Podcast

I’m super excited to have my co-host Victor Adams back with me!

This episode is all about real-life challenges and finding God in our everyday moments.

Victor and I chat about the ups and downs of life, how to stay true to our faith in today’s world, and why being present for our loved ones is so important. We share some personal stories—like my solo episodes, our recent travels, and a special moment I had with my son Jacob during a fireworks show. Spoiler: it wasn’t about the fireworks . . .

We dig deep into how we often look for God in big, flashy moments when He’s really there in the everyday stuff—our wins, our struggles, and everything in between. Victor talks about the pressure to make everything perfect and realizing it’s the time spent with loved ones that truly counts.

We’ve been blown away by the support from our listeners! Your feedback and generosity keep us going. From writing a new book to organizing parish missions and leadership summits, your support helps us reach and help more people in meaningful ways.

A big shoutout to everyone who’s reached out and supported us. If our show has touched your life, consider joining us as a Partner in the Pew (www.donorbox.org/pew). Your contributions make a huge difference and help us expand our mission.

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✈️ Join us on one of our 2025 pilgrimages:

March 10-15: Visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Father Zachary, a fantastic priest and friend. This affordable trip is perfectly timed for most school spring breaks.

May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

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Welcome back to the Pew, everybody. I am your host, John Edwards, and across the table from me this week is my co host and co host Victor Adams. And boy, am I glad you’re back. It’s good to be back. And, but I must say you did really well in yourself for the two solo shows you did, I heard a lot of people really took that, took to it and really felt that and really shared what you were dealing with, what you’re speaking on and then that’s what, that’s the jist of the show.

I really think, why. People are drawn to because we talk about the hard things, like we talk about also the amazing the great things of God, but we also talk about the difficulty it is to be a human being on this earth and trying to be a Christian and trying to do the best we can while we live, like being the best person we can be the best version of a of a father or mother, people, cause many people listen to this, not just men, but like I said, we all want to be better and we all Strive to be better.

It’s just that there’s so many things that can come into our view and obstruction and just veer us off that path. Yeah. We want to spend time talking about where we meet God, which is in the moments of everyday life. We oftentimes, try to find God and in all these other ways and that’s fine.

Or We want to try to see where is God and these other things, but we meet them in the moments of everyday life and sometimes those are failures. Sometimes those are successes. And for me lately, we were traveling a bunch and I didn’t want to impose on you to say, Hey, I’ve got this like little window that you need to mold yourself to my schedule and ignore your family and all that stuff.

I was the cause of why it would have been. So I just thought, you know what, I’ve got some things I want to share and instead of trying to impose on Victor and in times that may not be suitable to him, I’ll just jump on and do a couple of things. Now, I do not prefer that, right? I would much rather be in here with you.

One of my best friends in the world talking about these things from both sides of the table. But we did get a lot of great comments from people. And so thank you for those of you that really reached out. We had a lot of text messages and emails just saying, This road I know was one that really impacted people.

And then same thing last week when we were talking about handling the hard stuff. So I think you’re right, Victor. I think this appeals to people because we talk about real life things and the difficulties, and that’s, like I said, that’s where you find God in the midst of the everyday moments is where you could find him good or bad, ugly, whatever it’s where we find them.

Before we jump into this week, we’re going to talk about some more of those moments here in a minute. I just wanted to thank everybody that’s been giving to the ministry here lately. We’ve really had some folks starting to give and coming on as new partners in the pew. And that’s what we’re asking each and every week for any of you to consider.

If this show has affected you in the way that so many of you emailed in the last couple of weeks and said that it had. Please consider supporting us because if you’ve been helped by it, other people will be too. And it’s not just the podcast and the ways that we help people. We’re writing a book right now and there’s costs to get published in those things that we’re going to have to get to when we get finished with the book here shortly, hopefully.

There’s those kinds of costs. There’s, we reach out to the, we go to these parishes and do these missions. Right and launch these groups and so we’re reaching people in a lot of different ways than other than just the podcast and in Order to do that to be more effective to reach more people You know We need to be able to continue to grow the support we have in the ministry so we can add the things that we need like personnel And other things like here lately when I brought derek on there’s all sorts of different things that he needed, AI stuff and chat GPT and all these things that, that, make jobs easier for us to do to be able to make more content and to be able to help people quicker and more efficiently.

There’s all sorts of stuff like that, that we need in the ministry all the time to help us better. to get better at what we do. So for those of you that have helped, thank you for doing so. Every little bit counts. Every time I see one come through, I get a tear in my eye. I really do. And there’s such nice messages that people always tag when they give online about why they’re giving and.

So I see every one of those. I try to respond to every one of them and every one of them touches my heart because I know you have a choice and where to give and the fact that you give back, that’s what this life of discipleship is about. When someone helps us, we’re called to turn around and help others, whether that’s with our time, with our talent or with our treasure.

And right now what we’re doing is asking people to give back to people through their time, their talent. and their treasure. So if you want to support what we’re doing, if you’ve been moved in any way at a mission or at a group launch or at a diocesan leadership summit or through the podcast or anything else that we’re doing, I ask you to please consider coming alongside us in this mission.

It’s not just asking for your money. It’s asking you to join us in this mission. If you believe that men need to be helped, if men need to be brought back to being the husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons that they’re called to be, and that God created him to be for the church, the family, and the world, Then please consider supporting us because that’s exactly what we’re doing and you can be part of this mission as a partner in the pew You come alongside us You enable us to do this work through your prayers through your time through your talent and through your treasure And you can claim this mission as your own.

So please consider supporting us joining us in a as a partner in the pew at a monthly level That is doing so much good to help us take steps and strides forward so we can do the job that God’s called us to do better. So you can become a partner in the pew by going to just a guy on the pew. com.

There’s a donate button right there on the left. I know I said donut button last time, but it’s a donate button. That’s on the screen. You can find it there or in the top right corner where it says donator support. You can also go directly to www. donorbox. org slash pew that’s donorbox. org slash pew P E W.

So thank you for those who have given thank you to those who will it’s just it means more than and it’s helping us reach more people last thing I want to say before we jump in the show here is folks We are constantly looking to work more in these parishes So look we’re going all over the country doing these diocesan leadership summits We’re meeting great people who have a desire in their heart To build something for themselves and for other people in their parishes.

This is the only way we’re going to get men back involved in the faith is to get them involved in their parishes, build relationships with Christ, with them, and with Christ and with them and other men it’s worked in our parish. It’s worked in over 25 or almost 30. Now in the country, we keep growing these things.

We’ve got requests in all the time. But if you have a desire to do this, we will walk with you. We will not leave you on your own. We won’t send you a DVD set and say, good luck. We’ll actually work with you, put boots on the ground, spend months with you, train your team, help you raise up individual men so that we can come and build, help you build a team, give you a structure and build fruit that lasts.

We will walk with you from A to Z. I promise you that. So if you’re interested in having us, you’re starting the conversation about growing a men’s ministry in your parish. You don’t know how, but You need help, we’ll help you. You can find out more about that by just going to JustaGuyOnThePew. com, click any of the buttons on the page that say find out more or start a men’s ministry, fill out the form.

We will get in touch with you. We’ll set up a time to talk and we’ll help you make that dream a reality. So thank you for listening to all of that. Thank you to our donors and thank you for those who have worked with us and who will work with us in the future. So Victor, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, Let’s jump into what we’re going to talk about today.

And I mentioned Derek in the in the beginning of the show, he’s been working with us, he’s been doing a lot of great things and operationally marketing all those things. And if anybody enjoys the post or anything they’ve seen lately, a lot of it is Derek’s creativity and just what he brings to the table.

We were talking the other day and we were praying and. And just we do that a lot in the ministry, right? We don’t want to just focus on it. Okay what are the business things we have to get done today? but where are we each, you know spiritually and so we got to talking about some things and we talked about prayer life and You know how it was for each one of us and you know There’s some familiar things that I think we both spoke about the great links we can go to In our lives to carve out like this, you know time for god, which is what we’re called to do And we both were mentioning man We want to pray two three hours a day or whatever it was we were saying And we both were sharing sometimes with goals set like that, that we get to a place where we feel overwhelmed, like it’s going and then we get away from it because other things come up and we’re not doing what we think and then we get upset with ourselves or we get anxious or we spend most of our time.

Like trying to make this so wonderful. Like I’m going to light incense and I’m going to have candles lit and I’m gonna have so much quiet in the room. Like you, you can’t even hear a pin drop. All that stuff. And it just trying to make the perfect setting and the perfect prayer and the perfect thing in the moment.

And we talked about how much anxiety that can cause, and how we can go the other way because it’s almost like we’re trying to build this perfect setting for this perfect thing to happen, but it’s not always going to happen that way. Right and we can do that thing in so many other that, and so many other aspects of our life, whether like maybe we’re playing a date night with our wife and we’re just like, okay, I’m gonna have rose petals everywhere.

