to emulate this Gordon Gekko guy who, you know, has, uh, All the power and the wealth and the privilege and just like, just like the praise wherever it goes. But yet what he does, he destroys companies.

He destroys livelihoods. He does it to make a profit. And the whole thing is greed is good. You know, greed is what fuels the capitalism societies of America. This is what gets you your raise. This is what gets you your car, you know, like somebody had to lose a job to get you. For you to get more money.

Sure. So, so he, he does his gospel greed, and so therefore he, he starts torturing this young man, Charlie Sheen’s mind and saying, you know what? My dad’s a great guy. He’s told me to respect people and stuff, but you know, I’m gonna follow this guy because he, he knows it, you know? Yeah. And so, you know, uh, uh, bud, you know, just follows him along and his dad’s saying, what’s going on?

You know? Yeah. You, you’re not yourself who you become. Yeah. Right. You become, and then at the end he says, you know. Um, you know, I realized Gordon was Gordon and I was just Bud Fox. I’m just Bud Fox. There’s only one of me. And that’s what we’re, you know, that’s what Christ says, says, I created you for reason, you know, I created you to do something not for this other person.

You know, things are just, he, this person is something different. Yeah. You know, we, we, we, we get this trap where we try to. Emulate others that we, that we look up to and stuff, you know, and it’s okay to, to kind of like grasp some, like, you know, virtues that they have in their lives and to be better, but not to be mere images of them because we lose the gift that we’re unique to it.

Yeah. And especially if it’s not the right person to be emulating, right? Like that’s, that’s the thing. Like I was saying, the pendulum swings and a lot of times we go to look and we say, well, okay, well, who looks like. You know, they’re happy who looks like they’re not hurting. What do they have? Oh, well, they’ve got cars and money in the house and fame and you know accolades and tortured souls Yeah, right And so they’re putting on masks too And what it is that we start to self medicate all that stuff is self medicating whether you’re using alcohol drugs porn work Success the number of zeros in your bank account for men Oftentimes we turn the wrong way because we’ve been told our whole life that you know Anything other than that, just put your head down and forget about it.

Forget about those wounds. Forget about those pains. Just put your head down and get past it. Well, the thing is we never get past them. They linger there. We’ve done nothing to heal them. So they sit there open in there and they just hurt. And so we keep doing all this stuff and then we’re swinging in the wrong way.

And the thing is we keep silent about it too. You know, this is just who I am. No, it’s not like you weren’t always like that. There was a time when you were good, right? There was a time where, where everything was good and there was innocence and, and your desire was to be a good and holy person. Right. But what happens is when we live in these wounds and stuff, that brokenness overshadows all that stuff that happened before.

And we lose sight of that. And we start to silently suffer, right? We’re guys that are just in so much pain. And I showed an image during the, uh, the event that is a hand drawing that bill Donahue sent me one time that he found somewhere, but it’s a guy and it’s a silhouette and he’s smiling and you can see from the side of his head.

And in it shows like his brain, like just a circle where his brain would be. And while you see this smile and the guy’s a good looking guy, it just looks like he’s got the world by the tail, smiling insides, a little boy with his hands on his legs and a teddy bear in his hand, sitting there with his head down.

basically saying, this isn’t real. This is a facade inside. He’s a scared, broken little boy. And you could have heard the hush over the crowd when I showed that, like everybody was like, Oh, because it hit home. Like that’s how I feel. Right. And so men are silently suffering and I’ll give you another example.

I was there. Uh, I don’t remember what night it was, but I was coming around the back of the church and going into the hallway to go to the restroom or go back to the green room or something, the speaker room. And, uh, two separate times I was walking down the hall and Paul, it must’ve been when Paul was talking or something was going on ’cause everybody was still in there.

Just me and this one guy walking down the hall twice. Two different guys. Mm-Hmm. and, you know, not looking up at me. Uh, I’m, I’m sure they saw me coming in, but they weren’t looking up at me. And so as I walked by, just said, Hey, you know, how you doing? I’m glad you’re here. And put my hand on their shoulder.

Just tapped them and kept walking. And they kept walking too. And this happened with two different guys. So at the end of the event. You know, Paul and I are standing there. We’re, we’re waiting for mass, you know, before we go to the airport to go home and guys are coming up wanting to, you know, Hey, thank you for what you did here and what are the resources or how do I follow your podcast?

That kind of stuff. And this young man comes up and he looks right at me and he goes, can I ask you a question? And I said, yeah. And he goes last night in the hallway, you walked by and you just, you spoke to me and touched me on the shoulder. Why did you do that? And I was like, I don’t, I can’t tell this guy’s agitated.

Like you touched me or whatever. Right. Or anything, but I just, uh, all of a sudden I felt the Lord in the spirit moved me to say, you know, because I know what it’s like to be somewhere and to not be seen for people not to see you. And all of a sudden this guy just started bawling and put his head in my chest and he just, he’s like, can I, will you, can you hug me?

And I just held this guy and there’s like six other dudes standing around and they start crying. And then the other guy comes up and basically says the same thing, like, Hey. You know, you won’t buy me there night and you touched me. Why did you do that? Same thing. And he starts crying and man, it just goes to show that like so many people are such slaves to the mistakes they’ve made, to the things that have happened to them.

They have no way out. They’re silently suffering. And that’s why healing ministry for men is important. That’s why this ministry that we have is important to start these groups, Victor, because the world would tell you that vulnerability is, is feminine. It’s not masculine. It’s it’s, it makes you weak.

Right. And that there’s no way you’re going to find your way out of the pain and the torture and the loss and all that stuff there, but that’s exactly what Jesus wants to use, right? It’s what he wants to use. It’s, he came here to break himself, right? So that we could be broken open and tell the truth in our lives that we could suffer alongside him, but also experienced the resurrection that comes when we vulnerably open up to everything the way that he did on the cross.

And so I saw that this weekend with men and, you know, it’s so funny, like, I found some quotes that go along with it, like St. Faustina, she says, In a difficult moment, I will fix my gaze upon the silent heart of Jesus, stretched upon the cross, and from the exploding flames of his merciful heart, will flow down my power and strength to keep fighting.

Right? That’s, it’s all about Christ and what he wants to do for us. And Thomas Merton says, I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. You know, another, another Catholic great there. And then St. John Paul, the second, like he really speaks into this. And I use this quote during the presentation, but he says in the end, it is the hunger for God.

And this is what you’re talking about with the dude from. From, uh, from the movie Wall Street. Yeah. It’s a jump. All the second says in the end is the hunger for God that consumes the human being without the comfort, which comes from God. Mankind is abandoned to himself, always in need and without the true source of life.

