Tag Archives: Jesus

Ep100 The Most Consequential Decisions in Life

April 18, 2024UncategorizedArthur Brooks, Bishop Robert Barron, Catholic Church, Christ, Christianity, CS Lewis, Daniel Goleman, David Foster Wallace, evil, God, Gospel of Mark, Harry Potter, Hebrew, Jesus, Joy, Lord Voldemort, Meditation, Old Testament, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Peace, Power, Regret, Religion, Richard Dawkins, Self-Sacrificing Love, Soul, Wealthwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:10 — 30.4MB)

Father Len helps us recognize and grapple with decisions we make that control the trajectory of our lives and determine our happiness.

Support Wrestling with God Productions: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

The Most Important Decision in Life – College commencement speech by Bishop Robert Baron that inspired this episode
The most important question in this life is what kind of soul you will have.
“To love is to be vulnerable.” – CS Lewis
“What you do with your soul really is a map to your future.” – Father Len
Your soul is not your mental ability or your psychological profile. It’s a thing that contains all the virtues of God and the spirit of God.
The Old Testament describes heaven as a place of true relationship where people relate to each other soul to soul.
From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur Brooks
Happiness comes down to care of your soul, not success in the world.
“Everybody worships something. Everybody adores something. Everybody has something that gives their life meaning and worth. Everyone lets something capture their imagination. That thing will control the direction of your life. If you worship money and things, then you’ll never feel like you have enough. If you worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, in time, you’ll be resentful because you’ll never be beautiful enough. You’ll feel ugly. And, as time and age starts to show, you will die a million deaths. If you worship power, you’ll end up feeling threatened and afraid. Read any biography of a dictator. You will need evermore power to numb you against the fear of being afraid. If you worship intellect, being seen as smart, you’ll end up feeling stupid and a fraud and on the verge of being found out. The most insidious thing is, that for most people, it will remain unconscious, but it’s their true religion.” – David Foster Wallace
Whatever you worship shapes your soul and controls your life.
Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Goleman
Meditation is one of the best ways to care for your soul and good for your health.
Not all worship is good. Worshiping or calling on the name of God can be a way of manipulating evil.
Good worship is supposed to lead you to self-sacrificing love.
What will what you worship do to your soul?

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to More Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep99 Dividers and Uniters

April 3, 2024UncategorizedAnger, Catholic Church, Christ, Coeur D’Alene Idaho, Communal Prayers, Division, God, Hatred, Holy Communion, Holy Eucharist, Injustice, Insecurity, Jesus, Lord’s Prayer, Love, Narcissism, Pharisees, Prayer of St. Michael, Priestly Prayers, Satan, Self-Esteem, Shame, Sign of the Cross, Social Capital, Sun Valley Idahowrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:02 — 41.2MB)

Father Len grapples with the causes, effects and solutions to the anger and division present in our country, our churches, and our families.

Support Wrestling with God Productions: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Dividers are often inspired and motivated by their own psychological needs.
Dividers are judgmental.
People with a deep desire for division make up their own rules and condemn others for not following their made-up rules.
In the Bible, the Pharisees made up hundreds and hundreds of rules. They condemn Jesus and others for not following the rules they made up. They love to proclaim how much more religious and holy they are than everyone else.
People who seek division are the enemies of Christ and true religion.
How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks
Father Len shares the story of a guy who lived much of his life as a divider though he was very religious. His sense of religion was very legalistic and judgmental, critical of everybody. Remarkably and unconsciously, at the age of 50, he experiences a remarkable deep conversion to his faith and becomes a disciple of love with a desire to unite everyone.
Some people accidentally and unconsciously end up working for division in a community out of their own sense of anger, insecurity, or pain.
Division or unity is a fundamental choice. At some point in life, we must decide between division and unity, hatred and love.
Father Len tells the story of a woman who experienced an awful childhood of rape and incest, yet she devotes her life to helping the wounded and broken of the world to reject shame, heal their souls and feel loved.
It’s not what happens to you in life that matters. It’s how you react to what happens that matters.
Saint Paul warned people to keep away from those who cause division and put obstacles in their way because they don’t serve the Lord.
Satan loves division. Satan loves to dress up as something good, but the only fruits he offers are not good, just more division.
Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam
Social capital is a sense of unity and solidarity, the need to take care of others and build up an entire community or nation.
The United States was built on and succeeded because of social capital.
Division is where injustice and hatred grow.
Higher social capital tracks with more justice, more societal success, and more happiness.
Societies that are more narcissistic, about me, me, me, are less happy and have more crime, corruption, and injustice.
Social capital is connected with holiness.
“Let’s move away from the current plague in our country and our church that we need to attack each other. We can build a great country and church with social solidarity. We can’t build anything putting each other down constantly.” – Father Len