Then we’re going to do this and then this maitre d is going to come out and surprise her with this. And or with my children, I’ve got to take them to Disney world to show them how much I love them or. And we can get caught up in those things. And so much time we, so many times we spend so much time worrying way too much time worrying about how we’re going to go about making something perfect or making something super impactful.

And we forget that a lot of times it’s just the time spent. It’s the time spent is what people are looking for. It’s what God is looking for. It’s what our wives are looking for. It’s what our kids are looking for. It’s what men are looking for in each other in these groups is it’s not so much what we did that night, but It’s the time it’s, you took the time to come and Karen, be with me.

So this episode today, I just want to talk about that because when Derek, Derek and I were talking, he’s this would be a great episode to talk about because we do get so caught up in the how and the what, that a lot of times we lose the why in our prayer life and our relationships with one another.

And so I want to get into that. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to give some examples about. With Jacob and me and some things like that lately, but that’s what we’re going to jump into here today is really just reminding ourselves what matters is the time spent, not so much how we spent it, but the time we were willing to spend in being present to someone or something.

You’re talking about a production, like when we’re doing something, quote unquote, special and, or an important event, we go through this whole list of items of what it should be like, how it should look process of beginning to end. And even in the things in our lives, when we do a production, what happens when it doesn’t go the way.

It goes that we expect it to be, we think it’s a failure, but really it’s not because some way allows us to have a presence for God to come in and say, Hey, that’s a great idea, but I think, let’s do it this way. Or someone may come in and say for instance, if you’re doing an interview, job interview, and you’ve, you nailed all things and they throw like a question out there that you weren’t expecting.

And then you feel like you didn’t answer it well enough. And then the whole rest of the day, you’re going, did I answer the way that they wanted to hear it? But really what they want to know is who you really are, to get the off script stuff, like who are you really?

What do you what can you bring here other than the script stuff? And you were talking about date night, you know how many times have we like I remember I don’t want to tell the whole story, but like when I was Bothering for christine was gonna propose I told her friends that I got it and they were I was getting a story to do this way No, you gotta do this way.

So eventually it guess what it didn’t become My way of our production, you know i’m saying it was like I didn’t know what to do because now what I was Gonna do was gonna work. So So the day I had, because the ring was burning a hole in my pocket. I was like, I could, I didn’t want to lose it, but I wanted to give it away.

I want to give it to her, propose. So I was going to do this, but then, we’re at home. And she got back from volleyball practice said. Hey, I gotta ask you a question, she’s all sweaty knee pad and stuff and I got down my knee and said Will you marry me? Yeah, and that’s how it was because that was our that’s how it that’s our life and Lily’s my stepdaughter, you know when we started dating when Lily was three years old So I wanted Lily to be part of that Yeah.

And that was more precious than any production we could have had thought of by her friends, and the great thing about we have to realize is that what we expect to happen in our life, thank goodness it doesn’t always happen that way because we get to see gems that God gives us in graces by seeing what he the alternate view of what he, what we think is we need or we don’t need.

You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would probably say she was glistening next time she was sweating. You’re making it in trouble. You’re making it in trouble because of that. But but no, you’re exactly right. We, it’s not so much what we’re doing. It’s the fact that we’re doing it together.

If I think about when I was a kid my dad had through Napa, in the office he held, he had season tickets to the Memphis Tiger basketball. The shirt I’m wearing right now, it’s just a coincidence. But and I loved Tiger basketball. They were really good when I was growing up. They were amazing players.

And he only had two tickets, right? And so he would he would either, it used to be, he would take my mother all the time. Then we got old enough. He would take, he would rotate me and my two sisters. So he would go by age. It’d be mom and then Pam and then me and then Amy. And I would always just sit there and go I want to go, I want to go.

And I would tell myself when I was younger no, I’m the big fan and I love Louisville and I like that game. And I want to see him play Cincinnati, their rivals and things. And I couldn’t wait until it was my turn. And when I’d go I just it wasn’t even any more the game or who they were playing I just remember sitting there with my dad and just like looking up At the fact that I was with my dad and it was just me and him and it was nobody else and Eventually, my sisters got older They didn’t care to go anymore and I got to go all the time with them And I started to even realize even more man.

I don’t care if they win or lose. I don’t care if they play You know who they’re playing. I just, it’s an opportunity for me to go with my dad. And I tried to return the favor when I got older. And I had a friend that worked in the FedEx forum and the Grizzlies were, you had Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph and everybody, and they were winning and my dad really loved them.

So I started getting, calling my guy and he got us playoff tickets. And it just was so much fun with my dad. But what I came to realize was it wasn’t. Like it wasn’t the fact that of what we were doing It’s the fact that my dad said I want to go with you Like I want to be with you and it meant so much to me that he wanted to give a time because my dad worked all the time He worked so hard and the fact that in his free time.

He cared to go with me to those games and I know i’ve talked about my dad in other ways and as I got older We had a little difficulty in our relationship but I just that’s a sweet memory I have from my childhood and We were down there this past weekend or week for the 4th of july and my dad’s gotten he’s 83 now and it’s hot outside in Mississippi and you’re surrounded by these, soybean fields He grows soybean that farms that and it’s super humid around all those things So i’ve been out cutting grass and doing all that He also got a new trager grill and I told him i’d smoke ribs and been doing that all day out there And so it got to be evening after everybody eaten and my kids were like what about fireworks dad?

and usually my sister is like the pyro in the family and she spent all this money and But she was leaving and she’s I’m not going to be here. So I’m, I’m going to go in a little bit. She had to work the next day. And so I was this is my excuse not to have to do it because I’m, I’ve been out there all day.

I’m hot and sweaty. I just want to shower. Don’t want to deal with all the bugs and the heat and now we’re going to spend money we don’t have on fireworks. My kids were like, dad, are we going to do something? And my father, he’s done well for himself. He’s Pulled out some money and said, all right, kids, give us your dad and go get some fireworks.

So I did. And, we didn’t have a ton, so we weren’t able to get like a bunch of these massive ones like my sister did. We got a few of them. So we got out in the front yard. My aunt was out there and my cousin that lives down there now and hangs out with dad all the time. Angela and the girls and Jacob and I.

So they were doing sparklers. They were shooting bottle rockets, the little things that were nice for them. And then he got time for the few big ones we had to do. And my dad’s go across the road to the dirt part of the field and shoot those there because it hasn’t rained in a while and I want to start a huge fire and lose the crop and all that stuff in the house and everything else.

So long story short, Jacob hops in with me and the girls. Allison’s not a huge fan of fireworks, so she went about to go where the big ones were and Caitlin wanted to stay with Angela. So we get in the in the mule, we go across the road and I’m sitting there going, okay, like all I got to do is like these four that are medium size or like we had one or two that were 36 shot ball game type fireworks.

So we go to light those things and Jacob’s dad I like the first one goes off. He’s can I light one of those? And and I said, yeah, Jacob I guess at first I said, no. And I was like he’s almost 15. So pull the fuse out, take the long lighter. Don’t stick your face over it.

Light it. So he lit off the first one. It shot off like 10 shots. And he’s man, then he got the next one and he shot it off. And, the whole time I’m thinking, I’m like, man, I wish we had been able to spend more and buy more bigger fireworks and those 50 shots that are like a hundred dollars.

And, I wish I could have given him a better opportunity to, to have this time spent better. And this is, like I said, was last week. So he gets to like the last two and he lights them. And before he lights the last one, next thing you know, we got like Lee Greenwood playing on the speakers and all this stuff.

And he just runs over to me and I’m getting a beer out of the cooler or something, and he just boom into me like a car wreck. And he’s got both arms around me. And he says, dad. I’m so grateful. It’s just you and me doing this. And here I was, my mind was in like, I don’t have a good enough fireworks.

I should have bought more. I should have been so cheap and spent more money. I should have bought something more extravagant. And the fact was we were in this dark field where you couldn’t even see the house across the road, when you weren’t lighting the fireworks off and all this boy who’s 15, who, if you’ve got kids, at that age, they start pulling away from mom and dad, not pulling towards them.

And he just hugged me in a way that he’s not hugged me in a long time and said, I’m glad it’s just you and me. And it really hit me and I was sharing that with Derek and that’s when we were talking about prayer and all that stuff and just how we can go to these great links to worry about what we didn’t do or what we didn’t say or what we weren’t present with.

And I can even do that speaking man, I didn’t say this and I should have said this. And it’s no, that’s not what God wanted, right? He wanted this and he allowed you to say this and this is what it was. And, Anything else is nothing but useless anxiety and worry right and stress that is the devil trying to ruin those moments So it was just this beautiful time with Jacob and it really drew my attention That’s why I wanted to talk about this week on this episode was the time with Derek with Jacob Was it’s just the time spent, man.

We can worry ourselves and bogs ourselves down in so many other things. Trying to worry about how to make things perfect or make things, so memorable. But what you’re going to remember is like with my dad. I don’t remember the score of any of those games. I don’t remember who won or who lost.

