← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
If You Feel Lost Right Now (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
00:06:49
Feeling unsure about the road ahead? Do you catch yourself comparing your journey to everyone else’s? Fr. Mike has a message to anyone in a life transition who may feel lost or uncertain about what’s next. He reminds us that the whole point of the story is not what happens in the story; it’s who you become in the process. You’re not falling behind. You’re finding your way. Tickets are on sale now for Fr. Mike Schmitz's Parables Tour at https://www.AscensionPress.com/FrMikeTour October 20 - Detroit, MI October 21 - Sugar Land, TX October 22 - Cedar Park, TX October 23 - Fort Worth, TX
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Hey, guys. My name is Father Mike Schmitz. I'm so excited to tell you about new cities and new dates for the Parables tour. We're going to cities in both Michigan and Texas. If you're interested in getting tickets, you can go to AccenturePress.com FatherMikeTour for access to tickets and more information. God bless. Bushwhacking isn't about randomly wandering through the woods. It's about saying, okay, here I am. I have a destination in mind. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is essential resents. When I graduated college, I did a thing called Knowles, which is the National Outdoor Leadership School. And the idea was that you would get trained to be able to bring people into the wilderness as a. As a job or maybe for fun and keep them alive, you know, bring them back out all safe and sound. After being on trail for a number of days, a number of weeks maybe, they said, okay, tomorrow we're going to do this thing called bushwhacking. And so what that means is you find your place on the map where you are, and they tell you, okay, this is where we're all going to meet. And. And then you just. The next day, you get up and you all go in your different directions trying to get to that one destination. And I think about that a lot when it comes to high school graduation, specifically when it comes to college graduation or maybe even just life, unless you get held back. It's a real thing. It happens. It's okay. But you go from first grade to second grade to third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, you're on that path. It's almost like a road. You're on this path. This is how you do it. And then when you get to, you know, junior high, maybe you might have a couple of electives you could choose. I know for us, we could choose a language during that time where you could choose, like, what you can take for photography, or you can take, you know, something of ceramics. It's almost like that trail that everyone's on. It's like, grab branches off, but it's still pretty safe, right? And then what happens is you get done with high school. You graduate high school. Hey, congratulations to all the high school graduates. And after high school, you have maybe like one of four paths. You could. You could go to the military. You can go VO Tech school, right? Vocational school. You can just start. You can immediately start working or go to college. Now if you start working, you're already there. You're doing the thing that I'm going to talk about right now. If you go to college, it's like, okay, so you have more decisions to make and the path is a little less clear necessarily, because you have to decide, okay, where are you going to go to school? I have to decide what's your major going to be? And it's not like, hey, we're all doing this thing. It's like, you could do this. You also could go military. You also could go votech. You also could go start working. But there's still kind of a natural progression. I'm a freshman, I'm a sophomore. I'm a junior, I'm a senior. And even if there's a lot of different choices, there's still some kind of clear next step. You get done with your sophomore year, you go to your junior year. That's how it goes. But then when you graduate, it's like, that's the day you start bushwhacking. Because typically, that's the day that, hey, there is no more path. There's no more natural next step. This is automatically what everyone does next. There's just that sense of, okay, now find your way. And there's something about that that is simultaneously exciting and so much that's the adventure. There's also something about that that can be terrifying. Think about someone who's starting here today. Today is the first day that I don't have necessarily a very clear next step that everyone now takes. It's the sense of, I have to find my way now. The destination is life with God in heaven. The point isn't, we can get married first, we can have kids first, get a really, really good job first. When it comes to comparison in life, it just doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense to say, well, this person, they're already married and I'm behind. There's no such thing as behind when you're bushwhacking. There's no such thing as someone's winning or someone's losing. It's, what is your particular path to this destination? I want to speak to that. I want to speak to the people who might be listening to this or watching this saying, like, yeah, I feel like I'm behind again. I don't have that job yet. I don't have that family yet. I don't have that. I'm not settled yet. The destination is not about ticking a bunch of things off a box like, okay, did you find your vocation? Check. Did you start a family? Check. Did you get that job? Check. Did you travel the world? Check. That is not winning at life. Because the point of life is not to gather experiences. The point of life is not to tick the box. The point of life, the whole point of the story is. I'll say it like this. The whole point of the story is not what happens in the story. The whole point of the story is who you become in the process of the story. That's the critical part. I want to say that again. The whole point of the story is not what happens in the story. The point is who you become in the process. Which is one of the reasons why we cannot compare ourselves. I mean, one of the reasons why. Shoot. I was going to say we cannot compare ourselves with anyone else is because the route you might have taken might be leading you like, oh, you went to a cliff. I can't jump down the cliff. I have to go around. And it looks like I'm going backwards. Well, you're not going backwards. You're finding your way. And yes, there are guides out there, and yes, there are maps, and yes, there are certain things that help us. But because someone went a different route, maybe they had more direct to becoming that person. But backtracking, when you're bushwhacking, you're not actually going backwards. Because this process of getting to the destination is what is making you a who. Does that make sense? The process of getting to that destination is what is making you that who. That kind of person who can step into the father's presence at the end of your life. Being a saint. Because that's the goal, that's the destination. Not to have accomplished things, not to have lived a long life, but to have become a saint. And so as you go out and you're bushwhacking and there's all this. All this anxiety, what if I choose the wrong direction? What if I choose the wrong job? What if I choose the wrong next step? All of that, it's kind of baloney in some ways. I mean, be wise. I mean, be smart. That doesn't matter as much as who you become in the process. I know as people are listening to this, you might think, yeah, but that's because you're in your vocation. You have it all. You know, it's all set. It's all. It's all figured out. I'm grateful for that. But that was just one step. It's now, how do I walk in this vocation that God willing, will help me become more and more the man God wants me to be? Because it's not about what you do. It's not about how long you live. It's about who you become in the story. And no one's ahead of you and no one's behind you because you're bushwhacking. And that means you're on your own path. Just as long as you keep taking that next step forward. That next step is taking you closer and closer to your destination, to being a saint. Anyways, from all of here to since presents, my name is Father Mike. God bless.