struggle – Mark Joseph Ministries

My wife, kids, and grandkids are all healthy. So is my mother and mother-in-law, my brothers, and their families. We just celebrated Thanksgiving, all of us together, and it was a great blessing. So what I’m talking about here has nothing to do with anyone being sick or dying. No relationship issues or financial crises. And while our country is “going to hell in a handbasket”, that’s not what the title of this blog is referring to either.

I’m in a rut. Things are not fun at work. It’s nobody’s fault, but instead the realities of a post-COVID world, especially when you’re in the events business…which is the case for our conference ministry. And additional challenges compound things. I love where I work and its mission. I love my department and all its outstanding people. But currently it’s a grind. Add to that the discernment I’m going through related to my personal ministry, as noted a couple weeks ago.

I’m reminded that this too will pass. One of my teammates just stated that “it’s a season”. Among the dozens of quotes I remember from my Dad, one of my favorites is, “nothing is ever as good as it seems and nothing is ever as bad as it seems”. All of these resonate with me. So does the stuff I’m constantly preaching, although not always easy to apply (or see) when you’re in the middle of the storm.

A friend asked me what I think the Lord is trying to show me (teach me) in the moment? He suggested that I take it to prayer. Ha!!…go figure. You’ve seen me write about the “attitude of gratitude”, indicating that everything happens for a reason:

For a greater good
For the opportunity to glorify God
To help us be our best

Not always easy to appreciate in the moment, I believe it to be absolutely true. As such, I need to ask what God is trying to show me? How is this experience going to help me in the long run? What skills is He wanting me to develop? What is the greater good? How will He be glorified through this experience?

I also talk about humility, understanding that it’s not us, but God working through us. There’s an old saying that is attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola, “pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you.” Many think the phrase captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and urgently to do God’s work.

Both of the above (gratitude and humility) relate to surrender…giving it all over to God and following His will for your life. As noted in previous blogs, my experience is that our willingness to surrender is dependent on trust…trusting our Lord, trusting is His absolute and unconditional love for us, knowing and internalizing that He put us on this earth for a specific purpose, with special and unique talents. Trusting that He wants the absolute best for us and knows (more than we know) what will make us happy.

I refer to all of this as the Path to Peace…Surrender, Gratitude, Humility, and Love. Although I wrote a book and talk about it often, I still need reminded. Not new concepts, the best ways are prayer, the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist in the Mass and Confession, and fellowship. I need to double down on all three…which I’m doing.

I don’t do this often, but please pray for me and my teammates during this time, as we try to rebuild our conference ministry. If you feel so called, please come and/or bring your kids. Steubenville Conferences are absolutely life changing and I’m not overstating that.

I’ll pray for you during this Advent season. As we prepare for Baby Jesus, our Lord and Savior, let us recall our faith, in good times and bad, knowing how much God loves us…and always remembering what great things God wants for each and every one of us.

As always, please email me at [email protected] with questions, concerns, comments, or prayer requests.

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Remember…God made you for Greatness!!!

Mark Joseph

If you’re paying attention today, especially related to politics (no…this isn’t a political blog), so many people are so angry. Whether related to politics or not, it seems that we’re less tolerant than in the past. Common decency is much less prevalent. Many of us were taught, “if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all”. That approach appears to be a thing of the past.

It seems that not only does everyone have an opinion about everything, but that they are very eager to share it and with no filter as related to who the audience may be. It used to be that our rights stopped when they negatively impacted another. Today you’d think that it’s our right to insult anyone we want.

It’s a Problem for Me

I’ve noticed an anger building in me over the last several months. I’ve told myself that it’s a result of my frustration with how things are being done (or not done). It manifests itself in me yelling at the television while watching political commentary (nope…I won’t tell you which side I’m yelling at) or being critical of leadership to others, whether in the Church or the secular world.

In prayer recently, I very clearly sensed that the Lord said to me, “lose the anger; your heart is hardening, which is not of Me”. Wow!!! That smacked me between the eyes. Before that very moment, I hadn’t thought of myself as being angry and as such, hadn’t considered what else may be going on within me.

Where is all the anger coming from?

I discerned that the anger stemmed from ego and pride, things that I thought that I had in fairly good check. You see, in my mind I had better ideas and solutions than those being exercised by others. It not being practical to share my ideas with the people from the institutions or organizations I was angry with because they’re not in my immediate sphere, it’s not like I was rejected, attacked, or offended personally in any way. I just thought my ideas were better and that they were exhibiting poor judgement in doing otherwise. And I was angry about it.

If you’ve had a chance to review my website or read my free eBook , you know that one of my primary themes is the healthy self-love we attain by understanding and internalizing God’s unconditional love. And you further know that the person who knows such love is very comfortable with who she is, made in God’s image and likeness….to do great things. That person is not bothered by others’ thoughts or opinions, but instead is accepting (not necessarily agreeing or endorsing) of what they have to say. Not suffering from an inflated ego or pride, he doesn’t have to be invested in always proving himself right. Nor does he get angry over such things.

I had let pride creep back into my life. Ever so subtle, my ego (which stands for “edge God out”) had swelled. They being my most challenging sins from my past, I was somewhat shaken, to be honest, to the degree to which they resurfaced. Satan was at work and I didn’t see it coming.

You may have other theories as to why you sometimes get angry. I’d love for you to share them with me at [email protected].

How to Overcome Anger

Here’s my experience. When I live from that place of God’s unconditional love (knowing that God made me with special gifts and put me on this earth for a purpose, all according to His plan, which includes wanting me to be happy) for me, the anger doesn’t exist. Neither does it when I’m practicing surrender, gratitude, humility, and love.

We Have a Great God

The good news is that we have a great God Who forgives all. He loves us unconditionally. He’s there for all of us all the time. He knows that we’re going to fall down. He’s always there to pick us back up. It was anger for me, caused by ego and pride. What is it for you? Take it to our Lord. He doesn’t disappoint.

God Bless you on your journey to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!