I don’t remember what, who scored what points or not. I remember sitting in that stand with the peanuts my dad used to pop and eat the whole game. And him buying me a soda that I didn’t get to have a lot. And a bucket of popcorn in his arm around me saying son, did you see that son? Did you see that?

That’s what I remember not anything else about it But the rides there sitting next to him in the rides home and saying thank you dad and what i’m going to remember about those fireworks is not if we had the whistler things or the the captain america box. It was whatever It was just the fact that he and I sat there Enjoying that time together.

And this is what we have to focus on, not only in our life or the relationship with those around us, our wives, our kids, the people that God puts in our life as friends and guys in a men’s group but also with God himself. I think, what we’re talking about is that, we have a sense of obligation to do things obligation to be a parent, obligation to work, obligation to be friends, all these things, but when we don’t put desire in the obligation.

It becomes like autom, like automatic and there’s no feeling and there’s no emotion connected to it. The most powerful way to live is have an obligation to do something with total desire. Yeah. And that is what it is called to be a person of faith. Is that, yes, you go to mass, but if you go to mass without any desire, what was the benefit?

Yeah, and so I think what we were For us where I am is that I finally have found that i’m starting to merge those two Ways of living together and not have it separate where i’m i’m working on I’m obligated to do this, but I don’t want to do it. So I’m forced to do it, but I do it anyways.

Which nobody enjoys when you do it, because they can tell you don’t want to be there. We have the story when we were young, we were obligated to go to church, but did we, did I have a desire to go to church? No. Yeah, so for me it wasn’t a proponent of a massive kind of inner being of like Oh my gosh, this is amazing, Yeah until I became a person of what no suffering’s all about, you know Making the connections that suffering is necessary in order for me to get away from my own selfish Intrigues or my own selfish ways of thoughts and the great thing about what we’re talking about now is that You We realize we’re in the we’re sharing time with the people we love and we’re taking fully advantage of that moment by being present, that desire of what we were always chasing is right there in front of us.

We don’t have to create a production of life to get that desire because we know when we think it’s way off, far off. We miss what’s going on right in front of us. And that is what we’re talking about is as being a parent it, we always had these things when this happens, but we forget that when it’s happening now, that’s when we need to be present because these kids, they grow.

Like high school is quick. College is quick, and from pre K to eighth grade, it seems like it takes forever, and so we’re not, there’s times where I was a fully involved in what was going on, and. Missed a few sports events ’cause, job was what was needed and stuff.

And not to say that you have to be there all the time but what is the desire? Sure. And the obligation. Is it connected together or is it, are you separate in what you’re looking at? Yeah, and what you’re saying, there’s a Saint Gianna that said live holy, the present moment. And I think, not like holy, like W-H-O-L-E, but holy, HOLY, live holy.

And how do you make a present moment? Holy. By being present to it, the thing is when you’re, when you don’t I don’t really want to do that. It’s about us, right? I’m going to do this out of obligation, but I don’t want to. It’s about us. We’re not really putting the other person first.

We’re not dying to sell the way we’re called to it. I didn’t want to be in that field with bugs crawling all over me after I’ve been sweating all day long and disgusting and covered in grass stuff. And all I wanted was a shower and a bed, but my kids wanted something different. And it wasn’t again, how we did it or what we did it, You know how great of fireworks we had or we didn’t it was you’ve made a choice to be with me when you could Have been doing something else And not only have you made that choice to first and foremost be there But you’ve made the choice to make me feel special in the moment not because of the grand production of anything But because you’re really here because you really are caring you didn’t blow me off and say no i’ll just lie down Let’s get this over with i’m tired.

I want to go to bed It’s yeah, jacob take your time and do what you want and what came from it There was a gift of love received and a gift of love given because it was a true gift of love And that’s what I think the father is waiting for us to do too with or as it pertains to god Because we could spend so much time like okay.

I’m gonna go to adoration And I’m going to do this, and this. I’m going to read this chapter of this and I’m going to pray this rosary. And then I’m going to wait 10 minutes. I’m going to stare at the Lord and I’m going to do this, or I’m going to be in my house and I’m going to, I’m going to have this, the holiest prayer station in the world, and look, we need reverent, silent places of prayer.

But at the end of the day, we spend so much time trying to make it perfect, trying to make it just right. When God is looking at us going, man, that’s an extra 15 minutes. That’s an extra 12 minutes that we could have sent just being together. We had our adoration night last night. In our men’s group, we’re recording this on Thursday.

Wednesday’s the night we meet and we had adoration and Deacon Jeff actually, was the one doing it for his father. Gio was in a parish meeting. He just, the new priest, he’s covered up with meetings right now. , the new pastor, not the new priest, but, um, deacon Jeff was really talking about look, you got all these anxieties, you got all these other things, you got all these other worries, you got all these other distractions.

Just sit here and look at him. And that’s what I did. I was like, Lord, and here’s the struggles of my life. Here’s what I’m facing You know what they are. I don’t have to recite them to you. I’m just gonna you know what I’m dealing with my life I’m gonna sit here with you if you want to say something if you don’t and but I’m gonna be quiet I’m just gonna look at you.

I’m gonna appreciate you and it was one of those peaceful adorations I had because I wasn’t worried about planning something or what should I say or how should I hit my knees and I make jokes On the road when I’m speaking sometimes about even when we pray sometimes we try to sound like More Shakespearean than the next person.

Oh Lord, who art thou my God, flesh of my flesh, gained of my love of your gained heart and all this stuff. And it’s God, sometimes looking at you like, Hey man, cut the stuff. I just, I’m excited that you want to spend time with me. My prayers all to say, God, I’m an idiot. Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. Like I don’t go to my dad’s house. Like father, I’ve returned from that Piggly’s with the items you requested. And he’d be like, dude, what’s the matter with you? Come in here and sit down and talk to me. Yeah. And that’s, I think sometimes we can spend so much effort. On how on the what and on the how instead of the why I just want to be with you lord I just want to give you my heart if it’s for two minutes an hour five minutes 20 minutes, whatever And this is what we have to get to is.

How do I live wholly the present moment, right? How do I Just forget everything else for a little bit and realize That it’s the time spent like as excited as everybody else gets as jacob was as you and I get When we get to be present to each other in this way You Whether it’s during the show or before or after the show where we’re talking about life and all the things that pisses off or make us happy or whatever’s going on in our life.

That’s the time that we all look forward to is, man, I’m really going to get to go spend time with Victor. I’m going to get to spend time with Nick or with Angela or with John or whoever with my children. And I think God feels the same way. I think, I like to picture God getting giddy. Like when he knows that we’ve made a decision now in our free will that choice again To spend I could be doing the work I need to do.

I could be doing stuff around the house I could be doing this with my wife or my kids Or whatever else that I can tell myself all day long needs to be done in a 24 hour span But when that thought process goes i’m going to go spend a few minutes with god I just have this image of God getting so elated and so happy or Jesus or whoever it is that you’re praying to at the time Mary getting so elated because that time means something because you chose it was not forced It was not taken from you chose to give it And I don’t think god is so worried about how we’re going to dress in the moment Or how what incense we’re going to use or whatever I mean Those all things are reverent and of course god chooses and loves to be blessed by those things But I think the most important thing is God is going, he’s coming to be with me, or she’s coming to be with me.

And that’s what it is. How joyful it must make them. Think about any of you people out there that are older, that have kids that are grown and have their own kids and their lives are busy with sports and everything else they’ve got going on. They don’t see you as much, but when you get that phone call, when you get that email, when you get that text message, it’s like, It says, Hey, we’re coming to visit tomorrow afternoon, or we’re coming for a couple of days, how joyful it must make them feel.

I see when my dad, when I pull up, my dad always, almost always moves. It walks out to the carport, even though he doesn’t get around that great anymore. And he says, Hey, how are y’all doing? And he starts asking everybody. And it’s, what do you want to do? I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re here. And I think that God, the father is the same way.

Jesus is the same way when we go to him in prayer. It’s man, how happy am I? How joyful am I that you’ve chosen to spend some time with me now? Should we choose to do that more in our lives? Yes. No one’s saying settle for less, but don’t lose the importance of the moment. Don’t lose it that it’s about the Tom spent more than it is how you’re, got the light set or how you’re taking your wife to this restaurant.

I’m going to have this maitre d say this, or you’re going to take the kids to the perfect movie. It’s the choice to spend time with somebody that shows that you care. And I just, I think that we lose that and we get so upset with ourselves and then we get down because it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t right.

We stumbled in the way we said something. We can do that even with these podcasts. Oh, we stuttered. We didn’t say a word right. And when we do that, we lose the reason why we did it. We spent the time doing what the Lord asked us to do to try to help other people. At the end of the day, that’s what matters to people.

That’s what matters to us. And more importantly, that’s what matters to God. We close, I know we’re getting to that point, but just Live fully with the obligation and desire, and don’t worry about making everything perfect because it’s not going to be. There’s no way you can make anything perfect in life because there’s going to be something that we’re going to miss, and if, and for, if we’re not careful, we’ll miss the most important parts of our lives.