And this is why Christ came and Victor, so many of these men, they were sitting there and they’re like, I’m irredeemable, right? Like how I can’t be fixed. I, I need to be discarded. I don’t deserve any forgiveness. I don’t deserve restoration or redemption. Yeah. But you don’t get to tell Jesus that, right.

And we see it in the scriptures again and again and again. And I want to get into a couple of places in particular that Paul talked about that I think would be helpful. But I mean, I know you probably haven’t heard a thought or two. Well, well, we, we look at ourselves in a mirror, we see smudges, you don’t see crystal clear lines of who we are because we, we, we don’t want.

To see certain things, you know, or we, we miss see them because, uh, of our false identity of ourselves. We’re not worthy. I’m not worthy. I’m, I’m an imposter, you know, I walk around and people think I’m great, but I am just broken inside more than so than these people. And they want to, I’m teaching them, I’m leading them, you know, it’s kind of those things where insecurities and inadequacies.

That we just develop over time because we want to be fit in. We want to be seen. And, uh, sometimes, you know, we say things like, Oh my gosh, does that make sense? Yeah. Do you understand what I’m saying? Or do I, am I just falsifying something that I said two years ago? You know, um, and, and I think we all, I won’t, I don’t say I think I know we all struggle with that because I do, we do, you, you know, we talk about this all the time.

You know, I have imposter syndrome that if, if, The only the only medicine is is my faith. Yeah, that’s where I am gonna say more cowbell No, but but you know this that would be great if it was cowbell, you know cowbell, right? But but like for me I have to continue in my prayer. I have to continue saying the rosary.

I have to continue saying chaplains to divine mercy chaplains to like just kind of have myself more faithful in what I’m supposed to do and be more aware of what I’m doing and being careful that I don’t harm anyone along the way. It’s a, it’s interesting to say that. Cause I went to confession today and like my penance was the divine mercy chaplet.

So it’s interesting you say that, but, but yeah, like we, The thing is, we, we don’t, there’s nothing you can do to make God ever not love you, right? Like God doesn’t take you and wad you up and throw you away and say, okay, I’ll just make somebody else to your point. He makes you for a reason you’re here for a purpose.

And when we’re living in that brokenness and that pain, and we’re wallowing around in all of it. We never have the opportunity to live up to our potential and therefore we’re not serving God in the way that we’re called to serve. That’s why it’s so important to heal. One, we have to understand in our heart that Christ loves us, that he came for us and that he would have done it if it was only us, right?

And he wants to redeem us to restore and to heal these places of brokenness, to take us to his father so we can have our identity restored. That’s what’s happened to you and me right now. We were a constant work in progress, right? It’s a life of conversion. It’s not a one time thing. But you’re constantly being restored and renewed and the thing is so many people In the protestants a lot of times they talk about well christ came and he redeemed us with a the once saved always saved on The cross and while yes that opened the door for us to be reconciled to the father And he defeated sin and death there as catholics.

We believe that we in the beautiful part of the faith is that we’re always a work in progress, that we’re constantly growing and walking in the light of Christ, right? Trying to redeem it. So Christ doesn’t redeem us in just one moment, as Paul was talking about in his talk. He doesn’t just redeem us in one moment, He redeems us every minute that we allow Him.

When we, when He comes into those wounds and those places that we have a fist wrapped around, Christ redeems always, right? He’s always at the door waiting to go, let me go into that. Let me help you through that. Right. And it’s painful. We don’t want to, but he wants to remodel us. And I think it’s funny in Genesis, you know, what are we made out of?

We’re made of clay. And Paul talked about this as well. You know, God picks up clay. It says in the Lord form man of the dust of the ground. So clay, right. And then he breathed life into us. So we’re made of this clay and what, what can clay do? It can be molded and shaped. And if, if it’s, you know, the Potter or someone making a clay jar, if, if, if it gets out of whack when they’re making it.

If it’s wet and it’s pliable and it’s, and it’s malleable, they can, they can just start over and build it a new. And that one defect or that one, um, miscue doesn’t, or the couple of miscues doesn’t disqualify that clay from being valuable, right? And God doesn’t throw it out. You see in Jeremiah, as Paul also talked about too, on the retreat, on a Jeremiah 18.

He talks about this, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, arise and go down to the potter’s house and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter’s house and there he was working at his wheel and the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand and he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do.

And then it says, then the word of the Lord came to me, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done, says the Lord, behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand. So are you in my hand, O house of Israel. So what he’s talking about here is like, the potter didn’t discard the clay. God doesn’t throw you out.

God starts again and starts to renew and remodel. And that’s what he does every time we go to confession or every time we let him come into a wound, right? He comes into that space. And he says, no, no, no, like, yes, this was terrible what you did or what happened to you. But we can bring good out of this. We can reshape this.

We can use this to help you become the man you want to be. Your mistakes and your things don’t define you, the love of God does, and His hand’s working in us always. And then finally, you see, the third example about the clay that Paul used is, is Christ in the New Testament. In John, I think it’s chapter 9.

With a blind man, he sees him and what does Jesus do? He gets dirt and he spits into it and he makes clay and he rubs clay on the man’s eyes So this defect he had from birth this this part of him that was aka broken christ takes new clay He takes more clay and remakes it and the guy’s eyes are open and he’s healed That’s what he wants to do in our lives when he remakes us is to remodel it to We let him in we starts to reshape those places in us that are broken And that was the point of this conference is like these silent sufferers out there.

There’s hope right? There’s hope because christ can do anything and he can remake us that he wants to remold the clay that we are And so we have to remember that Christ makes all things new and that’s what I saw these men the hope and the light shining in these men’s eyes is like there’s finally a way and we’re able to give them all these resources and Hopefully a lot of them are listening to us right now in this first episode from the weekend to continue that healing journey right and it just There is so much silence silence suffering going on out there guys suffering in silence, but there doesn’t have to be and so Let’s talk about that real quick.

Like how twos, like how, okay, John, well, how do I even start the process? Like, I hear what you’re saying about the clay and I want to believe that. And part of it is you got to get tired of trying everything else. Right? Like if you got to realize like nothing else I’m doing is working. The drinking makes things worse.

The drugs makes things worse. The porn makes things worse. The putting my head down and work and staying away from my family and all this other stuff and hiding in these things makes it worse. Every mask that I put on makes it heavier and a more of a larger burden to bear, to bear. Right? None of that works.

