Hi, my name's Fr. Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
So, I’ve been thinking about this,
and reflecting on this for quite a while now... actually it's been, well, a really long time.
And I want to lead this off with some really, maybe, harsh news... or downer news?
Something that could be a dash of cold water as you're listening to this.
But I believe it's true, and I believe that the truth is this:
most people who are watching this or listening to these words
will get to the end of their life and realize they wasted it.
And it's not just people who are listening to this or watching this.
I think most people who are alive right now will get to the end of our lives —
many of us will get to the end of our lives and realize “I've wasted my life.
“I haven't used it. I've wasted — I haven't spent it, I've just thrown it away.
I haven't given it away, I've tossed it away.”
Why? Because we haven't chosen to live a life of meaning.
To live a life that matters, you have to have a goal, have to have a vision.
But so few of us have any sense of real vision of like, “Who is it that I want to become?”
Or an even better question, “Who is it that God is calling me to become?”
Do I have — have I spent any time, even within the last year, in the last six months,
with that question?
What is the vision that God has placed in my heart of who he wants me to be?
Not what he wants me to do, not how many people he wants me to help,
or how many people he wants to know who I am, how famous or successful I can be.
But what's the vision for the kind of person God wants for you to become?
Have you or I given even one hour's thought to this?
One hour's prayer to ‘’God what's your vision for my life?’’
Because until we have a vision, we're leading lives of aimlessness
and ultimately meaninglessness.
Interesting... as I was watching — I don't know if you can tell from the video,
but the last number of months I've been watching a lot of YouTube fitness videos.
I don't know if it shows. *Laughs* Just kidding.
Well, not kidding, I'm telling the truth.
But I watched one that was on body builders, and it was fascinating.
Now you might think “Oh, that's gross” or whatever.
It's pretty cool because here's the deal: these people have a very, very —
whatever you want to say negatively about them — they have a very clear vision
for the kind of person they want to be or what they want to look like.
And then all of their decisions are oriented towards that vision.
Why? Because vision focuses our decisions.
This is so important for us.
Vision focuses our decisions. If I don't have a vision for my life,
I don’t have a vision for the kind of person that I realize God is calling me to be,
I won't have any parameters or any principles to base my decisions on.
So vision focuses my decisions.
Just like for those bodybuilders, they knew what they wanted to look like —
they had a vision — and that focused their decisions.
And decisions are so absolutely important because decisions determine our destiny.
And here's the, kind of, the phrase is here:
while vision focuses our decisions, decisions determine our destiny.
And those decisions, if they're not oriented towards the vision that God has placed in your heart,
then if I don't make decisions like that — oriented towards that —
I'll get to the end of my life and realize I've wasted it.
And that's kind of basically what we do, isn't it?
I mean, some people say “I want more time, I want more time.”
No, no, I don't think you actually do want more time. Why?
Because I have to ask the question, “What do you do with the time you already have been given?”
We all know ourselves enough to know that we waste that kind of time.
Every one of us has 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week.
And how much of that time do we use
making decisions that are oriented towards the vision that determines our destiny?
How much, how much of that time do we simply waste?
Here's the crazy thing: we waste so much time not pursuing what we OUGHT to do,
but we also waste our time not even doing what we WANT to do.
In fact, my buddy C.S. Lewis, he wrote in the book The Screwtape Letters,
the senior tempter Screwtape was instructing his junior tempter Wormwood
on how they could sneak into a patient's — you know, a person's — life,
and not disrupt it massively,
but just subtly take them away from the vision God had for them.
The Screwtape is telling Wormwood, he says, “If we can get this patient —
we don’t have to get them to do these terrible, terrible things.
If we can just get them to dissipate their life, at the end of their life,
not living for the vision, not making decisions that determine their destiny,
we’ll let them get to the end of their — at the end of his life he'll say,
“I now know that I have spent my life or wasted my life neither doing what I ought, nor even what I wanted.”
How often are you and I in that position?
We don't even choose what we want, we don't choose what we like, we just choose what's there.
It's on Netflix, here's some of this, that, the other thing, and we just go to that thing.
We don't spend our time, we waste our time.
And if I'm just wasting my time, I will end up ultimately wasting my life.
And so here's the question: what can I do about it?
Well, the first is, I need to have a vision.
I need to ask God, “God, what is your vision for my life?”
Like, what do you want — and be really specific — “God, what do you want me to look like in a year?”
I always ask our students that when they come to the first semester or first week on campus.
How do you envision your life? What kind of person will you be, or do you want to be,
or do you think God wants you to be, at the end of this year?
Okay, so that's vision and vision focuses our decisions.
So now then the second question: what are the decisions you need to make?
It's like, “I don't know, I could do a thousand things.”
Make it simple.
What are the things that are currently in your life that are preventing you from that vision?
You don't have to go through all the little details, but the obvious stuff.
What are the things in your life currently that are obstacles to that vision?
Things you do, things you've included in your life, relationships that are there...
What are those things that are the obvious “no’s” that are keeping you away from that vision,
and to make a decision about those things that are obstacles —
in fact, saying no to them.
First thing: asking God “What is your vision for my life?” and being really specific.
Secondly is to say “What are the obvious things that are getting in the way of that vision?”
and to say no to them.
And the third is: what's one positive step I could take today that,
if I continue to take this step on a regular basis with consistency,
in a year, in five years, in ten years, at the end of my life,
not only will I not have wasted my life,
I will have become that person that God has created me to be?
Have that vision that determines, that focuses, my decisions
and decisions will determine your destiny.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Fr. Mike.
It’s your life — don't waste it! God bless. *Clicks*