And I have, I can tell you personally with my children, with God, with my wife, I have gotten so caught up in the details that I missed the entire time we were there together. Yeah. Yeah. I always talk to Angela on the road so much and when I’m home, I just want to be present. And even when I’m with my kids, sometimes I get so worried about, no, we’ve got to have this and we’ve got to do it this way.

And we’ve got to do that. And so just saying, you know what, if y’all want to sit there and I was going to say braid my hair, but I remembered I don’t have any, or y’all want to play a game or you want to, I don’t care. I just want to be with you. And when we can start doing that same thing with God, you talk about your prayer life, making leaps and bounds.

You talk about leaving peaceful instead of feeling stressed and I’m not enough. I’m inadequate again in my adoration time or I’m inadequate again in my mass time. But as you said, going in, not as an obligation, but I have a desire to be here. And my heart’s going to be present. No matter what the timeline is, I’m not going to put all of these constraints and what it should be and all these ridiculous expectations, which we’re never going to live up to.

I’m just going to simply say, Lord, I’m here. I want to be with you. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know how much time it’s going to be, but I know that you’re going to appreciate whatever it is because I’m here voluntarily and without love. And it’s the same thing with our wives and kids.

That’s what relationship is, right? Is I don’t expect anything. I don’t require anything of you. There’s not a demand that needs to be met. There’s a free giving of oneself to one other. That’s what the Lord wants more than anything for our lives with other people. And most certainly with him. So folks, I hope this one hit home with you again, too.

I’m glad to be back in here with you again, Victor, as always. Just such a blessed time to be with you and to share both of our thoughts on these things. So folks again. If you’re struggling with this, look, you can always begin again as St. John Paul II would say, is just begin again. Take this to mind and look at how you’re spending your time with the people you love, with God, and if you find stress and anxiety and worry at it, look at it and say, how am I doing this?

Am I really just going with an open heart? And with a desire to be there to be present, or am I going with all these expectations? Check the expectations at the door. I promise you, if you go and just say, I don’t know, but I’m here and I’m here with an open heart, then you’re going to leave everything you do more peaceful and the people are going to be with are more peaceful and you’re going to get something like a hug I got from my son that said, I’m glad it’s just us.

So folks, let’s take all this to prayer in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen heavenly father Our time is one of the greatest gifts we can give someone So many times that we waste it worrying over how we should spend it with someone Help us to see through the worries and anxieties of what and return and help us to remember the why and father Whenever we feel we have to make a grand gesture of something or someone, remind us that it’s the gift of our time that truly counts.

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

First off, HUGE thanks to everyone who tuned into last week’s solo episode and sent in those heartwarming messages. Your support means the world to me, especially since going solo isn’t easy without my friend or guests around.

This week, we’re diving into “Handling the Hard Stuff.” Life throws some real curveballs, right? From tough medical diagnoses to personal losses, how do we cope? I’ll share insights inspired by a recent episode of The Chosen and some things the Lord put on my heart.

Plus, exciting news! If you’re heading to the Eucharistic Congress, come find us at booth 1332 from July 16-21. We’ll have merch, info on our ministry, and a chance to meet you all in person. Don’t miss our live podcast on Thursday with Father Malachy, chatting about the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist.

Thanks for being part of this journey. Let’s get into it! 🙏

📚: Bible verses for reflection

Isaiah 55:8-9
Romans 8:28
1 Peter 5:7-10

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May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

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Welcome back to the pew everybody. I am your host, John Edwards, and this week will be another solo episode. Last week was 4th of July and it was crazy schedules. And I was out of town, a bunch of my family and enjoying the holiday and family time. So it was hard to get up with Victor, with our two schedules and all the family stuff planned and everything like that.

So you get me again this week, flying solo. Well, and I want to say thank you. First of all, to the people who listened into the last week’s episode, which was also a solo one. So many of you send encouraging words. Uh, you know, I, I didn’t know if I was going to put that one out or not. But, uh, I was encouraged by the Lord and by other people to put it out.

So I did. And so thank you for all of you that, that sent in encouraging words and words of affirmation after that, because it is a different deal doing a show by yourself when you’re so used to having one of your best friends in the world in here to have a conversation with, or a guest or something like that.

So, but again, the Lord touched my heart this week with, uh, uh, another message, actually one that, um, came off of the last episode and some things that I, uh, He was speaking into my heart, uh, after that episode. So we’re going to jump into all of that. This episode is going to be called, uh, handling the hard stuff.

And it’s something that we get questioned about a lot. Like, how do I handle the hard stuff in my life? How do I deal with the sufferings? How do I deal with the things that don’t seem like a fair shake? So we’re going to talk about all that in here in just a minute, but I wanted to take a second to tell everybody Eucharistic Congress, which is happening next week, uh, then please look for us.

We’re going to be there from the 16th. through the 21st right along the side of thousands of other Catholics that are going to be there, um, trying to grow closer to the Lord in the Eucharist and to celebrate the Eucharist, the source and the summit of our faith and to come together as brothers and sisters in the universal church to, to give reverence to that, which is the most important thing, the Eucharist, Jesus’s body of blood himself.

So I’m super excited to be there. We’re going to have a booth, uh, all week long. So our booth number is 1332. It’s right there actually to the right of the center of the room. Uh, it’s not far from the food court, but we’re going to be set up there with Derek and myself, you know, Derek, who I hired a few months ago to be our director of marketing operations.

He’s going to be there. We’re going to have all our merchandise. We’re going to have some. Pamphlets and more information for all of you that are DREs or priests or deacons that may be looking To find out more about what we do and how we can serve you and your parish and the men of your parish By starting and launching men’s groups.

We’ll have all that we’re going to have contests so you can win free merchandise We’ll be there most days in the time that the rooms is open like 12 to 6 and so we can’t wait to see you there Uh come by because we’re going to have contests. We’re going to give away free merchandise So please make sure you come by and see us.

I would love to meet you. I’d love to give you a hug, shake your hand, take pictures, do all that kind of stuff. I’d love to meet you and say thank you for the time that you’ve put into listening to us and the support you’ve given to our ministry. So again, booth 1332 in the Annapolis convention center. Uh, one other thing I want to announce on here, if you didn’t hear it last time or the time before, when I mentioned it, uh, we will also be podcasting.

There’s a live podcast area there in the convention center. And our data podcast is going to be on that Thursday of the week of the Eucharistic Congress from 3. 30 to 4. 30. And that is in room 140 in the Indiana Convention Center. So we’ll be interviewing Father Malachy. Many of you have watched our episodes.

He’s a great friend of mine. Uh, I’m really excited to talk about the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist and transformation and what real transformation looks like and the fire that the Holy Spirit brings and the passion the Eucharist should, should give us in our lives. So we’re going to have an amazing conversation from three 30 to four 30 in room 40 there, one 40, excuse me, one 40.

So folks come by our booth, 1332 when you’ve got free time in between the sessions and in the afternoon. And then come and check us out on that podcast. I would love to meet you. I’d love to say thank you for all your support, whether it’s listening or financially or whatever it is, buying merchandise. I just want to say thank you for choosing to listen and for spreading the word about what we’ve been doing all these years.

So come to the booth, come to the Congress. We’ll see you there. So folks, I, like I said, this is going to be a solo episode again. Um, it’s going to be one. I hope that’s inspired by the Holy spirit as I always hope is it’s inspired by the Holy spirit. But, you know, after last week’s episode. Um, I was really nervous about putting it out.

I really was. Uh, you know, I got vulnerable. I shared a lot of different things. I shared my struggles and as I’ve told you, I’ve always wanted to do that, but what does the devil do? He wants to start beating on you and telling you, Oh, that’s, that’s, you shouldn’t do that. Or that’s not going to be good. Or maybe you overshared and, and you know, so I almost didn’t put it out, but I’m glad I did because so many of you reached out, as I said, with encouraging and affirming affirming words about how you found yourself in those same sort of struggles in your life.

Uh, in dealing with some of the dryness and the aridity and, uh, the desolation that we can find ourselves in and, and that, yeah, that you found it, uh, encouraging that that doesn’t mean that you’re not still on the narrow road. It just means that that road is challenging. And so to continue the theme a little bit of that.

Um, we’re going to face challenging times in our life. Uh, you know, we’re going to deal with hard stuff and oftentimes the hardest thing about being a Christian is how to handle the hard stuff, is how to deal with the difficult things, whether it’s, you know, uh, a terrible medical diagnosis, like a cancer or something, whether it’s a loss of life in the family, whether it’s a loss of job or, or, you know, even folks like you look at Katrina and things like that in the past Have decimated in an instant where people their lives like everything they had and and they’ve had to rebuild their lives Right, we all have to deal with some sort of sufferings and struggles in our lives Even if it’s a broken relationship or a divorce or a loss of love in some way or another Um, they’re very difficult things that we have to deal with in our lives as christians And how we handle them makes all the difference in the world how we deal with them With the sufferings of our life if you will It’s going to really have a lot to do with what kind of person we’re going to be and the mindset we’re going to have and if we can be a Christian in all things, if we can be the person that Christ calls us to be in and through all things.