So we got to quit living out the definition of crazy, which is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Right? It’s time now to actually start saying, you know what, I’m going to give Christ a chance and not a half hearted chance, but to open up and to admit that brokenness in your life, those places of struggle, first of all, to yourself, to God, and then to others.

And so you have to start believing that God is bigger than what you’re carrying, right? And that he could do anything and that he has, right? Fresh clay in his hands right there to fix what’s broken and to heal what needs to be healed. You have to start preaching the truth that you’re a beloved son, right?

It’s about identity. You have to stop identifying with your mistakes and your failures and your faults and the things that have been done to you and the things that are wrong. You have to start going back and believing that you’re a beloved son. So go and read Jesus baptism and listen to God say, this is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased and start to realize it’s you.

In John 17, Jesus says, I came, I want, I pray not only for those, but those who will come to know me through their word that they will be with me where I’m going. Where does Christ want to go? To the Father. Where is Christ gone? To the Father. Back to the Father. And He wants us to go with Him. So He comes to redeem us, to mold us with that fresh clay, to take us to the Father to restore our identity.

So you have to take part in that by starting to preach the truth, even if you don’t believe it to yourself that you’re a beloved son of God, you’re not a lawyer, a doctor, or a scumbag because of the things that you’ve done wrong, or any of that stuff. It’s not what you do that defines you. That’s not your identity.

It’s who you are, and it’s your identity. At your core, you’re a beloved son of God. You’re an heir to the throne. You’re an heir to the kingdom. And so, three, you have to allow Christ to truly to come into those places that you’re ashamed of. You have to open up. You have to do everything that’s contrary to what you feel and open up.

To him, to yourself, and to others. Uh, you have to take every negative thought captive. Start there. When those thoughts from the evil come and he’s going to because he sees you starting to change, and so he’s like, nope. You’re a piece of garbage. Remember this? Remember what you watched the other night?

Remember what you said to that person? Remember how you treated your wife? Remember whatever you did in your life that you’re ashamed of? That’s who you are. And in that moment, you have to take that thought captive as St. Paul says, and take it to Jesus. No, I’m not. Jesus, please be here with me. Fight my battles.

Give me the strength. Father, help me remember who I am. You’re beloved father, and I’m your beloved son. And then you need to find community and accountability. You know, we’ve started groups over the country. One of the things we’re going to do next year is start listing those groups on the website. So if you live near somewhere, I had the guy from Florida.

Uh, he was from Jacksonville and I said, dude, do you have a group? And he’s like, no, only friends I have aren’t Catholic. And that’s part of my problem. And I said, I just started a group a year ago at holy family in Jacksonville. And you need to go see them. And so I’m putting them in contact with each other.

He’s going to go there and he’s going to have a place to belong now. And now he was at this healing thing through the JP two center, but because of the other work we do, there’s networks all over this country where men can plug in. And if there’s not, then guys, you can start this on your own. I was a broken guy with no idea what I was doing and look at what we’re doing now.

So God can use you. And then finally, you need to remember that God’s not going to abandon you ever. He’s never gonna abandon you. He’s never going to be too disgusted with you. Just like when, when my children or your children do something, Victor, that you’re not like the happiest with, or maybe you’re disappointed in, you’re disappointed, but you’re not ready to go.

All right, Ella, grab your stuff and hit the bus. Right? You’re not, there’s nothing they could ever do to make you stop loving them. And so God is never going to stop loving us either. We just have to quit suffering in silence. We have to muster the courage that’s found in Christ through the Eucharist, through the confessional to finally say, I’m not okay.

I’m not okay. And to admit it, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean you’re too broken to fix. It just means that you’re finally voicing the truth in your life. And the person that can help you with that is the truth himself, Jesus Christ. So victor any final thoughts here as we kind of head out of the show?

No, like I said, just if this resonates with you if this this show Um that you’re like nodding your head long you’re going. Oh my gosh. This is this is what I need to hear Um, find a community, go online, email us if there’s, if you don’t know where there’s a community near you, maybe there is, you know, like John just said, but also really dive deep into your faith, you know, say a rosary tonight, you know, open your, your Bible, you know, start with the gospel of John, really dive deep and saying, you know, I really want to know you, Lord.

I’ve, I’ve ran from you. I’ve, I’ve ignored you. I’ve, I’ve done everything to kind of like put you on, on the shelf and say, I’ll come back to you when I’m ready. Today’s you, you’re ready. Yeah. And that’s the thing. I mean, like you’re saying, I even Google versus, I mean, that’s how we find stuff for the show.

It’s like, all right. We’re talking about brokenness. What does the Bible say about brokenness? Well, today, Psalm 94 and 14, the Lord will not reject his people. He will not abandon his special possession. Matthew 28, 20, Jesus, I am with you always to the close of the age. Right? How? In the Eucharist. John 14, 18, I will not leave you desolate.

I will come to you. These are the things when I’m feeling down, I do. I go, what does God say about loneliness? What does God say about addiction? What does God say about this? Or what does the Bible say? And then I go in there and I read it. And I sit with it because that is a love letter. The Bible is a love letter to each and every one of us from a loving father and his loving son who gave everything for us.

And this is a reminder of why he did it. He doesn’t want us to sit in our pain and our brokenness. He wants to be, he wants to redeem us and restore us. And he wants to do that in every place of our life. So for those of you out there, um, that may be, as Victor said, struggling. Start to put in some of these things, uh, into play, listen to this episode again, sit with it, pray with it.

Ask Lord the Lord, what he wants. If you need resources, reach out to us. We can connect you with the John Paul, the second healing center and all their books and wonderful resources. If you want one of these conferences that we’ve been talking about in your area, then, then, then go to our website or go to the JP two healing center website and put it there and we’ll connect you with people, but folks, you got to do something.

Things aren’t going to get better by doing nothing. You got to take that step forward and there’s people that’ll do it with you. Stop suffering in silence. So, folks, thank you again. Consider giving to us on Giving Tuesday. Uh, it starts it started yesterday. You can do it all the way up to December the third.

So we can keep helping people the way that you’ve heard these men were helped in this episode. So Vic, let’s take it to prayer in the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Amen. Heavenly father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this opportunity to talk about brokenness, to stop suffering in silence, to, to bring the darkness into the light, to bring the truth.

That the fact is there’s many men out there that are hiding and that have on mask and are, are living false lives and they need help. Lord, for any man that’s listening to this, or any wife that may have a husband in this place, Lord, please open their hearts to this message. Give them the things that they need.

