← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
God’s Not Asking You to Be Successful (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)
00:07:27
"God does not ask us to be successful, He asks us to be faithful." - St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta Fr. Mike Schmitz reflects on this quote along with the way St. Mother Teresa lived her life. So often we measure our lives by worldly success, however God wants your faithfulness, not your success. Let us always say, "God let me honor you with my effort."
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Hey, guys, one quick thing before we get started. Ascension is committed to creating media that helps Catholics grow in their faith and in their relationship with the Lord, which is why we put up videos like this every single week, completely free. These are only possible because of people like you who have supported Ascension's free media with both their prayers and with their financial gifts. So if you believe in this mission, or if you know someone who has been impacted by a video on this YouTube channel or any of Ascensions free media, please go to ascensionpress.com support and. And. And say your thanks. That's ascensionpress.com support. Thanks. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension presents. I have been ruminating on something I heard a man say. This man was in the military for a long time, and a lot of times, if you're in special operations, one of the things that happens is you have these tests, right? These qualifier tests. And he said that there was so much he could not control about this test that this one line kept going through his mind again and again. It became kind of became his prayer. And it's something that's just. It stuck with me so powerfully and so profoundly. So we'll get back to that sentence or that. That thing he thought, thing he prayed essentially, in a second. I've been often been meditating on something I heard that Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said. She said, God does not ask us to. To be successful. He asks us to be faithful. I thought that's so profound, right? Especially for those of us who are doing our best, right? We're trying. And there are so many times we can't control the outcome on campus here. We want every single person to come to know who Jesus Christ is and to encounter him in a real way, in a way that changes their lives and leads them to worship him at the altar in the Catholic Church, right? To be able to give. Lead people to such a place where they all want to be Catholic, they all want to have their lives be completely transformed. That's the outcome. I want that to be the case. I want every. Every person on campus, even myself, like, I want to be a saint. And that's what God wants, of course. But so often we can't control the outcome, right? We. So often we can't control our circumstances, and we also can't control the results. And I think that's one of the reasons why Mother Teresa of Calcutta had said that. We think of Mother Teresa and we think, oh, my gosh, incredibly holy woman, a woman who made A massive difference. Nobel Peace Prize. Like all of these like successes. And yet what was she principally known for? She was a nun from Albania who became a missionary sister in India. And then maybe 20 years into it, she had this, what she called her call within a call, which was to serve the poorest of the poor in the streets of Calcutta. She went out, had this little place, and she'd find people who were dying, who were dying alone, and she would pick them up and bring them into her own home. And. And more often than not, they would die. Women joined her and this community grew and they kept doing this, kept going out into the streets of Calcutta and taking care of those who were treated as garbage by everyone else. And they picked them up and brought them into this place called the Home of the Dying. And again, more often than not, these people ended up dying. Now, if you looked at that, you'd think like, oh, my gosh, that's not very successful, right? You have this home for the dying and they just end up dying. How many lives are you saving? And also in that, how many of them are actually becoming Christian? Well, you're bringing them into this place and not some of them did, some of them lived, but not a ton. And if Mother Teresa was measuring her whether this was God's will or not, based off of the outcomes or. Or based off of the circumstances, then she'd be measuring it based off the wrong thing. Because why? Because so many of these people ended up dying anyways. Not very many of them ended up becoming Christians or becoming Catholics. But what did she lean on? She didn't lean on the outcomes. She didn't lean on her circumstances. She said, God has merely called me to be faithful, not necessarily to be successful. I think that we have various metrics for success, right? A metric for success is wealth. Like, so I have this amount of money, I'm winning. I have success, I have this amount of health, I'm winning. That's another metric for success. I have this many friends or this many people who like me or follow me. I have this kind of reputation. I have this much influence. Those can be our metrics for success. Those are all, in some ways, they're all outcomes. And we can't always control the outcome. We can't always control our circumstances. Which is one of the reasons I get back to this place where Mother Teresa saying, God is not calling me to be successful, whatever the metrics I want to use, but he is calling me to be faithful. Which reminds me of what this man had said when he was Going through this training course or this test course where he had no idea whether he was going to pass that day or not. He had no idea whether he was going to remain part of this selection process or not. And he said this. He said every day he'd get up and pray and say, God, let me simply honor you with my effort. It's so good. I just want to honor God with my effort. I can't control the outcome. I can't control my circumstances. I can't control this test. I can't control all of this. There are many things in our lives that we can't control. But. But he had that sense that right deep down that just said, God, let me honor you with my effort. See, that's one thing that we can always do. Yeah, sometimes I'll swing and miss. Sometimes I'll try and fail. Sometimes I'm going to get up to run and stumble and fall. I can't control the outcome. I can't control my circumstances all the time. But to be able to have that heart that says, God, let me honor your with my effort. If I do that, man, a couple things. One, I'll never be a victim. I'll never be a victim of my circumstances. I'll never be a victim of the outcome. Why? Because I always have agency. God, let me honor you with my effort. So I'll never be a victim. And secondly, every moment that I'm even trying, not even every moment where I'm succeeding, but every moment that I'm trying is a moment of prayer. It's a moment where I'm just leaning into the Lord and trusting him with all that I have. Again, whether it be a lot of strength or a little, a lot of brains or a little, a lot of toughness, a lot of energy or a little, God, let me honor you with my effort. I think there's something so powerful about this. I think that if we embrace that more and more, it would do a lot for us. So why not start? I mean, God has not called us to be successful. He's called us to be faithful. And this day, maybe God is saying, okay, get up one more day. Get up one more day. Take one more step forward. And each step, even those really, really difficult steps, let them be a prayer. Say, okay, God, I'll do my best. Let me honor you with my effort. Anyways, Ronald here at Ascension presents. My name is Father Mike. God bless. Do I get up now?