The Poco a Poco Podcast with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

Have you ever noticed how "going for a walk" helps to calm you down when you are stressed? God wants to walk with us before He works through us. Our daily encounter with Him becomes our training ground for a life that is rooted and grounded in love. In this week's episode we talk about how to allow God to walk with us in the midst of our mess. God is always trying to draw us closer to him. He wants your life to be transformed into a joyful relationship with him regardless of the circumstances we live in. Teach us Lord to walk with you! Invite God to walk with you in those hard places so that we can be fully alive.

Could God be prompting you to leave the boat -to take a radical break from your routine to get some rest and enjoy silence, so you can hear God's whispers and hear his nearness again? In a culture where the world wears busyness as a badge of honor, how can we live in God's stillness? This week we explore how Christian rest comes from living from our identity and sharing in Christ's own rest -because he knows the Father. Sometimes it takes greater faith and courage to admit we're tired and we need to reassess why we're doing what we're doing. God welcomes soul searching. He loves being with us on that intimate journey.

What does a good movie, our desire for the best job, and that perfect picture we just posted on Instagram have to do with each other? None of these things is wrong in itself. But when we begin to allow the things of the world to control us, we miss out on the joy of God's call for deeper intimacy in our hearts. In this week's episode we discuss the battle for our hearts which is also a battle for our time. We want to learn to pray well because that's how we give God authority over our lives. But part of praying well is stepping away from distractions, even good ones. God calls us to transform our half-hearted, distracted, disconnected prayer life into a vibrant, meaningful, intentional way of communicating with our Father.

Grounding their discussion in Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis's book, The Way of the Disciple, the friars take a look at the battle of prayer. This is the principle place where we battle for grace, where we battle to receive the truth of our identity and the riches of our identity. But it takes work! It's hard! The good news is, with God's grace, we're capable of hard things! May this episode encourage us all to be renewed in our commitment to prayer!

God has spoken, but he wants the Word to continue to echo through you! The Word became flesh, dwelt among us and revealed to us the heart of the Father. But the Word mission is not complete! In this week's episode the friars take a look at how different saints have heard the Word, been transformed by it, then echo it by their lives.. becoming a living word; And God wants to do the same through you! Take a listen to learn what in the world this all means and looks like.

Prayer is like oxygen; we can't live without it. If you're not praying, you're dying. Prayer is not optional in our lives but it's essential. Prayer is our lifeline to God, and with it, lives are changed for eternity! God invites us into an intimate relationship with Him. Prayer is your relationship with God if we are living without prayer, we are living without God. As with any relationship, we need to put in the desire, effort, and time to seek intimacy and seal that bond that involves finding intimacy with God in the midst of our everyday busy lives. This close, intimate, personal relationship that you can enter into with the Lord will be the door opener that will change the course of your entire life forever. The journey is there for all who are willing to step into it!

Blessed are the peacemakers! Peace comes from knowing your identity, but also knowing who God is. Knowing who you are and Whose you are changes everything. God is the only One who knows the depth of your struggle, and therefore He is the only One who could offer the exact reassurance of peace we so desperately need to hear. Are we confident in our spiritual inheritance as children of the Father? God promises us that if we stick with Him, He will give us peace that surpasses all understanding.

God doesn't call us by our sin, He calls us by our name. Our dignity is based on the fact that we are His children. In this episode week's episode the friars dive into what "blessed are the merciful" really means. God loves us even in our sinfulness and wants to restore what sin has taken away. We are called to come face to face with our brokenness so that we can experience true healing and mercy so we no longer act as orphans but as children of the Father.

"Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God." Journey from the cry of the heart expressed in Psalm 80, "Show us your face and we shall be saved," to the tragic loss of the rich young man who went away sad because he missed the answer to who he is and what he's made for as it was revealed to him on the face of Jesus who looked at him and loved him, to the world transforming conversion of St. Francis of Assisi who was able to find in the face of the leper the sacred face of his Savior.

It's satisfaction guaranteed people! "They shall be satisfied." Not, they might be satisfied or 9/10 times those who hunger and thirst for righteousness claim to be satisfied. Satisfaction is guaranteed to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! It's a promise and the Father always keeps his promises! But...you gotta want it. You have to burn for holiness. You have to burn for the infinite depths of his love and burn through all lesser goods. Let's get after it together!