here we go is this too dark i can lighten it up but then again the clouds are going
to come from behind the the clouds sky the sun's going to come from behind the clouds
hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents so someone asked me the other
day i have a lot of these someone asked me but it's true they people ask me questions someone
asked me the other day they wrote to me and they said that they're just tired they said that
um when it comes to serving when it comes to praying when it comes to all the things
that they're doing as a good christian or as a good catholic they're just exhausted that they
said in their parish they are part of the choir they serve the youth they serve the
meals right they serve the breakfast they work bible studies or sunday school and then when
it comes to prayer they have their rosary they have their chaplet they have their daily mass
readings they listen to the bible in a year they do all the things and they said i'm just tired
and i don't know what to do i want to just quit all of it i'm tired i don't know what to do i
want to quit all of it and i would say that is great why why does that why do i say that's great
one is because you're admitting the truth and the truth is you can't do it all the truth is
you're tired the truth is there's something in you that wants to quit now why do i say that's good
i say it it's good because too often we deceive ourselves right too often we tell ourselves no
no no i should be happy to do these things i should be overjoyed to pray like this i
should i should be grateful and yeah to some degree that's not incorrect that's that's true
but to admit admit the truth that i'm tired to admit the truth that i'm frustrated to to admit
the truth that i want to quit all of it is so very good but here's my invitation don't quit all of it
so we have a bishop up here in the diocese of duluth i'm so grateful for him at one point
when he first became our bishop with his within less than a year um he said he looked around
the diocese and he found a lot of great things happening but he found that his priests and the
parishes and a lot of different people are serving or maybe doing a little too much and so he said
we have to ask some questions about ourselves he said one of the questions we have to do is
what are we what is god calling us to start what kind of ministries what kind of outreach which
kind of what kind of building up the community is god calling us to start to what what are the
good things that god is calling us to continue to do and but he said before both of those two
questions what's god calling us to start and what's god calling us to continue to do he
said we have to also answer the ask and answer the question where is god calling us to stop
this is so important where is god calling you not just to continue not just to start but where is he
calling you to stop i think so many of us we find ourselves in this place of exhaustion because we
just added thing upon thing we just added added more prayers upon prayers we don't know how to say
no to people when they ask for our help we don't know how to say them when people ask us to serve
and yet you have permission to say no you have permission to stop
now here's the thing we can only i think we can only do that wisely and we can only do that well
if here's the if if we remember our worth here's here's what i mean again
a lot of times we take our worth from our work a lot of times we take our value from what we
have to offer and yes maybe that's true on a team or um at your place of employment
your value might be how what kind of asset are you to the team or what kind of value do you bring to
the company that's no problem that's kind of how life works but when it comes to the lord
your worth doesn't come from your work especially i find so many christians so many catholics who
might actually they tie up their their value with their mission and they say if i have a
bigger mission then i have a bigger value and if i have more success more fruit in my mission i have
more worth that is entirely backwards in fact there's this thing we might have talked
about this before um three letters three words rim relationship identity mission
so i can i know where i can stop i know where i can start i know i can keep going as long as
i keep this rim in order that first comes first is relationship that you have been brought into
a relationship with god the father through his son and the power of the holy spirit basically
because of your baptism you have access to the father's heart and the most important thing about
you and about me is that we've been brought into a relationship into covenant with the lord through
baptism it's the most important thing i think about this you know saint paul talks about this so
powerfully if we did nothing to deserve this this is god's free gift romans chapter 5 he says um
that god proved his love for us and that while we were still sinners christ died for us
how much more than now that we're in relationship and it goes on to talk about god i'm just
so excited about this but the number one thing the first thing is our relationship
you've been brought into relationship with the father the second thing the eye is identity so our
it's our relationship that gives us our identity so most of us flip it around it's our work that
gives us our identity it's our mission that gives us our identity even as priests religious sisters
and brothers as people work in parishes as people who are missionaries as your average
catholic we can sometimes take our identity from our mission but this teaches the opposite it's
our relationship with the father that gives us our identity and your deepest identity
is you are a beloved child of god if you've been baptized you've been brought into a relationship
with them but you've been changed you've been made new right you're a new creation saint paul
talks about this um jesus talks about this in john chapter 3 like you've been born again by
water and the spirit you are now a beloved child of god that's your deepest identity so first thing
the relationship brings about your identity so before you do anything i think about this so often
in the beginning of jesus's ministry what happens he goes to the jordan river before he's done any
miracles that we know about before he's taught and he gets baptized baptized by john and the jordan
and what does the father say this is my beloved son with whom i'm well-pleased his relationship
gave him his identity before he did anything else the father declares this is my son relationship
this is my son identity this is my son worth with whom i'm well pleased the father rejoices in you
just because you are his long before you do anything it's relationship first then identity
and then mission and then we get to go out then we get to be sent out then we get to pray then we get
to volunteer then we get to say yes to people inviting us to serve or no knowing that i can
say yes or no and my identity that relationship is not threatened so when someone writes to me
and they say yeah i just i'm so tired i want to quit all of it i'd say don't don't quit all of it
but you might have to quit some of it but when you do that don't like flip a table and just clear the
deck what you might want to do is say let me just be reminded god you brought me into a relationship
with you you've given me my identity as a beloved child of god and now i have my mission now i get
to say no to this thing and yes to that thing but know that know this know that you're free i mean
this is one of the things let me just add one last little quick story when i was in high school um i
was discerning like should i go to seminary or not should i go to seminary or like a normal college
and you know it was one of those situations where i didn't want to say no to god but i didn't know
that he was asking me to go to seminary and my dad at one point he just said you know
how about you just go to normal college if you don't know he said if you don't know
what god's calling you to just go to a normal college and then you know maybe in four years
you'll know maybe in two years you'll know and when he said that he gave me permission
to choose because i thought like if i don't go to seminary i'm saying no to god but i didn't realize
god had not asked me to say yes to that question yet he had not even asked me the question yet it
was simply a thought in my mind but my dad gave me permission to say no to a good thing
because sometimes i'll tell guys if they're saying like maybe i should should go to the seminary and
say do you want to if you want to go but i don't know if i should yeah but if it's open it's
opportunity and it's available and you want to try it out nothing will be ever lost if you try it out
but also you have permission to not go just like you today when it comes to your prayer
life today when it comes to your volunteer life when it comes to your mission what are you going
to start what are you going to continue but also what are you going to stop knowing that if you
start if you continue and if you stop you're doing that as a beloved child of god and god
will not love you less if you stop and he will not love you more if you start he loves you already
anyways for all of us here at ascension presents my name is father mike god bless
you