Have them reach out to us or the JP2 Healing Center. Lord, we are broken, but we’re not forgotten. We’ve made mistakes, but we’re not defined by them. Lord, please take clay and reshape us. Reshape us into what you want us to be. Help us to be vulnerable and to let you in, Lord. That is our prayer today. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Today, Victor and I dive into one of the biggest struggles we all face—trusting in God’s provision. It’s not always easy to let go, especially when anxiety and fear kick in, but we’re here to share some inspiration, a few laughs, and even some of our personal struggles with letting go and trusting that God has us covered.

In this episode, we go over the importance of surrender, how to recognize God’s provision in our lives, and why faith isn’t just about saying we believe—it’s about showing it with our actions. We also reflect on how the Bible reminds us that God knows what we need and always has our backs, even when we’re tempted to take control ourselves.

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Support the Mission 💪:

This ministry is growing, reaching more cities, and impacting more men, but we need your help to continue. With Giving Tuesday on December 3rd (and early giving beginning on November 18th), we’re praying to raise over $50,000 to bring on an additional evangelist and expand our reach. If this episode speaks to you, consider subscribing, sharing, or becoming a monthly partner with us by visiting our #iGiveCatholic profile!

 

  Well, welcome back to the pew. Everybody. I am your host, John Edwards and here across the table from me as always is my co host and cohort Victor Adams. Yeah. And John, you know, I don’t know if everyone knows that you had a birthday recently. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you’re, you’re confused at how old you are.

Yeah. Angela told me I was 47 and I was like the whole time going, I don’t think I was ever 46. And she basically robbed me for the last three weeks of, of, of thinking I was 47. I was like, What’s going on? And then Nick was over here and I was, I was blessed to be home this weekend for my birthday. So all y’all came over to watch football and hang out.

And it was just a great weekend and, uh, celebrating the birthday. But Nick was like, wait a minute. I was born in 78 too. And I’m, I’m 46. I was like, I was just working. And then Angela looks over and she realizes the mistake and she just starts laughing. But yeah, I thought I had lost a year somewhere. I thought I was going nuts.

It’s like, I know I’ve been traveling a lot, but yeah, I don’t remember missing an entire year of my life. So, but yeah, we did, I turned 46, not 47 and I had a wonderful weekend and just, uh, just was so blessed with you and some other friends that came over and chose to spend time with me. So thank you for doing that.

You’re welcome. Now you just gotta get, you said you already got your, uh, your health. Yeah, yeah, I got all my health screenings done, yeah, the colonoscopy and all that stuff you’re, I know you’re alluding to. It’s important everybody. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it’s not fun, but it’s important. Right. But, uh, yeah, I’ve had that stuff done and just excited for, you know, just the end of the year coming, you know, the holidays, Advent, all that stuff.

And, and, uh, actually I have one trip left before the end of the year. That is coming up this Thursday. So two days from now, when this episode comes out, I’ll be headed to Ann Arbor to Christ the King parish up there for our first restored men’s healing conference alongside the JP2 Healing Center and Paul George.

So for those of you that are thinking about joining, whether you’re in the area, you could show up to the parish. You can, you have to register online or you can register there at the door. If you can be physically with us, if you’re in the Michigan area or within driving distance, It’s going to be the 14th through the 16th.

That’s Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon, Paul George, and I’ll be taking turns giving talks and covering just the four identities of a man and how to move from, from, uh, you know, through those four identities and becoming restored in the Lord, how to heal from our wounds.

It’s going to be awesome. Uh, all the folks from, uh, the team that had been working with us, Danny and, and, and Diana and Hunter. And John, the musician, we’re all going to be there putting on this weekend. So if you’re in the area, come and join us. If you can’t, there is a live stream. So any of you that are around the world anywhere or in other parts of the country, you can go to the JP2healingcenter.

org website. And that’s JPIIhealingcenter. org, not the letter two. You can go there and you can sign up for the live stream. You can register for the live stream. And you can watch it all from the comfort of your own home. So I would consider doing that if you can’t be there with us. I mean, you can still take in the material and you can still go through the exercises and everything that we’re going to be doing there.

So excited about that trip, Victor, but it’s also the last trip of the year. So I’m excited to just kind of be off the road for a little bit after that. To just get fully immersed in Advent with my family and Christmas and all those things before we begin travel in January Another thing I wanted to bring up to those out there is on November the 18th this coming Monday Early giving starts for I Give Catholic for Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday this year is actually December the 3rd, but early giving starts on November the 18th. Folks, we’re trying to raise over 50, 000 this year to bring on someone that can come in and work with me going out to train these men’s groups and to launch these men’s groups. It is an important work.

We have people lined up. We have over 25 parishes and dioceses on the wait list to start working with them. One of them alone has 129 parishes. That they’re asking us to start partnering with them to work in to get ministry men going in their parishes. I can’t do that alone We’re also trying to build an online platform where we can talk to men about restoration and healing and discipleship That paul george is going to come on alongside me to put some some of these courses on there So men can really go in there Continue their discipleship outside of the group.

So they’re working on their individual discipleship and then as a group working on growing as brothers together So we’re working on all those things, but all those things cost money. We can’t do it alone So I’m asking you to consider giving to our I give Catholic Fund and goal and need this year so that we can bring on people to continue helping people and the way that god has Asked us to and then finally, uh, you can check all that out in the in the comments below We’ll have links to I give catholic again.

You can go to our social media pages. We’ll be sending out emails So just keep your eyes open for that stuff and just if you can and you and God leads you to, please consider giving to us in a, in a generous way so we can meet that goal and we can take this ministry to the next level. Final announcement, uh, just wanted to say that we will have a big announcement, uh, coming up the week of Thanksgiving.

So tune in that weekend or that week for that episode. We’re going to send out a lot of things on social media. I can’t tell you what it is yet, but I’m excited about it. It’s something that’s going to happen in 2025. So please keep your ears on for that. Uh, tune in and. We’ll have a big announcement for you.

So go to the JP two event, either online or in person. If you can then give on giving Tuesday to us, starting November, the 18th on early giving, if you can, and then listen in for the announcement. We’re going to be sharing with you and a surprise we’ve got coming up. I can’t wait to share with all of you.

So Victor, that was a lot and I was trying to get it done in a little bit of time. It was good information. Yeah, that’s right. We got a lot going on, man. A lot of needs in the ministry. I’m excited about all of it, but really excited to get into today’s topic. You know, this is, uh, the Tuesday after the, the 32nd Sunday in ordinary time, this past Sunday, we had the readings with, um, with first of all, the, the lady and Elijah and the old Testament.

When Elijah was asking for, um, sustenance, basically starting widow and her son, widow and her son. And Elijah was asking for sustenance, which she was saying, I don’t have, we’re going to talk about that. And then we had the second reading that talks about Jesus goes in and on our behalf to God, the father.