And you know, this was, this was something that, that, you know, it’s hard. It never gets any easier, but through the battles that we go through and the ones that we survive. Um, we can look back, we can choose to do one thing, either be glad that it’s over with and never look back at it, or we can look at those things and, and learn, like, what did I garner out of that suffering?

And it’s an important point, uh, to start off with is to say that we can look at suffering in one of two ways. Uh, either, man, God, why did you do that? Why did you allow that to happen? Why did I have to go through all this and question everything and, and, and deal with it that way, which so many of us do.

It’s such a human reaction, but there’s another way we can deal with it too. And we can look into that suffering to see what, what was the good that came out of it, right? If we can just move ourselves away from, from the interior posture of why this to me, why, why, why, why, why? And move and say okay lord this happened and there’s nothing I can do about it Like what what am I supposed to learn from this?

What is the good that you want to come out of this and it’s a completely different set of questions of what a lot Of us tend to ask because we are human and we don’t want to suffer We don’t want pain and loss and difficulty and all those things, but it’s what comes with being a christian It’s what came after the fall, right?

Everything was good and everything was perfect and then adam and eve, you know They chose the wrong thing and sin and death came in the world and If there’s going to be good, there has to be evil, right? There, it’s a two sided coin and you know, there’s truth and there’s lies. There’s so many things that have an opposite.

And because of those, the, the, the, the existence of one of them, there’s the existence of the other. And so we’re all going to have to suffer. There’s going to be evil because there is good, right? There is. There’s free will so in order to have a choice there has to be two things to choose from And that’s the way it is in most of our life with with things.

So This is why we have good. This is why we have evil But you know, I was watching uh the season, uh four of the chosen this last season it came out I you know was waiting till almost all the episodes came out because i’m not patient I don’t want to sit there and wait and all that stuff so got busy with other things and finally I saw that it was You know, I think I started watching when season six or second not season, but episode six had come out It was able to watch through those and in the final two weeks and you know I want to start off by saying I love the shows and so many people do Um, there are things that sometimes I disagree with what they do.

Um, they it is a creative show It’s it’s a it’s a drama. I mean the directors come out and said that look this is a television show Not everything is going to be biblically accurate. They’re going to take Creative license with things it certainly As a Catholic, there’s things that I’m like, Oh, that wasn’t correct.

Or, Oh, that wasn’t that. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s doing a lot of good things out there because it’s bringing people to Jesus. It’s, it’s opening their eyes to this human side of the apostles and the Christ. And it really is a beautiful show. Uh, even though sometimes, like I said, there’s some things that stick out.

They’re like, eh, that wasn’t biblically accurate or whatever. None of us are perfect. Like I said, it is a drama and they have creative license, but there was a. There’s something I want to talk about in context with the chosen and then the suffering aspect that this dealing with the hard stuff, handling the hard stuff.

And if you’ve been watching with it, you know that again, they took creative license to say that, uh, Thomas, the apostle was, uh, seeing this, this woman that was a, uh, from a vineyard that was also a follower of Jesus. She was a disciple of Jesus alongside Mary Magdalene and, and some of the other women in the show.

Now, not biblically, there’s no one named Rayma or, Uh, and there’s nothing that says Thomas was getting engaged or falling in love with a woman. Uh, there’s nothing that spirit, that, that scripture references about that, but they’re using their relationship and they’re, they’re, they’re growing love for one another, uh, for a purpose.

And so, uh, in one of the episodes, Uh, is, is Thomas ask, uh, for her hand in marriage. Jesus says that he will grant some things to make this happen because her father didn’t want her to marry Thomas and didn’t want her to follow Jesus and all these things. So there’s some difficulty there in the show. Uh, again, this is what they’re making up and creating as they go along with the storyline.

Um, and long story short, she winds up dying, uh, basically the day they find out they get married and they’re planning and all these things that Jesus is saying, yes, that he would oversee it and he would bless it as a rabbi. She winds up getting stabbed by the Praetor during a riot when Jesus and the Pharisees are going at it Uh arguing and back and forth when he’s calling them, you know, a brood of vipers and all those things So long story short she dies and then of course thomas Wanted to know why jesus didn’t heal her why he didn’t um save her now jesus was being rushed off during the riot, but you know in thomas’s eyes he could have Done something to to stop that and so he struggles with that through the remaining episodes leading up to the end of the season and even Uh, it shows peter and james and john kind of discussing it themselves because if you remember biblically they had been in the room when jesus raised jesus’s daughter from the dead, so Um, they were wondering like hey, we saw what we saw Why couldn’t he do this even though they weren’t allowed to tell any of the other?

Disciples so long story short, um, it comes to one of the last episodes where jesus is going to raise lazarus And so the whole way there is they’re walking Uh, they’re trying to figure out why they’re going there What jesus is going to do and they’re kind of showing this angst of thomas of like I hope he’s not going to resurrect I hope he’s not going to do something that he could have done for her Now again, I just want to say again and i’ll say it several times.

This is their creative license. This is them. Um, Making drama in the show. It’s not biblically accurate But there was something that was very powerful that I thought went hand in hand with this that happened So jesus raises lazarus from the dead and as he comes out You could just see thomas crushed and they’re showing the disciples staring at thomas like they know Well, this is incredible and he is who he says he is like he’s raising someone from the dead But then they all kind of snap and go.

Oh, man, what is this going to mean for thomas? And so thomas is witnessing this and he begins to cry when he sees it And, and so the Lord, you know, as soon as he, he, as Jesus talks to Lazarus and talks to his sisters and they take him home to get something to eat, he turns around and he looks right at Thomas.

And I want to read the dialogue there because Thomas kind of hits his knees and he’s sobbing. And he’s like a lot of us when terrible things happen, like when we just don’t understand the pain of like, Lord, why is this suffering being allowed and why is this happening to me? And why is this so difficult?

And I’m trying to understand and we can’t make heads or tails. Out of anything, right? Like, why does this have to happen? Like when a child gets sick, the fact that there’s even. You know, my wife works at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and the fact that there’s even the need for a children’s hospital for cancer, why does the Lord allow that to happen to the weakest and the most vulnerable and the, and the, and the best of us in these little children?

Like, there’s things like that in life that we just don’t comprehend, like we can’t understand it. And so they’re trying to show this in this scene. And so Thomas, um, you know, he’s sitting there on his knees crying and he doesn’t understand. Uh, why the Lord is, why he’s done this for Lazarus and why he didn’t do it for the woman that he loved.

Again, fictionally, uh, that part of the, of the show is fictional. It’s not biblical, but he sits there and he’s kneeling and Jesus walks over and he grabs him by the hand and he kneels right in front of him and he lifts up his face and he puts his hand on his shoulder and he says this, he says, Thomas and Thomas is looking right at him like, please tell me why.

Please tell me you’re going to fix this. Please go and do this. You can just tell he’s, he’s so confused and he’s trying, he’s angry and he’s hurt. But he’s, he loves the Lord and he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to do anything to disrupt that relationship, but he’s just, he has the question we all have, like, if you really loved me, why did you allow this to happen?

Why did you do it for them and not for me? And oftentimes that can be the way we feel when we see someone else receive something or a healing or, or, or something, their life is turning around in a way, and it wasn’t for us. I could tell you that so many men have come up to me and said, why did your, why, why did your wife stay with you when mine wouldn’t, you know, why did that happen for you, but not for me?

And. And it, there is no answer to that, like, right, except for it was God’s will. And so Thomas is looking at Jesus for these things in this episode and, and Jesus says this, Thomas, I don’t expect you to understand now. I don’t. What the Father allows, what I allow in order to bring about my Father’s will, and the faith and the growth of his church, it can be crushing for you.

And yes, even for me. And in this part, like, Jesus is alluding to the fact that even he will have to suffer. Like, even he isn’t impervious to suffering, right? As a human being, because he was fully God and fully man. He had to go and march to his passion and through, through his passion to the cross, and he would die this terrible death for us.

He would’ve to suffer for our sake. Right? And so he’s even telling Thomas like, I know it can be crushing for you. And yes, even for me. And so Thomas looks down and he starts to cry and he says, I, it’s too much. It’s too much. I don’t understand, I don’t understand. And Jesus looks at him again and says, I know.

And that hurts my heart, but please, please stay with me Thomas and you’ll understand in time It’s such a powerful scene when I watched it. I started to To cry. I started to, to, to feel for Thomas and I, and I felt for the Lord because he’s sitting here with all this power and the ability to do just that, to fix what Thomas wanted him to fix, but it wasn’t in God’s will.

It wasn’t in God’s will. And, and so it, it broke the Lord’s heart to see in this, in this, again, fictional depiction of this scene that they came up with, uh, to sort of show reasons why Thomas would doubt or, or just to show us really this, the suffering that we all have to go through. Um, they did a beautiful job with something they were making up.

