What are you looking for?
Is there anything you’re looking forward to?
What drives you? What gets you out of bed on a daily basis?
What is one thing you’d do even if you wouldn’t get paid for?
If you have an answer to these questions, then you’re a happy joyful, full of life person.
If you don’t have an answer, if you’re actively looking for an answer, I’m glad you’re here. This talk should put you on the right path. It will at least point the right way.
This talk is entitled “the joy of saying yes”. Before we get to say yes, we need something or someone to say yes to.
To get you that point, you don’t have the luxury of simply going with the flow. You can’t simply do what you’re told without asking questions.
point one—You can definitely not be indifferent. Rev 3:15 I know your works. You’re neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm. Indifferent.
Jesus alluded to this in Mt11:16-17— “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: We played the pipe for you and you did not dance. we sang a dirge and you did not mourn. When you live for nothing, even God gets tired of you. When you don’t care, what are we to do with you?”
When you live for something or someone, life becomes exciting. No fear. Bold. Joyful. Future is filled with adventure.
Look at the apostles. They started as frustrating fisherman or tax collector or simple men to boldly testify later “we mst obey God rather than men”. Jesus has been raised from the dead. That means something for everyone and we cannot not tell people about it.
If you want to experience joy, you have to make a choice. It’s a choice for joy happiness, abundant life.
Rev 3:20 behold, I stand knocking at the door
John 10:10- Jesus says: I have come to give you life and to give it abundantly.
Second point. John 1:35– what do you seek? Come and see. Be ready to be surprised by joy. When God calls, he gives you everything and takes nothing away. He does not make you less yourself. He allows you to be yourself and then some. 
Are you just surviving? You were made to thrive, to live life to the full. You were made to live in communion and deep intimate friendship with your creator. When that happens, you are completely happy.
Don’t you sometimes feels like something is missing? You have everything (job, car, career, good supporting family and friends, even money and popularity sometimes etc.) and yet something is missing?
If that ever happens to you, God is calling to Luke 14:10 come higher.
It’s when you come to what God is calling you to, that’s when you thrive. It’s when you ask God to help you discover what you were here for, that’s when you live life to its fullness.
It’s unthinkable that God created you for nothing.
In Jer. 29:11 the Lord says: “I know the plans and thoughts I have for you, ‘plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope”.
Are you thriving where you are? Would you do what you’re doing even if you don’t get paid? Does what you’re doing get you out of bed every morning thinking man I can’t wait to start…?
If the answer is no. You have an opportunity for a new beginning.
Third point: Isaiah 55:10 purpose. Everything has a purpose. Explain this.
Now the million dollars question is this: how do you find your purpose? It’s much easier to find God’s plan for things, but how do we find out what God’s Plan for us? not easy, but there is a way.
Sit before the Blessed Sacrament in the classroom of silence with phone off, and ask the One who created you to tell you what he created for. “Lord, what do you want me to do with my life?” Thats how I’ve found my purpose in life, and I am a person of joy consequently.
I can guarantee you he will answer. He loves you too much. He cares about you too much to ignore you. He wants you to thrive. There’s no thriving outside of his plan. That’s the beauty.
So stop looking for stuff in TV, iPhone, there’s no ‘App’ for Gods plan for your life. No one but he can reveal to you what he wants for you. So be still. Turn to the lord with your whole heart. And he will turn to you with his whole love.
The fourth point. Don’t say you’re too old or too young. Jeremiah was under 20 when called to give an unpatriotic message to Israel. Moses could not even speak when he was called to speak to the most powerful king of Egypt. St. John the evangelist was 16 when Jesus called him.
Therese of Lisieux was 21 when he discovered the little way. A genius way and simplified way to live the gospel.
St. Jean Marie Vianney was 33 when he was sent to one of the worst parish in France. He transformed the town and the parish to one of the holiest known part of the world.
Tiger Wood was 3 when he first broke 50 on a nine holes of golf.
Mozart was 5 when he wrote his first symphony.
Bill gates was 19 when he cofounded Microsoft.
Winston Churchill was 65 when he became Britain’s prime minister and picked a fight with Hitler. A much needed fight.
Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born.
Mary was 13 or 16 when she said ‘yes’ to become the bearer of the most important and greatest thing that has happened to our world.
Mother Teresa was 40 when he began the missionaries of charity. She is worth dwelling on. How did she begin? Silence in front the Blessed Sacrament. Then boom! Her calling becomes clear like a noonday sun. She discovered exactly what to do with her life. There was never a day she questioned that call.
There can be tough moment, but when God calls, nothing is too difficult. There’s nothing you cannot handle. No fear can restrain you.
Find what God is asking you to do. Then you will find joy. Lasting joy.
After the peasant and naïve girl Lucia was kidnapped, she fervently turned to our Blessed Lady for help. Being a merciful mother, she helps her not directly, but by changing the lion heart of her captor (the Unnamed) into a little lamb. That is the only reasonable explanation behind his tormenting heart once he accepted the task of kidnapping her. He gets angry with himself for accepting; a sort of remorse and disquiet settle in his heart; the memory of past crimes start to emerge.
An encounter with God is life-changing and ensues a better future. As pope Benedict puts it, “one who has hope lives differently [because he] has been granted the gift of a new life.
The cardinal suggests that this visit could only be good news that God has touched his heart. However, the Unnamed asserts that there cannot be good news when hell is raging in his heart. “Where is that God anyway”.
In conclusion, in case we forget what the church does, this conversion is how the church relates to the world. She is a mother who never disowns her children regardless of how low they have fallen into sin. As long as they turn around and return home, her arms are wide open waiting to hug them. That’s what the church does for every sinner; he should seek them out. That’s what the new evangelization is about—seek the lost, and if she does not, when they return, her doors are always wide open. The sins of one sinner affect the whole. So when one sinner is converted, the whole benefits. The bigger the sinner the more beneficial it is for the common good. The whole benefits when one person decides to embrace a holy life. Although it is the task of the state to establish peace and security by means of power, conversion of heart is the most powerful way to establish peace and security. Only the church can establish it in such way. The cardinal had thus done well to receive the Unnamed with such open arm given the threat he was for society at large. He was saved and I suspect many of his household will also be saved with him.
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