And then we have the gospel reading where we see the widow that. she has. And as I was reading these, you know, a lot of people interpret them different ways. Some people, the church oftentimes uses them, uh, to basically spur on donations. Like we’ve got to be generous so that we can keep the work of God going.

And while that’s a good thing, and that is a point that could certainly be taken from the readings. To me, these readings always point towards the need for a greater trust in God, right? That God’s got us. That’s what it reminds me of this, that we need this trust in God’s provision. And, you know, you’re my friend, Victor.

So we talk a lot and you know that sometimes I fail to be very trusting in God’s provision. People go, Oh, how can that be? John, you you’re in this ministry and you gave up everything. Well, just because I took that step doesn’t mean like I physically took a step in the right direction doesn’t mean that i’m always fully letting go of worries anxieties concerns and Uh in the ministry and in my own personal life And so these readings really speak to me and i’m excited to get into them and talk about what we you know The lord’s led us to talk about today.

Well, it’s not like you fail because we all struggle with it Really? I say the struggle it’s like a tug of war tug of war between our anxiety and our fear And And sometimes we decide who’s going to win or, or we, but we don’t realize that, you know, we’re, we’re pulling against ourselves. I mean, we were, it’s the exact opposite of ourselves over there with the fear and anxiety and us with the hope, you know, pulling back saying, you know, no, I believe in God.

Um, and a lot of that’s inner battle that like all of us have, we just don’t, we don’t know how often we, we fight it. Um, and, and faith, I think keeping the faith is, is, is something that we’ve. Talked about in almost every podcast, you know, um, but what we’re going to talk about more is trust. You know, what’s the difference between faith and trust?

Sure. Is there a difference? You know, this we’ll talk about. Yeah. And I mean, it’s just in this provision, you know, we talk about providence a lot, but provision, like the fact that God is going to provide for our every need and it doesn’t always feel like it, but sometimes the needs That we think we need aren’t what we need.

It’s really what we want. And so we get confused there and it’s just like with anything else, ultimately, ultimately the things that that keep us from God ourselves, right. Getting our way. Like I trust you, God, but like you said, still trying to hold on to that rope instead of fully letting go, you know, our hands will be all rope burned up and everything else from still trying to grasp onto these things that God wants us to let go of.

And that’s, that’s the thing, this provision of God is the fact that he has told us again and again and again. you, all I need you to do is trust me. It’s like those old trust fall exercises that everybody used to do, where they stand you up, you cross your arms, you’re on a table and there’s a bunch of your friends or whoever’s at youth camp or whatever with you or work and you have to trust that when you just fall back, they’re going to catch you and work all the time.

Right? No, I never personally hit the ground, but I might’ve gotten close because of my size, but like, But there were people that tried to catch me at least. But I think in the end, you know, we, that first, that first fall back is the scariest thing. Like once you start falling, you’re like, all right, I’m in it.

Right. And you’re hoping and praying that somebody catches you. And they normally do. I mean, sorry for those that may have dropped or whatever, but, but no, it normally you’re caught and you go, wow, like I can trust these people. Like that, that was easier. That was hard. But once I got into it, it was easier than I thought.

And this is the invitation. That we have to follow God in our lives. And, and I love these readings because it takes us right in that. And I want to start with the first one. You know, it says in those days, Elijah, the prophet went to Zarephath as he arrived at the interest of the city, a widow was gathering sticks there and he called out to her, please bring me a small cup full of water to drink.

She left to get it, and he called out after her, Please bring along a bit of bread. And she answered, As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked. There is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks to go in and prepare something for myself and my son.

When we have eaten it, we shall die. Elijah said to her, Do not be afraid. Go and do as you propose. But first make me a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son. For the Lord, the God of Israel, says, The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.

She left and did as Elijah had said, and she was able to eat for a year, and he and her son as well. The jar of flour did not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, as the Lord had foretold through Elijah. Man, I love that reading, because, you see, Elijah, this person is sitting out there that she doesn’t really know.

Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t, doesn’t say, but all of a sudden this person just says, Hey, bring me a handful of, you know, bring me something to eat. Bring me a cake. She had no problem giving the water because it was free flowing. There was plentiful, right? It’s like, okay, I can do that for you. But when it came to the thing that Elijah wanted, that she barely had any of, or she was concerned she didn’t have enough, she became hesitant.

Right. And that’s how, how a lot of us can be. We’re like, oh, well, yeah, I’m overflowing in that, but no God, you want that? Well, I don’t have enough of that. And what about me? And what if I give you that what’s going to happen? And this is the same thing we see with her. If she starts to basically say that and bring up these reasons.

Well, look, I only have a little bit left and my son and I had already Just we’ve we’ve decided we’re going to die because that’s all we have left. We have nothing So telling you that you can see I have nothing to give you right and elige is like no Don’t be afraid and how many times in the bible is don’t be afraid said like i’ve heard it’s over 365 times Like for a day for every day of the year you can hear do not be afraid in the bible But he tells her to go and do it because god promises Whatever you think your jar is not going to go empty.

The flower is not going to run out Your oil is not going to run dry And so she did. She finally trusted, right? She believed in this messenger of God, this message of God through Elijah, and she trusted. And what happened? She was able to eat for a year and her son as well, and Elijah, and nothing went empty.

So God was who he said he was. A lot of times, Victor, in our difficulties, in our situations, we can forget that. We forget that God is who he says he is. And then he gives us these opportunities and these These places where maybe we’re withheld something or we feel in it was being stretched and it’s not a punishment.

It’s not a something to, to be vindictive about. He’s actually putting it as a place to stretch us for our faith. And to find greater trust in him so that we can let go some of these things in our lives that we’re so attached to And we can start depending on him instead of the things that we have around us, right?

And you know, you’ve already alluded to it, but like just just imagine if If like you’ve tried everything you have no more money. You can’t sell anything to get more food This is it come that realization that it is what it is So i’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what happens This is it, you know, and sometimes we get to that point in our lives like all right god i’m done I’m done fighting you What do you want me to do?

I give up. You know, that kind of thing and and as she was giving up on life She was like saying, you know, I’ve done everything I can and and this man’s telling me who may be a prophet Is telling me to do this and share my food How often do we share in our misery? You know what I’m saying? I mean, like, you know, it’s one of those things where, um, you know, but, but she, she, she kind of like turned it and she said, okay, sure, let’s all, let’s all eat together, you know?