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to More Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep98 Listening Is Loving

February 8, 2024UncategorizedAmerican Spirituality, Attention, Attentiveness, Bible, Biblical Spirituality, Book of Deuteronomy, Catholic Church, Community, Emily Dickinson, Hearing, Iris Murdoch, Jesus, Johann Hari, Judaism, Listening, Marriage, Old Testament, Shema Prayer, Stephen R Coveywrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:13 — 21.3MB)

Father Len helps us grapple with what it means to truly listen and why God calls us to be professional listeners.

Support Wrestling with God Productions: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Shema Prayer: “Listen O Israel, the LORD your God is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.”
Shema means listen, but it really means pay attention.
The Shema is the central prayer of Judaism and Catholicism.
The Bible says, ears that Shema will discover God and what God has made known.
Our society is not trained to listen, but to overpower each other with counter accusations.
God meant us to become professional listeners, listening to the word of God and the voice of God in other people.
Listening forms community.
Not listening or paying full attention destroys community.
Marriage is a type of community.
The gift of hospitality is your full attention.
We can become what we listen to so we must be careful what not to listen to.
“First seek to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen Covey
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R Covey
“The only commandment I ever obeyed – ‘Consider the lilies.’” – Emily Dickinson
“The number one sin that people are confessing these days is anger.” – Father Len
“All morality comes down to attentiveness, attentiveness to God, attentiveness to other people. The essence of immorality is not to be attentive to others or God, not to see or hear other people.” – Iris Murdoch, Irish philosopher
“Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again” by Johann Hari

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to More Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep90 Encore: Imagine a World without Jesus

December 26, 2022UncategorizedAnger, Buddhism, Catholic Church, Christ, Education, Freedom, Gentiles, Gospel of Luke, Greeks, HG Wells, Hospitality, Human Rights, Jesus, Judaism, Mel Gibson, Pettiness, Romans, Science, Selfishness, slavery, social justice, The Passion of the Christ, The Torah, Theology of the Cross, Women, Women’s Rightswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:34 — 29.8MB)

Father Len explains how the radical ideas Jesus introduced 2000 years ago and the church he established to spread those ideas have changed the world forever.

Make a financial donation here: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

“You’re talking about the single event that probably influenced civilization as we know it now. It’s created our laws and behavior. The knowledge of good and evil. It’s influenced art and literature. It’s affected every possible aspect of anyone’s life, whether they know it or not. It’s absolutely everything. If it wasn’t, what would there be? – Mel Gibson, producer/director, The Passion of the Christ
The Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus changed morality and remapped society around meals.
In Jesus’s time there were meal codes about how you eat and who you eat with. Jews ate with Jews, never with Gentiles. Jews ate as a family. Men, women, and children together. Gentiles, the Romans and the Greeks, ate with people of their own class and caste system. Rich and poor never ate together. Men and women didn’t eat together. Men ate first and then women because men were considered superior to women.
Jesus broke all the meal codes of his time drawing people together by a much different morality. He offered radical hospitality to everyone. He welcomed men and women, rich and poor to sit at table with him.
The one person who changed the world the most was not a king or an inventor. The greatest mark on history was made by a traveling preacher named Jesus who established a church community and gave it the responsibility to redraw the world according to hospitality.

