4 Friars On What God Does With Your Failures

Four Capuchin Franciscan friars came off a week of summer camp and sat down to answer thequestion most people are actually carrying around: what do you do when you have no idea whatGod wants from your life. One of them wanted to be a math teacher, then a therapist, then a social worker. God said yes to all three at once — and then waited two years to tell him.They get into wearing the habit of a brother who has died, why "get to" is a better phrase than "have to," how a Christian symbol left on an economist's desk turned into a lunchtime Bible study, and what it costs to be an imperfect billboard for a perfect God. There's the line a religious sister gave one of them the week before he entered — the reasons why you entered will not be the reasons why you stay — and the image a stranger sent Brad after a conference: a little girl holding a teddy bear, Jesus with his hand out, and a bigger teddy bear behind his back. Along the way: Padre Pio's joy in the middle of suffering, Francis failing at two careers before he found the third, and the reason God will never hand you enough information to stop needing him. If you're in a season of not knowing what comes next, start at 56:06. Then send this to the person who keeps asking what you're going to do with your life. The Damascus Podcast — where encounter meets mission.