Um, and because of that, that faith, you know, there’s a lot of stories where people had faith and were healed or were, were provided for, um, Um, it’s, it’s so difficult for us to kind of like, Hey, in the old, in the Old Testament was done and the New Testament was done. Why are we struggling with it so much when we know the truth, like it’s the truth and faith combined allows us to have belief.

You know, why do we struggle with that so often? No, you’re right. It’s just something we’re always going to struggle with. And that’s why. Because of that fracture in the fall and in the distrust. And that makes us think that we have to do everything ourselves, right? We become self reliant. We start to say, no, like I’ve got to make my own way and this is all on me.

And when we do that, we, we take all the power into our own hands and we, and we take the things away from God. Like control. We’re not in control of anything. He is. And that’s why he wants to surrender is he’s like, he must look at us and go, look, that’s cute, but you’re not in control of anything. I am. I know your needs.

I’m going to take care of you. But what happens is we start being self reliant and he, and even though we say, Oh, I trust God, I trust God. The moment things get difficult, we start to pull back. Instead of having open arms, we start to wrap our arms around things, especially the stuff that we don’t want to give to God.

And that’s what he’s always looking for. Us in us is. What are you going to give to me? And this widow, you know, this woman and her son, like she didn’t stop to think that the little bit I have, God gave me. Right. Right, like the stuff that I’m afraid to give to anyone else, God gave me. And if he gave me this, surely he’ll give me something else.

And it’s not in a A greedy, sort of, I’ll just sit back, lazy, sort of, not do anything and God will give me everything. No, we’re required to work. It says, pray as is everything dependent on God and work as is everything depends on you. But you still have to remember that God is the one in charge. And you have to start trusting because when you don’t, You get in this defensive posture and you start closing yourself off from God and you actually limit the things that he can do in your life because you’re not willing to give him the opportunity.

And so this widow sees that finally, thank goodness for the prophet Elijah coming. And hopefully that’s what we’re doing in our own lives. And for people listening today is to proclaim this sort of message to people that will, they’ll find help in, because what I see in this is really three things. If you go back and you look at what happened, I see a worry, I see a reminder and I see a promise, right?

Because what does she say? Like, there’s only a handful of flour in my jar and only a little of oil. So there’s the worry, right? Like, I don’t have enough, I don’t have enough to give you. Like, um, if I give you that, then, then when, and she already thought her son and her, we’re going to die, but she’s like, we’re going to die at 20 minutes earlier or 24 hours earlier.

Right. I’ve got to, I’ve got to hold onto this with those closed arms. So there’s the worry. And how many times do we have that in our life? I know. I do that in the ministry when I’m like, God, when are you going to help us grow? How are you going to help us take that next step? And he’s sitting there with a blinking light going, yeah, I need you to do that.

And that’s going to cost. And you’re going to have to get uncomfortable. You’re gonna have to spend some money that you want to store up to make sure that the ministry doesn’t, doesn’t falter or fail or go, you know, or get into trouble. You’re actually gonna have to spend some of that money to be able to, like I said, at the beginning of the show, bring on somebody and trust that that’s what I want.

I’ll give you what, what you need. And then it’ll help, right? But the thing is here, we all have those places where it’s hard. So like we have the worry, but then comes the reminder where Elijah says, Do not be afraid, right? Do not be afraid. This is the reminder that God wants to tell us all the time. Look, as we’re, as he reaches to grab something out of our hand and we were holding on refusing to let go, he constantly looks at us and says, do not be afraid.

Let go, let go of it. Let me have it. This is a burden to you. You want to be blessed, but you instead want to hold on to a burden. Let me take that from you. So that’s the reminder. And then the promise when Elijah says, it shall not run dry or go empty. Right? Like you’re not going to run out of things. It says the jar of flowers shall not go empty nor the jug of oil run dry until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.

And so when she understands the promise, she then trusts and what happens? Everyone winds up being okay. Everyone winds up being able to survive. Everyone goes on about their life. Because all God needed them to do was to trust and when they did it It’s like this realization that we all realize when we when we refuse to trust we refuse to trust we’re so afraid We don’t want to take that first step.

And then when we finally do It’s like what did I worry so much for why was I so afraid like everything worked out because god cares about us And he and he lives He, he, he understands our needs and he desires our good, right? And this is what we have to remember in all this, but we see it again in the second, in the, in the second reading, like, and I love this part too, because it’s kind of, uh, it’s kind of just slid in there.

But the second reading from Sunday was Hebrews nine and it says, Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself. And then it goes on to say that he might now appear before God on our behalf. I think we forget about that, that we have this, this, this great reconciler in Jesus Christ, you know, that goes before us and reconciles us to the father and takes our needs to him.

You know, he’s the intermediary between God, the father and us through the Holy spirit. And so he appears before God on our half. That’s why he said. Ask and you shall receive, you know, knock and the door shall be open to you. Seek and you shall find. He wants us to come to him with these things so that he can take them to God and God can prove himself as to who he says he is.

Not that he needs to prove himself at all, but he can show us again and again, I am who I say I am. So finally we will trust and he doesn’t have to prove anything because we finally believe that he is who he says he is. And he shows us that. So we don’t have to doubt anymore. And this is where God wants us to be because if we’re doubting him and we’re always holding back, we can’t fully give that which he’s given us, whether it’s our spiritual gifts or monetary gifts or, or just whatever he needs us to give and to give back to others.

And this is a struggle, Victor. So we have to remember that Christ is our intermediary, that he is there going to cry to going to the father for us on our behalf. And Christ even talks about in the scriptures, how he tells us again and again, not to worry. Right, and you’re talking about, you know, going back to the delusion, the grand delusion, that we care with ourselves, that we’re in control of things.

We’re, we’re, we’re capable of doing everything and anything. But then something happens in our life. We’re at loss of jobs, something happens, you know, sickness, whatever. And like for me, when I came into Catholic faith, The rosary was an amazing thing, but also the Divine Mercy Chaplet was another thing because I realized I had a lot of, uh, anger, a lot of frustration, a lot of like, uh, issues of rejection in my life, you know, and, and not just with God, but just like things I’ve carried with me, you know?

Um, and when I learned to do Divine Mercy Chaplet, I was able to kind of like really say, you know, I trust in you, Jesus. I trust in you. I trust in you. I trust in you. Not as a mantra, but as like a, like a peeling off of like layers of just being like rough and tough and calloused, you know, over in my heart, you know?

So it’s just one of those things where when, when we get to the point where we’re fully trusting God, when we’re fully, uh, understanding the, the path that is laid before, before us with his God’s will, you know, we, we slowly Become changed in the sense of who we’re supposed to be, which is a child of God saying, father, what do you want me to do now?

