I don't know if there is enough light in here.
But hopefully there is.
Hopefully there is enough light for this.
Hi. My name is Fr. Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So I know I always say this, that I work with college students,
but I'm always working with people who are asking about God's will in their lives.
Like, I find this across the board, not just college students,
but so many of us, we want certainty.
We all want certainty when it comes to following God.
And we think "OK God. Why isn't God more clear with what he wants me to do?"
"And if he would just... just reveal his will to me, I would totally do it,
but why doesn't God reveal anything to me?"
Now, I was thinking about this because I was reading Exodus Chapter 40 just the other day.
And it's the last chapter of the book of Exodus.
And what it describes is this:
It describes how Moses went to the meeting tent.
What happened was, here's the people of Israel. They are in the wilderness.
And Moses, when he says whenever the cloud of glory, the Shekinah cloud, the glory of the Lord, came down upon the tent,
then they would go worship.
When the cloud, the Shekinah cloud, that glory cloud went up,
and then moved,
they would follow it.
And I was thinking about this, and thinking,
OK, so, we look back at the story and we think, "Oh my gosh!"
"That would be so great!"
Because here's God being very very clear about "OK. Get up and move now"
"Get up and pray now" very very clear!
But I was thinking about this. Thinking, wait a second!
There were probably days, weeks, maybe months or years where the cloud didn't move.
Where there was no clear indication of "OK, it's now time to pack up everyone, and now let's keep wandering in the wilderness"
When the cloud just stayed there,
or maybe the cloud seemed absent.
Now I thought about this.
In those moments, there was no certainty,
there was no clarity as far as "where should we go now?"
In fact, in those moments it was "okay. It's clear."
The clarity was "stay here".
The certainty was "don't go anywhere".
But they had to wait.
They had to wait for the Lord to say,
"OK now, move."
I've been thinking about this especially when it comes to discernment.
I think a lot of times we say "I want certainty." or "I want clarity."
What we mean is we want God's constantly: "Yup. Take another step. HmmHmm."
"Yup. Take another step."
"Take another step."
Constantly kind of like guiding us as opposed to God saying, "Okay, I'm speaking in clarity"
Now the reality is this:
God is never going to ask you to make decisions based off of what you don't know.
God's never going to ask you to make decisions with your vocation, what he's calling you to, based off of what he hasn't revealed to you.
He's going to ask you to make decisions based off of what you do know,
based off of what he has revealed to you.
You say, "Well, what has God revealed to me?"
Well. He's revealed to you the commandments.
You already know what it is to have an honorable life.
He's revealed to you the truth of the Church.
He's revealed to you the sacraments.
He's revealed to you the Beatitudes.
Jesus Christ has revealed to us
the way God wants us to live!
He wants us to care for each other.
He wants us when we fall to go to the confession.
He wants us to worship him in the Eucharist at the Mass every single Sunday.
Now those are all things that God has clearly revealed to you.
You can be absolutely certain, but then people say,
"Yeah, but what about more?"
Well, here's the thing.
God will never ask you to answer a question that he hasn't asked you.
OK. Where are you going next God?
"Don't worry. I'm not asking you to move anywhere." Here's the Shekinah. The glory cloud, right?
"I'm not asking you to go anywhere."
"Just stay where you are."
Here's my invitation for you today is "to be content and confident to live in uncertainty."
Or maybe even a better way to say it is this:
To live with a certainty that God has already given you, to live with the clarity that he's already spoken in.
You know what he wants you to do.
Micah Chapter 6 said this,
You've been told a man what is good, and what the Lord requires of you.
To do good. To love justice. And to walk humbly with your God.
So simple!
And so clear!
God has already revealed to you.
Here's what you're supposed to do right now.
And when he calls you to move forward,
I'm promising you.
He will always speak in clarity.
And that question will always have confirmation.
But it doesn't mean even when he calls you to the next step,
It doesn't always mean that he's always going to be saying "and the next step.. and the next step.." Here's what I mean.
This is the last thing.
In Chapter 1 of Luke's Gospel,
in one of the most incredible calls in the history of humanity,
the angel Gabriel was sent to a town of Nazareth to visit Mary.
Gives the whole thing. You know, you'll conceive, the whole power of the Holy Spirit.
The child to be born to you will be called Holy, the Son of the Most High God.
Mary says, ultimately, she says, "Be it done unto me according to your word."
And I think this is amazing.
Mary, after she asks a clarifying question, which is good.
Then she says, "Behold, I'm the handmaiden of the Lord. May it be done unto me according to your word."
The very next line says, "Then the angel departed from her".
Mary ju-...*laugh* It was just revealed to Mary
that she was called to be the Mother of God.
Whatever that meant!?!
And whatever she understood that to mean.
But she was clearly asked to do this one thing, to say, to answer this one question.
She answered that question and then the angel departed from her.
See. We want certainty.
But God's certainty is not "OK. Here's what you do next. Here's what you do next. Here's what you do next."
God's certainty is "I will be with you."
"I will be with you."
"Take that next step and continue to walk until I tell you to stop."
Take that next step and continue to walk until I tell you to turn.
Take that next step and continue to live.
Here's the reality.
You know what God wants you to do today.
He's already revealed it.
And if he hasn't revealed to you what he wants you to do with your whole life, then don't worry.
You don't have to answer a question that God hasn't asked yet.
Our certainty is not that he tells us what to do very single step.
Our certainty is that he is with us.
And God is with you.
From all of us here from Ascension Presents,
my name is Fr. Mike.
God bless.
*whisper* OK. gap gap gap *whisper*