But again, like, as I watched it, I felt it. I was like, man, I know what it’s like to be, like, to feel for both sides, right? And to be Thomas, to be the one that’s going, why Lord, why Lord, why Lord? And I’ll get into why I understand that so much here in just a minute. But when bad things happen, we often don’t understand and the thing is, if we don’t have the relationship with Christ.

That we’re supposed to then then things are going to go the wrong way Because what’s going to happen when we don’t understand we tend to get angry We tend to get frustrated and then we look for someone or something to blame And a lot of times if we don’t have a relationship with the lord, we blame the lord We turn away from god and that’s exactly what the devil wants, right?

He he’s licking his chops at these things Waiting for these moments of this great suffering because sin and evil and death exist When he gets a shot at something and he could take this and try to spin it to where we turn away from the lord And that’s why the why jesus in this fictional scene is looking at thomas.

He’s like, please Please stay with me and in time you’ll understand. I know you don’t understand and I know It’s not fair and it hurts my heart, but just trust me, stay with me and you’ll understand. And what he meant was obviously he was alluding towards what he was going to have to go through. And he was going to, Thomas would understand then that, that even God suffered for us, right?

That the son of God suffered for us. And that if he had to, none of us are going to be able to escape that suffering in our life to be able to escape that. And oftentimes I think as human beings, we want to, you know, we want the crown without the cross. We want, We want Easter Sunday without Good Friday.

We don’t want to carry those crosses. We don’t want to be nailed to the cross alongside Christ. But that’s exactly what he says in our life we will have to do. Pick up your cross and follow me. That is the invitation of the Lord. He never said it was gonna be easy. He, he never said it would be without struggle, but he often said, I am even willing to do this.

Like what is, the servant is no better than the master, right? This is what he says in other parts of scripture. Like even the, if the master had to do it, we too will have to do it. But it’s so hard to understand that in the struggles, and I understand that. I understand too that when you don’t have the right relationship with the Lord.

That you’re going to turn from him that you’re going to struggle that you’re going to find yourself in terrible places I know because if you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time One of the big turning points in my life that turned me away from christ Was when my mother died, you know, my mother had cancer and she had it for years.

She was in remission She was doing well Then she had to have heart surgery and she had to stop the chemo And then the the cancer came back and moved from her breast into her lymph nodes into her lungs And then into her brain. And I was there the day I was in the doctor, the day my mother, for the first time I ever went to a doctor’s appointment with my mother, you know, selfish and I only cared about myself, but this one day, and I’m convinced it was just the Lord, like it was the Lord moving me to go do this.

I knew she was here for a cancer appointment. And so I drove over to the West Clinic, which now is, you know, a couple blocks from my house and I drove over there for the first time and I walked in and my mother happened to be there with my father still at her appointment. I go in, she was elated because I’d never come to one of her doctor’s appointments.

She didn’t expect me. I didn’t tell him I was coming. And the doctor walked in, a doctor I’d never met, my sister’s handled all that stuff, any information I knew about. Uh, my mother’s, uh, struggle with cancer came from either my sisters or my mother. I never, uh, took the time as they did because again, I was selfish, uh, to, to, to keep up to date or to know what she was, what was going on with her.

And I remember the doctor walking in and saying, Hey, you must be John. And, and, uh, you know, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m sorry. Under the, it’s under these circumstances. And then she turned and looked and said, you know, and I’m sorry, but we knew when you start, if you stop the chemo to have the heart surgery, which you needed to have that your cancer could spread.

And it has, it’s moved from your, from your, uh, breast to your lymph nodes, to your lungs and into your brain. And you’ve got a few weeks to a month to live. I was in there and I remember just this, what, what, how could this be? What do you mean? Like, no, this is, this can’t be right. Like, no, she’s, she, she’s supposed to live and God’s supposed to handle this.

And, and, and she’s a God fearing woman and she loves the Lord and she prays and she served him impeccably. And I just remember all that running through me and going like, no, I can’t believe the words I just heard. This has got to be some sick joke. And God, this is where you, you fix things. And I remember my father crying.

It was the first time I’d seen him cry in my life, I think. And then they got in the car and I followed them to their house in Midtown that they still own. They were in the middle of moving to the house that they had built down where my mother had land growing up. They both were from the same small town and wanted to go back there and live.

And, and so they went back to the house in Midtown to get clothes to go down there and to deal with this, this knowledge and this, this shattering diagnosis and news that had come. And I remember falling into my mother’s lap and I thought my dad had gone to the house and he was going in there to get stuff that they needed.

And I just started crying in my mom’s lap and I was like, no, this isn’t right. This isn’t right. This is, this can’t happen. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to die. And I remember my mother just kind of rubbing my hair back when I had hair, um, and saying, John, it’s okay. I knew this could always happen and I love the Lord and he loves me and, and I know that I’m, I’m going to be with him forever.

And. And I’m going to see my parents again. And she was saying all these things. And I was like, no, I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to hear that. Like, no, this needs to be fixed and you can’t give up hope. And there’s still something can happen. A miracle can happen. We just got to ask for it. And my mother was just like, yeah, we’ll continue to pray.

But if this is God’s will, this is God’s will. And I didn’t want to hear it. I was so angry, but I was trying not to show that in front of her, because I knew I didn’t even, I couldn’t even fathom what she was probably going through. And I remember my father coming out and I didn’t really want any piece of that with the state he was in and.

So I got out of the car. My mother asked me to call my sisters, um, and to tell them, and I remember as the car drove off, I was trying to hold it together until they were, they were leaving and they were gone. And then I just remember turning towards this perch, the porch of this house I grew up in for so many years of my life.

And I ran up and I kicked this porch as hard as I could, which wasn’t very smart. It was much harder than my foot, but I remember just screaming, just, Oh, like just yelling and letting out all this pain and this emotion and, and this confusion. And, and I remember as I kicked the porch, I just remember going, God, I hate you.

I hate you. Like, how could you do this? How could you take her? Like, here I am, this lying scumbag drug addict loser, because I was doing cocaine. for 17 years of my life and I was a terrible husband and a terrible father and I only cared about myself and I’m so selfish to the point of even Trying to tell my mother she couldn’t die because I needed her and my kids needed her and I, I, I, I, I, I.

That’s who I was at the time and I knew that. And I looked at God and I said, why? Like, this isn’t fair. Right? Why does she have to die? Like, I’m the scumbag. I’m the lying drug addict loser that doesn’t deserve to live. Like, why would you take her and not me? She has served you impeccably. She has loved you well.

She has prayed to you. She has given her life to you. And yet here I am, this scumbag loser who has turned away from you and everything that you ever were to me, and you’re going to leave me and take her? If that’s the kind of God you are, I will never worship you again in my life. I hate you. Folks, I didn’t have a relationship with Christ at that point in my life.

I turned away from the drugs, the alcohol, the money, success, all the things that the world tells men they need to have to find worth, which is a total freaking lie, by the way. I turned away from everything I turned away from Christ and and my father in heaven and I had no relationship with him So what happened the devil swooped right in there and I started to blame him I started to blame God and I turned away from us that I will never worship you again And I did everything in my power not to This is where we can get to if we don’t have the relationship with Christ that we’re called to this is why it’s so important To let the Lord really into our hearts and to come to know him because when you really know Jesus You Like, you know that he’s never going to do anything to harm you.

Like, God doesn’t sit there and go, I’m going to take John’s mother away from him because I want to punish him. It’s just the things that happen in the permissive will of God. We don’t understand them, and we’re not meant to. Like, that’s the thing, like, we aren’t meant to always understand God’s ways, but we are meant to accept it in faith and in trust no matter what.

And that’s the hardest part, one of the hardest parts of being a Christian, is accepting God’s will. Amen. Amen. Accepting Christ’s will no matter what it is to you, no matter what it costs. This is where the rubber meets the road for people that are really living as disciples. And, and this beautiful scene that I’ve been talking about that again was fictional, you know, that there’s no biblical reference to this at all.

But in this scene from The Chosen where they’re trying to show this, and this, this great struggle that we all have, Like Thomas, you could tell that he wants to leave. Like he, he wants to just abandon Christ. He wants to go away and say the heck with this, but he stays, he stays, he stays with Christ, like they show him at the end of the episode or the end of the season when Jesus is on the donkey and he’s about to go into Jerusalem.

And he says, Will you stay with me? And again, not biblically accurate, Simon says you have the words of eternal life, which we know as Catholics that didn’t happen there. It happened, uh, after the bread of life discourse, uh, in John six, but they show Thomas there. And even though he looks mortified, even though he looks so confused, even though he looks like he could barely stand, he can barely walk to follow Christ.

He’s still there. He’s still there. He’s still with him. And that’s the place that we all have to be, right? And when the struggles and the difficulties come in our life, like. We have to be there. And eventually that’s what happened with me in the midst of my struggles, the midst of thinking I was having two heart attacks one night after doing so much, so much cocaine, like I wanted to call it to the Lord and I didn’t.