What can I do today for your, your grain glory? And I think we wake up saying, God, what do you want me to do today? Jesus, what is it that you have for me to do today for somebody? Yeah, we want to be in that open arm posture, like giving back, being open to the Lord, you know, open to receive and to give versus closed off, because when we’re like that, we’re only thinking of ourselves and our needs and, you know, And we’re not offering anything back.

We’re not living in gratitude. We’re living in anxiety and worry. And, and, you know, you see the other example in the gospel readings of the widow, you know, Jesus is sitting there and he’s talking to the scribes and he’s teaching the crowds and he’s saying, beware of the scribes and all these things. And then it says he sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.

He said, many rich people put in everything, large sums. Uh, uh, put in large sums. I’m sure they made, they made a show too, where they empty a bag. Yeah. Like made it, and I made all his noise. Made it rain. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. But no, but it says a poor widow also came in and put in two small coins worth a few cents Calling his disciples to himself.

He said to them. Amen I say to you this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth But she from her poverty has contributed all she had her whole livelihood And this is why jesus pointed this out is like this woman had nothing even what she gave was nothing It was like the most minuscule Um, monetary domination or denomination, and it wasn’t as like made of 10 or something, nothing really.

And so even though she basically had nothing and gave from nothing. And so Jesus is like, this is it you’re to give everything back to God and not to worry about what’s to happen with it. And again, this is where the church can use it to say, give, give, give, give, give, and that’s good. But what I’m saying is God is asking us to trust us with every trust him with everything that we have, everything that we have, because if we don’t, then we’re not really trusting him at all, right?

We might say, well, I’ll give you all the easy stuff, like the things I’m not really concerned about or not worried about losing or, or, you know, others parts of my life, but it’s these difficult things where we find ourselves struggling to trust in God. That’s what he wants the most. And he wants us to step out there in faith.

Because it’s in the faith that we step out in that we grow in our trust and guess what happens? It’s cyclical, right? We take that step in faith and we find greater trust. We find greater faith We find greater amounts of trust to step out further with and it’s a never ending cycle of giving ourselves back to god fully And so that’s what he’s asking of us and so many so many saints have gone before us that have talked about things like that Victor, I mean got several quotes here in saint angela mercy Says do not lose heart Even if you should discover that you lack qualities necessary for the work to which you were called, he who called you will not desert you, but the moment you’re in need, he will stretch out his saving hand.

That’s Marisie. I’m sorry. I said her last name wrong. St. Angela Marisie. And then St. Mary McKillop. I saw that God will provide the means would guide me on the way. And would provide a friend to do for me what I could not do for myself. Now, Victor, we’ve experienced that in our men’s group and in our places of poverty where the each other have raised each other up and called each other and been there and balanced for each other and supported one another when, when we were in times of need, right?

Like she’s saying, if I don’t have it, if I don’t have what it takes, if I don’t have the means, God’s not only going to guide me, but he’s going to provide other people in my life. That’s how God comes to us in each other, right? In each other. So that’s how we serve each other and give our gifts back. And offer up what God is asking us to is in and that help to one another when we can’t when we don’t have what We need whether it’s you know Sustenance lee or or just in the gifts that God is, you know, he’s asking us to do something He puts us in a partnership with people like the disciples going out two by two, right?

Right. We’re always there to support each other. But then saint francis de sales He says do not fear what may happen tomorrow the same loving father who cares for you today We’ll care for you tomorrow and every day, either he will shield you from suffering or he will give you an unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings. That’s what he says, right? Like, be at peace. And Jesus tells us the same thing in Luke, uh, 12, 30, uh, 20, 22 through 32. He talks about, you know, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life and what you shall eat, nor about your body and what you shall put on.

For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a cubit to a span of life? If then, if you, then, who are not able to do as a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither twirl nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O men of little faith?

And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be anxious. of anxious mind for all the nations of the world. Seek these things and your father knows that you need them instead. Seek his kingdom and these things shall be yours as well. How do you seek his kingdom by trusting him, by giving yourself over completely to him and all the things that you’ve held your hand grasp around, whether it’s wounds, whether it’s your lack of finances, whether it’s, it’s your other worries in your life, right?

Your health or whatever else. Give it all to God and trust in him and find the freedom that we’re all looking for. This is what Jesus says again. And again, don’t worry. Don’t worry. What you give will be returned and in tenfold, right? I mean, how many times have we seen those things? Jesus just wants us to trust because he knows that that is the, that is the padlock that’s on the gate.

That’s not letting us out of that prison cell, right? The trust is when we unlock that, that lock and we remove it. And we can walk out and see that God is who he says he is. But we have to be able to trust and know that and this is a couple other, a couple other quotes here and then we’ll jump into some how to’s.

But St. Alphonsus Liguori says those whose hearts are enlarged by confidence in God run swiftly on the path of perfection. This is what I’m talking about getting out of that gate and having the freedom that we think isn’t gonna be there but is when we trust. He says those whose hearts are enlarged by confidence in God run swiftly on the path of perfection.

They not only run they fly because having placed all their hope in the Lord they are no longer weak as they once were. They become strong with the strength of God Which is given to all who put their trust in him. So this is like the very things that you think are going to keep you strengthened by holding on and And closing your arms and wrapping around them are the very things that are making you weak Because you’re trying to live on your own sustenance on your own provision on your own strength But god is coming in gently trying to get you to open those hands so that he can show you i’m your provision I’m what’s going to give you all those things you can trust in me.

Finally the last two father. I am seeking I am hesitant and uncertain, but will you, oh God, watch over each step of mine and guide me? St. Augustine, right? That’s a prayer right there, man. We could pray in every instance of when we find that worry and anxiety and that resistance to trusting in the provision of God.

And then finally, St. John Bosco, very simply, God will provide. These are the things that we need to remember, Victor. It’s so hard at the moment, but we have to listen to these people that went before us and to Christ himself, as they offer the path forward. To trusting in God’s provision. Yes. Well, and you know, going back to what you’re saying too, because you say so many amazing things and I want people to understand that is that we had to stop being repeating what I’ll give that to you as well, but.

But we were, we have to be very careful of like becoming the masters of our own hearts and letting Christ be the master of our heart. And there is a big difference because we know, all of us know, I know, you know, that when we try to be the masters of our own heart, we usually end in self destruction. We do something that’s harmful to ourselves, harmful to others and so forth.

So, but when you open your heart to be Christ, to be the master of your heart, uh, That’s when blessings flow. Not just monetary stuff, but just like happiness, just joy. Yeah. Just a sense of being connected with the Father and just really enjoying every moment of life. And I think that is what true joy is.