“I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all of history. Is it any wonder that to this day, this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” – HG Wells
Jesus broke all the rules on how to treat women. Prior to Jesus women were treated inhumanely. They were viewed as inferior to men and nothing more than property. In Jesus’s eyes, women and men are equally valuable. Jesus was friends and ministry partners with women. He treated them with dignity and respect.
The idea that all humans – men and women, rich and poor, rulers and peasants – are equally valuable and should be treated with dignity and respect was extremely rare before Christianity.
The church Jesus founded, the Catholic Church, started hospitals, universities, and food banks.
Jesus started an organized movement to care for the poor and the needy. Religion before Christianity, except for Judaism, wasn’t really concerned with morality or taking care of the poor.
The origins of science are rooted in Christian belief. All the early scientists were religious. They were inspired by their faith in Christ to do science. They all viewed science as a means of uncovering the traces of Christ’s handiwork in the universe.
The concepts of social justice, education, human rights, women’s rights, and freedom all fit into the idea of radical hospitality that Jesus introduced to the world.
Jesus has changed the personal lives of billions of people throughout the world by introducing the theology of the cross. Dying to yourself, dying to your ego, becoming a whole new person by living a life of sacrificial love.
Wisdom is path, not a door. The path of daily choices you make on how to live your life.
Wisdom is gained through daily small activities. Small choices that become the whole direction of your life.
The way of the cross is daily making moral choices, making small choices of virtue. Dying to your pettiness, anger, and selfishness.

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Wrestling with God Show: http://WWGShow.com
Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep81 Good News

May 13, 2022UncategorizedCatholic Church, Father Len MacMillan, God, Jesus, The Biblewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:46 — 5.3MB)

Irish shares some good news about the return of the Wrestling with God Show and the new podcast from Wrestling with God Productions featuring Father Len.

Support the work of Wrestling with God Productions by making a financial donation here: https://www.givesendgo.com/wwgproductions
Life Lessons from Jesus podcast website: http://www.lifelessonsfromjesus.org

Ep80 The Purpose of Prayer

April 21, 2022UncategorizedCatholic Church, Celibacy, Forgiveness, God, Grudges, Hospitality, Jesus, McCall Idaho, Persistence, Prayer, Priesthood, Prophet Abraham, Protestant, Resentmentswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:52 — 13.6MB)

Father Len explores two Bible stories about the purpose of prayer beginning with the time the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. This is a preview of episode 3 of the new podcast from Wrestling with God Productions, featuring Father Len, titled “Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded.”

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Father Len shares a fun story about his experience with a Protestant minister and his wife who have a very different idea than Jesus about the purpose of prayer.
The purpose of prayer is not to ask God for help getting something as if God is the big Santa Claus in the sky.
We don’t pray to get something. We pray to become something.
“If your definition of prayer is to get something you want, you better be careful. You may become a very self-absorbed person and then call it religion.” – Father Len
We pray for the bread of life so that our lives become bread for other people. We hand on the bread of life to other people in the way that we live our lives.
Becoming the bread of life for other people requires persistent prayer, day after day, year after year.
The Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Luke refers to the forgiveness God gives us when our lives become a force of forgiveness and we free ourselves from all grudges and resentments.
Becoming a constant force of forgiveness isn’t easy and takes a lifetime of prayer.
Prayer is a type of hospitality.
The prayer life of the prophet Abraham, the father of religion and hospitality, was all about welcoming and praying for the life of other people, not for himself.
True prayer is not being concerned about yourself. True prayer is this hospitality where your prayer life feeds other people.
“You have a choice. When you offer hospitality to other people, God grants you greater life. When you only care for your own life, God will take away the little life you have.” – Father Len
Prayer is a constant lifelong dialogue with God about becoming holy.
Bible stories explored in this episode:
- Book of Genesis 18:20-32
- Gospel According to Luke 11:1-13

Please prayerfully consider supporting the mission of Wrestling with God Productions by making a financial donation here: GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions
We welcome your questions and comments:
- Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
- Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Ep79 The Religion of Jesus