Because I was obstinate because I blamed him for my mother’s death because I hated him as I said But the lord kept working. He kept seeking me out He kept chasing me and eventually he came back into my life and gave me an opportunity To see that it was not ever him doing anything wrong. It was just the consequences of the fall that there’s good and there’s evil and for free will there must be a choice and there must be Good and evil for there to be a choice And while it wasn’t my choice for a mother to die, and it wasn’t God doing it on purpose, it’s just a consequence of, of, of the fall.

And I know that’s not easy to accept, but what you can accept is that God loves you. That even though things have to happen that we don’t understand, that he allows. That he loves you and you see that in the story of job, right? It’s the first thing my mom always goes to with suffering is he was this perfect this this man who loved the lord He wasn’t perfect, but he loved the lord And the lord was god was bragging on him, you know, like about his integrity and what this great man of god he was and he gives the devil a chance to to destroy him and to tempt him and You know, and job goes through terrible suffering.

He loses everything. He had all the great wealth and the cattle and the livestock and the camels and his, and even his daughters and sons are taken from him, uh, in a storm, right? They’re slaughtered by, uh, you know, uh, attacking armies. And then job is, he’s got sores all over his body. Right, like things keep happening and he’s like the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed is the Lord.

And you sit in there and you read that and you’re like, how can you say that? Like look at all the terrible things that he’s allowing you to go through and it is a depiction of this. He’s allowing us to go through it, right? The Lord allows it. He doesn’t cause it. He allows it and this is where the understanding has to take place.

Uh, there’s not a God up there that’s putting his thumb on me and trying to squash me. There’s a God up there that prays that I, he, that I remember how much he loves me and how he knows what it’s like to suffer. And as Jesus said to Thomas in that fictional scene, I know it’s crushing for you. And yes, even for me, he understands because he’s been through more suffering than you and I could ever understand.

All of his best friends abandoning him, right? Like being tortured. Being spit at, being stoned, like, you know, being, being, people throwing stones at him that were supposed to be the religious leaders of the world, the religious leaders of the faith tying or chaining, nailing him to a cross and putting through all that suffering.

Trust me, he knows more suffering than you and I can ever know. But Isaiah 55 8 9 says this too, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts more than your thoughts.

I know that’s not that comforting, but it’s the truth. Like our ways aren’t the Lord’s ways and part of faith is just accepting things sometimes. Even though we don’t want to and they’re so painful and they’re so hard. But that’s where our faith grows because we come back to understanding that the Lord always wills our good.

Right? That he always is. I mean, even, even Jesus himself felt this, this, the struggle with God’s will. I mean, we see it in the garden, right? We see in the garden where he’s saying, Lord, take this father, take this cup from me. Let this pass for me. Like, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this because it is in his humanity.

He understood the pain that it was going to cause in. In his, uh, in his divinity, he knew all, he knew what was going to happen. And as a human, as a fully man, he knew what it was going to feel like. And even in the garden, he struggled. He didn’t want to go through that. He didn’t want to have to go through what he had to go through.

But in the end, he surrendered to God’s will and he said, not your will be done, but mine. Not your will, but not my will, but mine. Sorry, I’m messing that up. Not my will, but yours. Let thy will be done. That’s what he was trying to say. That’s what he did say. And that’s what all of us have to understand in our life.

My mother died, but we had Jacob born right before that, where life was taken, new life was given. And then I was given two wonderful daughters, twins. What a gift that is for anybody. But not long after my mother passed. The Lord taketh and the Lord, you know, the Lord giveth and he taketh away, as Job said.

But through it all we have to learn to trust and love in the Lord. Paul talks about this in Romans 8 28. He says we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. Right? We know that in everything, everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, God works for good for those who love him.

This is what Jesus is depicting in that fictional scene with Thomas when he says, please, please stay with me, Thomas, and in a while you will understand. Do I understand? Does my mother’s death make sense? No. But you know what I can look at? If my mother hadn’t died like that when she did. I wouldn’t have gone further off the rails into the drugs and the alcohol.

I wouldn’t have had those panic attacks, those nights, that made me consider going to a men’s conference to go to confession, to confess my life. And even then, after that confession, still turning back to the drugs and being arrested on Holy Thursday in 2016, meeting Christ in a jail cell. And finally, surrendering my life back to him, forgiving, asking for his forgiveness for myself, blaming him for everything with my mother, coming to understand that it was just God’s will.

The good and the bad and the ugly, it’s permissed in God’s will. Understanding all of that, and understanding that it wasn’t his fault, there wasn’t anything he did against me, it was just the way things had to be. If it hadn’t been for my mother’s death, none of that would have happened, and I wouldn’t be on this camera in front of you today, and I wouldn’t be talking to you through your face right now.

Your earbuds or your car speakers and going around the world in the in a ministry is now an international ministry So yes when I love to have my mother back. Yes more than anything There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that woman and what she meant in my life There’s not a day that a tear doesn’t come to my eye.

There’s not a void in my heart but I also could see that In everything god works for good through those who live for those who love him Who are called according to his purpose. I can see that his ways are not my ways and his thoughts are not my thoughts. He’s God and I’m not. And part of faith is understanding that.

And understanding that is how you handle the hard things. It’s how you deal with the hard things in your life. St. Peter talks about this too. He affirms this too. He talks about in 1 Peter 7 through 10. He says, cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you. be sober and vigi and, and vigilant.

Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour Resist him steadfast in faith Knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings And after you have suffered a little while the god of all grace Who has called you to his eternal glory in christ will himself restore confirm strengthen and establish you what great solace we should find in that my brothers and sisters I mean, listen to that, cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.

In that fictional scene again in The Chosen, season 4, episode 7 or whatever it was, you see Jesus there in the dirt, on the knee, on his knees right in front of Thomas, looking him eye to eye in the midst of his sufferings and saying, I understand. It can be crushing to not understand the will of the Father, not to understand the things that happen in our life.

But he’s like, yeah, Even for you and even for me it can be crushing again alluding to his own suffering and what his disciples did not understand What the apostles did not understand what he was gonna have to go through and that’s why I said just stay with me Please please stay with me and you’ll understand after a while.

This is the same thing. He says to us So st. Peter says cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you be sober and vigilant Why does he say that there? Because he goes on to say your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour When these hard things when these bad things we understand happen There are two ways we can turn we can lean further into the Lord the way Job did Job leans further and further into the Lord.

Yes. He wanted to cry out Yes, he wanted to say Lord, why me and and he wanted to curse the Lord I’m sure because he was human too, but he didn’t and he leaned further into the Lord and what happened Everything was restored to him twofold. He had more children You He had twice what he had before all this went on with God and with, with the devil in this contest using Job to see if he would turn from the Lord.

I can’t, the Lord’s not, I don’t see Jesus raising my mother from the dead. It’s been years and years and years. But what he can do is raise a great faith in us If we turn back to him if we don’t turn away from him in these times because that’s the choice You either lean into him the way jobe did the way that they are showing thomas Even though he’s reluctant to do it He’s still with jesus in the show the way that all of us have to be we could do that We can lean into jesus or we’re going to turn away and we’re going to look for somebody to blame and that is almost always Where we put that blame on the lord when we don’t understand we get angry we get hurt You And we, and we try to show the Lord, like, you hurt me, I’m gonna hurt you, I’m gonna walk away from you.

And that’s what I did in my life. This is what St. Peter means when he says, be sober and vigilant. Your opponent, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. This is why he pleads next, resist him, steadfast in faith. When bad things happen is the time to go further to the Lord, to run to the Lord, right?

Just like when, when Lazarus. died, what happened? Martha ran to the Lord. She ran to him. And that’s what we need to do. We have to run to the Lord, not turn away from him, but draw closer to him. Even in the, in our anger, in our, in our misunderstanding and in our lack of. Uh, of, of understanding our frustration and our confusion.

We still lean back to the Lord, resist him steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same suffering. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one who’s ever suffered. All of us will suffer. If you haven’t yet, you will. It’s part of being a Christian. It’s part of being life.

It’s a consequence of the fall. But what we do with that suffering makes all the difference in the world. Angela could have left me, right? Angela could have taken everything and run from me. She had every excuse in the world. She could have taken the kids, everything in her life. But she didn’t. She stayed.

She stayed in the midst of that suffering, not understanding it. And it wasn’t until years later when Deacon Jeff on a, that you’ve seen on the show, during a Christia weekend, gave a grace talk. And something he said there showed Angela that yes, you’ve had to suffer. And yes, you’re angry with God. And yes, this has been a difficult part in your life.

But look at what’s come of it. The husband you wanted is now the husband you have now i’m not perfect and she would probably say well He’s still not all the way what i’d like to have And I get it But that’s what Deacon Jeff kind of showed her was like now you’ve got what you wanted and yes You had to go through terrible things to be able to receive that and to get that and to have that.