It’s just living in the moment, even though it may seem like scary or just, you know, um, you know, just, just difficult to be. But yet, when you know God, and you know Christ, and He’s in your heart, joy is the easy way to live, and it’s just the best way to live. Yeah, and it comes from that freedom that you find, because As long as we continue to pull back and we, we continue to, to kind of close off to God and we’re untrusting, we’re never going to find that freedom.

We’re always going to be anxious. We’re never going to have that peace. We’re never going to find that joy. And that’s why Christ and so many others, uh, in the saints before, you know, after him have, have just implored us to trust in God. And so I want to talk about a little bit. So how do we do it? You know, what are, what are the steps where we go?

And I would say. Number one, ask God to show you where you’re afraid to trust in His provision. You know, where, where you’re afraid to trust in Him. Because we all know where that is, right? We all know it happens at Lent when we start thinking about Ash Wednesday’s coming and then something comes to mind that we need to give God and we’re not, we’re not willing to because we’re afraid of what we’re gonna be like without it or What happens if we don’t have it or, or things like that?

Or if maybe you’re afraid that to put yourself out there, you know, that God’s calling you to something great, but you’re afraid because you feel like you don’t have enough and you don’t have the right gifts or the right talents or, or what you need to be able to, to, to do what he needs. You have to trust his provision.

So you got to take those things and take them to him in adoration or in mass or in prayer, and just finally, you know, Have the courage to just say, Lord, I’m tired of this. Like I’m tired of the anxiety, the worry. I’m tired of the lack of peace and the freedom, the lack of freedom in my life. I want to offer this to you and I’m going to trust that you’re going to take it.

And when he goes to grab it, don’t try to hold on to the, to the thread and pull it into a single thread as he takes that on and everything that you’re holding onto away from you. So you’ve got to take that first step. You’ve got to, to offer up to whatever it is that God. Is asking for or you think he needs from you and your life and trusted with an open heart that he’s gonna He’s going to be there for you and that he’s going to use it and he’s going to provide for you Uh when he when he asks for those things three whenever you feel afraid anxious or worried come back to this episode Right these quotes and verses so take that first step in prayer But there’s going to come times when the enemy comes back and goes, Well, he did it that one time, but he may not be there for you again.

Right? God’s not going to do that for you all the time. You were lucky that time. He’s going to start whispering in your ear, even though you had this great moment of trust in the Lord, that the Lord’s not going to show up again and do it. That’s not the truth. That’s just him, because he knows. And he’s afraid that you’re taking steps in the right direction.

You’re taking steps further away from him. And when you start coming to trust from God, he’s going to lose you forever. And so come back when you feel worried, anxious rings or, or, or afraid, you know, when you feel that fear in the next decision or the next thing the Lord asked for, remember, Hey, last time I gave that to the Lord and he was who he says he was, and so there’s no reason for you not to believe that he won’t be again.

So here you go again, Lord. So come back to. this episode to these quotes, the verses we’ve talked about here, then allow yourself to be stretched. Part of trust is not feeling comfortable, right? I mean, that’s the hardest part of trust is feeling uncomfortable. And so many of us stop short and we pull back before we ever get to see, to fully trust in the Lord and to see the rewards and the benefits of doing so.

We pull back because the devil convinces us that God isn’t who he says he is. Or we convince ourselves that we’re not going to be okay if we let go of these things. And so we try to hoard them and we get in this tug of war with God, which we wind up losing, right? So we have to allow ourselves to be stretched.

It’s in the stretching. It’s not a punishment. It’s an invitation to grow in trust so our faith can grow and we can grow in a deeper relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. So allow yourself to be stretched. Five, look at the results and then return to them. Right? Remember that, okay, I did this.

God is who he says he is. So I just need to step out there and bolder courage and trust and fortitude each and every time that I have something God wants or I feel I’m being called to because if I’m doing the right things and I’m living the way that God’s calling me to, He’s not going to let me down.

He’s not going to let me fall. That’s what we need to remember. And then finally, number six, this is the biggest point of all. Remember this, why would Jesus Christ Choose to go through the most painful and torturous death ever to leave the throne of heaven and to come down here to Take on flesh and to be tortured and killed if he wasn’t trustworthy Why would we sit there and go what I mean?

We need to ask ourselves Why would he go through that and then leave me with nothing? Why would he go through that great act of act of sacrifice and then not be there for me all the time in my life? That is love what he did was the greatest sacrifice of love the world has ever seen or ever will see And in that love, he knows our needs and he’s never going to abandon us.

Why would he go through all that trouble and then leave us to just, to just have nothing, right? So he’s going to provide for us. We’ve got to trust in the provision of God. We matter and Jesus cares about our needs more than anything. He knows them and he wants to see to him, but he can’t fully do that until we start trusting that God is who he says he is, that God has us and that we can trust in his provision.

Very good. Yeah, I got it. Well, I mean, I just, it’s something people may say, John, you were talking a mile a minute and gosh, you were so passionate this time and Victor was too. It’s because this is one of my largest problems. This is probably the biggest problem in my life is God has proven himself again and again and again to be quit a job.

Here’s, you know, here’s another job, lose that job, start your own ministry. Don’t have any money. Here’s a conference company to keep you going until you get your ministry up and running. Right. Don’t have a plan. Here comes a friend, Ryan, that helps you build all this out, right? You don’t have enough money.

Here comes several thousand donors or hundreds of donors. We have now, whatever that number is. That have given again and again and again, because God wants this mission and he’s going to give you what you need. And so I often go, John, when are you going to quit banging your head against the wall and do this?

So I realize I struggle in this, so other people have to too. So folks, I hope that you found some help in this. I hope you could take those steps, those verses, those quotes, and just the conversation Victor and I’ve had and start to put it into your life. I know that’s going to be prayer in my life, my prayer in my own life each and every day.

So Victor, let’s take this to prayer and ask for God’s help and support in trusting in his provision in the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly father, thank you for bringing this topic to mind. Uh, all of us struggle with giving you completely everything in our life. We struggle with trusting you.

It’s part of the fall, but it’s also because At the end of the day, we feel like we have to see to ourselves and we have to provide, but God, you are provider. That is what you want to do for us more than anything is to provide us with our needs so that we can go out worry free and become the people that you ask us to be.

So Father, I want to end this prayer with the words of St. Augustine to sit here and to spur us all on and to remember this in these times of struggle and worry, anxiety, and fear. Father, I am seeking, I am hesitant and uncertain, but will you, O God, Father, please answer that prayer for us the way that you so boldly did for him.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.