April 16, 2022UncategorizedBook of Leviticus, Book of Wisdom, Catholic Church, Christ, God, Gospel According to Mark, Jesus, Life Lessons, Messiah, Morals, Prayer Shawl, Regulations, Rejection, Religion, Rules, The Bible, Theologywrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:12 — 13.0MB)

Father Len explores the Bible story of a wealthy and powerful man and a bankrupt and outcast old woman. Both seeking healing from Jesus. The story reveals the essence of the religion of Jesus and puts our personal beliefs about religion on trial. This is a preview of episode 2 of the new podcast from Wrestling with God Productions, featuring Father Len, titled “Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded.”

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Jesus pushes us to take religion beyond just believing that He is the Messiah and being a good person obeying moral laws.
Jesus dismisses laws in the Book of Leviticus that reject or marginalize people.
“If the best that you can say about your life is that you’re a good person who obeys all the moral laws, you’re boring and lack spiritual depth.” – Father Len
The Book of Wisdom tells us that God is about love, life, and healing. God rejoices in welcoming and loving all people.
Jesus gives us a test of religion. Do we want a religion that is about rules, regulations, and moral laws that causes us reject or marginalize some people? Or, do we want the religion of Jesus that accepts and loves all people unconditionally?
“Let your heart be broken when people are marginalized, rejected, or treated as if they’re dead. Believe in the way of Christ. Believe in life and unconditional love for everybody.” – Father Len
Bible stories explored in this episode:
- Book of Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24
- Gospel According to Mark 5:21-43
Please prayerfully consider supporting the mission of Wrestling with God Productions by making a financial donation here: GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions
We welcome your questions and comments;
- Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
- Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Ep78 Future of WWG Show & How to Love like Christ

March 29, 2022UncategorizedBoundaries of Love, Catholic Church, Christ, God, Hard Head, Jesus, Life Lessons, Love, Soft Heart, Strong Back, The Bible, worshipwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:14 — 17.6MB)

Irish explains why there hasn’t been a new WWG Show episode lately and Father Len unpacks three Bible stories about love and illustrates the traits God will help us develop, and we’ll surely need, if we are to love like Christ. This a preview of episode 1 of a new podcast from Wrestling with God Productions, featuring Father Len, titled “Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded”.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

When Jesus began preaching love and pushing the boundaries of love to include loving all people unconditionally, the people didn’t like it. All they wanted to hear was God loves me and people like me.
God tells the prophet Jeremiah, people “will fight against you” when you preach unconditional love, but I will “form you into a wall of brass, a pillar of iron, a fortified wall” so “they shall not prevail against you.”
“If you call yourself a follower of God, you need to push yourself to try to love everyone.” – Father Len
“Some religious people say they want to hear the word of God, but only if it agrees with everything they think and believe already.” – Father Len
“When I die and stand before Christ, the question won’t be, does God love me? The question will be, did I love like Christ?” – Father Len
Bible stories examined in this episode:
- Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
- 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
- Luke 4:21-30
“Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded” is crafted from hundreds of hours of Father Len’s homilies and talks on faith, religion, and life recorded over the past eight years.
“Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded” is the first new podcast produced by Wrestling with God Productions, the organization founded by Irish with the mission of identifying extraordinary teachers of the Catholic Faith, people like Father Len, and publishing their teachings far and wide.
The new podcast delves into stories from the Bible. Stories that reveal God’s purpose for creating us and his intentions for our lives. Stories about God’s expectations for our relationship with him. Stories about what to worship and how to worship.
The intention for the new podcast is to help listeners grapple with the true purpose of life and deal with the messiness and mysteries, challenges and difficulties that this crazy life seems to throw at us all.
Please prayerfully consider supporting the mission of Wrestling with God Productions by making a financial donation here: GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions
We welcome your questions and comments
- Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
- Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Ep72 Imagine a World without Jesus

November 9, 2021UncategorizedAnger, Buddhism, Catholic Church, Christ, Education, Freedom, Gentiles, Gospel of Luke, Greeks, HG Wells, Hospitality, Human Rights, Jesus, Judaism, Mel Gibson, Pettiness, Romans, Science, Selfishness, slavery, social justice, The Passion of the Christ, The Torah, Theology of the Cross, Women, Women’s Rightswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:33 — 28.0MB)

Father Len explains how the radical ideas Jesus introduced 2000 years ago and the church he established to spread those ideas have changed the world forever.

