What Does God Want?

It seemed fitting that on the feast day of St. Stephen, the first martyr for Jesus and one of the first deacons in the Church, to kick off the first of six new “Speaking With Deacons” episodes!

What is the difference between a good idea and a “God” idea? For the next six episodes, I am joined by Dcn. Mike Welker as they discuss a book written by Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, “What Does God Want?” The book focuses on five key principles of discernment.

Going through this book was Mike’s idea. As I share in the podcast, I hadn’t read it in over a decade—I’m sure I read it when I was discerning marriage! So I thought it might have some good wisdom to share for others. What surprised me was how much I needed the wisdom of the book.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of discernment, both in our own lives but also helping others who are seeking God’s will in their lives. We also talk about the author of the book, Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR. Dcn. Mike knew him far better than I did, but he had a tremendous impact on both of our lives, the most obvious of which is the place where we work, Franciscan University of Steubenville (Dcn. Mike is a Professor of Business).

I was also very happy to find an audio recording of Fr. Mike briefly talking about the book. I was able to splice those into each episode. Fr. Mike passed away about five years ago, and I must admit I was happy to hear his voice again.

I pray you are blessed by this and, as always, I encourage you to share this with others who may be interested. Unlike my other podcast, They That Hope, I don’t have the University promoting it and because I can’t do it as frequently it might not be on people’s radar. So please, if you like it, tell someone about it!

And, if you can support me in making future episodes of Speaking With Deacons, you can “buy me a coffee” by going HERE.

Happy feast of St. Stephen!