Episode 112 - This wasn't the Plan: Learning to Trust Like St. Joseph

What do we do when life doesn’t go according to plan?
Drawing from St. Joseph’s quiet trust and a personal Advent story, Paul reflects on how God works through interruptions, inviting us into deeper hope, peace, joy, and love—even when our plans fall apart. 

Transcript

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Paul, Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. Welcome back to Catholic money talk yesterday at Mass, Sunday, mass, fourth Sunday of Advent. The deacon at our church, he really got me thinking with his homily. And there was one part in particular that stayed with me, and it was this idea that we may have a plan, but the Lord might have a different one, and how do we respond when that happens? So I'm going to call this episode. This wasn't the plan learning to trust like St Joseph. But before we get into this, let's say a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, we ask You for the grace and wisdom we need to face the challenges and the circumstances that we find ourselves in. We know that you love us and that you have a great plan for us. Help us to yield to your Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, we ask all this in Jesus name, amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen, so yesterday's Gospel reading was from Matthew chapter one, verses 18 to 24 It's the moment when Joseph finds out that the woman he's betrothed to is pregnant. So let me read it. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly, Such was his intention when behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, into your home, for it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said to the Prophet, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Immanuel, which means God is with us. When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. As I prayed and reflected on this gospel, I found myself putting myself in Joseph's Place. Now I imagine Joseph was a bit older than Mary, and I'm sure there were parts of his life he expected would improve once he was married. You know, someone to share life with, someone to love, someone to make the home warmer, more comfortable, maybe some good home cooked meals. And yes, maybe children someday, right sons to help him with his carpentry business. Joseph was a carpenter, and to build something, well, at least what I know about it, you usually need a plan. So I'm sure he had one, you know, in all the areas of his life. But then everything changes. He finds out this sweet, holy woman that he's supposed to marry is pregnant, and he knows he isn't the father. That's not part of the plan. If I were Joseph, my internal dialog might, might have been something like this. This was not the plan. I can't believe I'm having to deal with this, right? Actually, I probably, I'd probably be saying this out loud a lot, right? When something deeply troubling happens, it does have a way of following us, even into our sleep. And I know for me, when I'm stressed or overwhelmed, sometimes the problem will show up in my dreams, right? There's just no escaping it. I imagine Joseph experienced something like that, and then in the middle of it, an angel appears to him in that dream and says, Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. Do not be afraid to trust what God is doing. And when Joseph wakes up, Scripture tells us simply he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. Wow. That is a profound example of trusting God's plan, especially when it disrupts your own. It made me ask myself, what plans Am I holding on to too tightly? And where am I reluctant to trust God? How often do we see interruptions as problems when they may actually be invitations and some interruptions, they're clearly crisis. And I think finding out your fiance is pregnant and you're not the father definitely qualifies as a crisis. But what about the other crisis in our lives right now, right now today, I know people dealing with miscarriages, pregnancy complications, parents in the hospital, accidents, unexpected surgeries. None of this fits near, near none of this fits neatly into anyone's plans, especially this close to Christmas, right? I mean, just it's a it's a busy time of year to have so many things going on to add these types of crisis to the top of it, it has to be challenging. So what do we do? It's very easy to focus on what we expected life to look like, to ask God, why? But I truly believe God is saying to us, just as he said to Joseph, do not be afraid. I have a plan. Can we hear that? Do we trust him now? I'll share a smaller right in magnitude of a problem, but a very real example from my own life, something honestly that just happened about an hour ago. I was working in my office getting ready to actually record this episode. I stepped into the kitchen to find broken glass, blood and tears. So let me set the stage. My wife, Taryn was baking Christmas cookies with the kids. She had a large glass mixing bowl. It slipped. It shattered in the sink. It cut her hand, and as we were cleaning it up, I noticed glass shards near one of the baking trays and even on the cookies themselves. And I said to her, we need to throw these out. They're not safe. That's when the tears really came. This wasn't her plan. All she could see was the wasted time, a broken bowl, a cut hand and ruined cookies, and as I tried to console her, we prayed together. I asked the Lord to fill that moment with hope, with peace, with joy and love, because that's always his desire, and actually, those are the four pillars of Advent, hope, peace, joy and love, right? It's the four candles on our Advent wreath. Cookies are nice. Traditions are beautiful. But what God wants even more is to meet us in the moment and draw us closer to him. So when my plans get disrupted, I need to ask, Lord, what do you have for me in this moment? Because his goal is always the same. It's to draw us closer to him. So as we finish these final days of Advent, let's ask the Lord for renewed hope, peace, joy and love. Let's trust His promises. We are so blessed. You know, I we've been doing the Jesse tree with the kids for Advent and the stories of the Old Testament, of all those folks, right, the prophets and David and Solomon, all those guys in the Old Testament, that all they had was trust and hope. All they had was trust and hope. And we live on this side of the resurrection. We have the sacraments. We have the fullness of Christ. Salvation is secure through Christ, and yet it's so hard to trust. So as we enter Christmas, let's have our eyes be fixed on Jesus, the one who came so that we might have life with Him forever. That is our hope, that is our peace, that is our joy, and that is our love. I pray that whatever situation you find yourselves in you know that the Lord is drawing you closer to him. I pray that you and your family have a blessed Christmas. Thank you for joining me today. God bless you. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe on your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day. Foreign.