The suffering is is not for anything. It was through the suffering that the Lord restores. And that’s what he finishes saying here. St. Peter finishes saying he says resist him steadfast in faith Knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings and after you have suffered a little while The, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

That’s what he did for me in that jail cell after my mother’s death. That’s what he did for Angela in our relationship after the sufferings that I caused our family. He will do the same thing for you. But you can’t turn away from them. If you do, then hopefully sometime you will turn back. My brothers and sisters, we’re all going to have to deal with hard stuff, right?

I talked to you last episode about the things I was, the desolation and all those things. You can move further away from the Lord and say, I don’t understand this. I’m trying to live for you. And why have you done this to me? And dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Why do I feel so far from you? And if this is the way it’s going to be, I’m just going to leave.

Or we can stay and we can draw closer and we can trust and we can allow our faith grow into what it’s supposed to be. That no matter what happens in our life, Jesus is Lord. He’s Lord of everything, of the good, the bad, and the ugly. He loves us. He doesn’t want bad things to happen. It hurts his heart, as they say in the show, as he’s in that fictional part with Thomas.

He knows what it’s like. He’s experienced more suffering than you and I will ever have to in our lives. There’s no one who understands where you are in the pain and the hurt and the, and the abandonment and all those things that you may feel in your heart through whatever hard thing you’re going through right now than Jesus Christ does because the world turned away from him.

And he sat there on that cross, taking on the center of the world, through all that pain and all that suffering out of great love for you. There is no one who understands your suffering more than him. And that’s why he stands there with open arms with those nail marks. On his feet and on his hands and the in the in the stabbing the wound in his side He could have made those go away when he when he ascended But he didn’t because he wants when you come to him to see that he has wounds too That he has places of great suffering and that he has lived with them the way that we have to live with them He will walk with us through those sufferings He wasn’t lucky enough to have a lot of people walking with him through those sufferings other than his mother and John So But he’s always here for us so folks, I Hope you’ve enjoyed this this episode Again, it’s a different field doing these things by yourself but it gives me a chance to get out some of these thoughts and it’s I guess more of a talk than it is a show but Um, just know you’re not alone.

We all suffer. We all go through great trials. We always will. We’re going to have loss. We’re going to have death. We’re going to have those things. But after death, there’s always resurrection. Christ went through the Good Friday, went through Good Friday. And then we celebrate Easter. We celebrate the resurrection.

We see what comes after the darkness, what comes after the suffering. So no matter where you go in your life, no matter what happens to you, keep your eyes on that Easter Sunday. Keep your eyes on the Lord. Remember, remember, remember not to run away, but to run to him because there’s no one else that understands what you’re going through more than him.

So let’s take it a prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your love. We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for your comfort in our times. Of struggle in our times of suffering lord. Sometimes we mishandle the hard things. We want to turn from you We want to blame you.

We want to be angry with you lord But we know in our hearts that you allow these things but you are not the cause of them Lord as we walk through struggles and sufferings in our lives Help us always to remember that you yourself have gone through worse struggles and sufferings than we will ever go through in our life You understand and you understand More than anyone what it’s like to go through those and that’s why you have a greater love Than anyone could possibly ever have for us through those struggles.

So lord today we give you our struggles We give you our sufferings We give you the hard things help us to handle those hard things in the right way By laying them at your feet and by growing in a greater trust and abandonment to your will In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit.

Amen

This week, John is flying solo in the studio after his recent Italy trip and a refreshing visit to his dad’s farm in Mississippi. In this vulnerable episode, John shares his personal struggles and reflections on finding hope and direction in life’s challenges.

While riding the mower at his dad’s farm, John starts thinking about his failures and struggles. He reflects on the powerful message from Matthew 7:13-14 about the narrow road and how being a Christian is hard—really hard. He shares how, when life feels easy, he often finds himself on the wide road full of curves, sharp edges, and dangers.

John also dives into a story about getting lost despite having a map and knowing the destination, drawing a parallel to our spiritual journeys. He emphasizes the importance of keeping the end in mind— knowing that the end is heaven and that there’s always a place to get back to.

In this episode, John talks about the peace he found listening to a Zach Bryan song while on the mower and how it reminded him that, even when we feel lost, we know where we’re going.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re in a box you can’t get out of or struggled with your faith, this episode is for you. Remember, it’s okay to struggle — what matters is knowing where you’re headed and keeping faith along the way. The closer we get to our spiritual goals, the more we see and understand the journey.

📚: Bible verses for reflection

Matthew 7:13-14

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✈️ Join us on one of our 2025 pilgrimages:

March 10-15: Visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Father Zachary, a fantastic priest and friend. This affordable trip is perfectly timed for most school spring breaks.

May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

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Become a Partner in the Pew! Donate to the ministry today!

START A MEN’S GROUP IN YOUR PARISH!

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This week, John shares inspiring stories from a recent pilgrimage to Italy with Fr. James Clark and a group of 55 pilgrims. They visited sacred sites like Assisi, Lanciano, and the Vatican, experiencing the profound impact of Eucharistic miracles and venerating the relics of numerous saints. These moments not only deepened their faith but also strengthened the sense of community among the pilgrims.

John recounts personal, moving stories, such as an emotional experience at the site of the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, where he helped fellow pilgrims create third-class relics. He also shares a memorable gelato outing in Rome with teenage boys from the group, highlighting the importance of fellowship and making lasting memories. These experiences illustrate how pilgrimage can bring people closer to the Lord and to each other, fostering a family-like bond among participants.

In the final segment, John and Victor emphasize the importance of standing out in faith, inspired by Blessed Carlo Acutis and other saints. They discuss embracing one’s unique calling and living boldly for Christ, despite life’s challenges. John encourages listeners to strive for a deeper spiritual connection and look beyond the mundane. Don’t miss out on these incredible journeys and how they can transform your faith.

📚: Bible verses for reflection

Romans 12:2
1 Peter 2:9
Matthew 5:16

___________________________________________________________________________

✈️ Join us on one of our 2025 pilgrimages:

March 10-15: Visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Father Zachary, a fantastic priest and friend. This affordable trip is perfectly timed for most school spring breaks.

May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

---

Become a Partner in the Pew! Donate to the ministry today!

START A MEN’S GROUP IN YOUR PARISH!

www.justaguyinthepew.com

DOWNLOADS

Get a copy of my new eBook, “12 Ways Guys Can Get Closer to Jesus”!

JUSTAGUYINTHEPEW.COM/EBOOK

This week, John and Dcn. Jeff Drzycimski dive into the vital role of deacons in the church and the unique calling that it represents

Get ready for some laughs as they reminisce about Shoney’s gift cards, McDonald’s fries, and Deacon Jeff’s amusing adventures in Italy (aka Pizza with the Pope). They discuss everything from the joy of serving in the diaconate to the importance of prayer and intercessory roles in the church.

Dcn. Jeff shares his personal journey of rediscovering his faith, the fulfilling path to becoming a deacon, and why it’s crucial for men to consider this vocation. They explore the historical significance of deacons, their essential roles in modern parishes, and the unique perspective they bring to the ministry.

🎧 Check out Dcn. Jeff’s podcast

___________________________________________________________________________

✈️ Join us on one of our 2025 pilgrimages:

March 10-15: Visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Father Zachary, a fantastic priest and friend. This affordable trip is perfectly timed for most school spring breaks.

May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

---

Become a Partner in the Pew! Donate to the ministry today!

START A MEN’S GROUP IN YOUR PARISH!

www.justaguyinthepew.com

DOWNLOADS

Get a copy of my new eBook, “12 Ways Guys Can Get Closer to Jesus”!

JUSTAGUYINTHEPEW.COM/EBOOK

Join John for an engaging and down-to-earth chat with Fr. Jacob DuMont from the Legionaries of Christ. Fr. Jacob shares his incredible story of becoming a priest, from growing up in a devout Catholic family to his ordination in Rome. Hear about his life-changing encounter with Pope John Paul II and his profound journey of faith.

Fr. Jacob opens up about the importance of spiritual direction, explaining how it helps guide and deepen one’s spiritual journey. He shares relatable insights on balancing a busy life, taking time for rest and renewal, and staying connected to one’s faith. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or seriously discerning the priesthood, this episode offers heartfelt advice and inspiring stories for anyone on their faith journey.

https://www.regnumchristi.com/en/

___________________________________________________________________________

✈️ Join us on one of our 2025 pilgrimages:

March 10-15: Visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico with Father Zachary, a fantastic priest and friend. This affordable trip is perfectly timed for most school spring breaks.

May 12-23: Join Father Larry and me on a spiritual journey to the Holy Land. Walk in the footsteps of Christ and experience an unforgettable pilgrimage.

---

Become a Partner in the Pew! Donate to the ministry today!

START A MEN’S GROUP IN YOUR PARISH!

www.justaguyinthepew.com

DOWNLOADS

Get a copy of my new eBook, “12 Ways Guys Can Get Closer to Jesus”!

JUSTAGUYINTHEPEW.COM/EBOOK