Make a financial donation here: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

“You’re talking about the single event that probably influenced civilization as we know it now. It’s created our laws and behavior. The knowledge of good and evil. It’s influenced art and literature. It’s affected every possible aspect of anyone’s life, whether they know it or not. It’s absolutely everything. If it wasn’t, what would there be? – Mel Gibson, producer/director, The Passion of the Christ
The Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus changed morality and remapped society around meals.
In Jesus’s time there were meal codes about how you eat and who you eat with. Jews ate with Jews, never with Gentiles. Jews ate as a family. Men, women, and children together. Gentiles, the Romans and the Greeks, ate with people of their own class and caste system. Rich and poor never ate together. Men and women didn’t eat together. Men ate first and then women because men were considered superior to women.
Jesus broke all the meal codes of his time drawing people together by a much different morality. He offered radical hospitality to everyone. He welcomed men and women, rich and poor to sit at table with him.
The one person who changed the world the most was not a king or an inventor. The greatest mark on history was made by a traveling preacher named Jesus who established a church community and gave it the responsibility to redraw the world according to hospitality.

“I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all of history. Is it any wonder that to this day, this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” – HG Wells
Jesus broke all the rules on how to treat women. Prior to Jesus women were treated inhumanely. They were viewed as inferior to men and nothing more than property. In Jesus’s eyes, women and men are equally valuable. Jesus was friends and ministry partners with women. He treated them with dignity and respect.
The idea that all humans – men and women, rich and poor, rulers and peasants – are equally valuable and should be treated with dignity and respect was extremely rare before Christianity.
The church Jesus founded, the Catholic Church, started hospitals, universities, and food banks.
Jesus started an organized movement to care for the poor and the needy. Religion before Christianity, except for Judaism, wasn’t really concerned with morality or taking care of the poor.
The origins of science are rooted in Christian belief. All the early scientists were religious. They were inspired by their faith in Christ to do science. They all viewed science as a means of uncovering the traces of Christ’s handiwork in the universe.
The concepts of social justice, education, human rights, women’s rights, and freedom all fit into the idea of radical hospitality that Jesus introduced to the world.
Jesus has changed the personal lives of billions of people throughout the world by introducing the theology of the cross. Dying to yourself, dying to your ego, becoming a whole new person by living a life of sacrificial love.
Wisdom is path, not a door. The path of daily choices you make on how to live your life.
Wisdom is gained through daily small activities. Small choices that become the whole direction of your life.
The way of the cross is daily making moral choices, making small choices of virtue. Dying to your pettiness, anger, and selfishness.

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Wrestling with God Show: http://WWGShow.com
Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep66 Curing Shame

August 3, 2021UncategorizedAct of Contrition, Compassion, Confession, Determination, Gratitude, Grit, Guilt, Holy Spirit, Idaho, Jesus, Lake Coeur d’Alene, Liturgy of the Hours, Magnificat, Maya Angelou, Me Too Movement, Narcissist, Oprah Winfrey, Self Compassion, Self-Criticism, Shame, St Ignatius, Tarana Burke, The Shemawrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:38 — 27.1MB)

Father Len shares his favorite method for the difficult and necessary job of curing shame.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Shame can control you and make your life and the lives of those around you miserable.
Shame is that voice inside your head that constantly tells you that you are worthless.
Self-esteem programs are not effective for curing shame.
You have to learn how to love yourself in order to cure shame.
The practice of self-compassion is the antidote to shame.
Father Len introduces his version of the St. Ignatius Daily Examen that he uses and recommends to cultivate self-compassion and conquer shame.
People who are controlled by shame are usually less compassionate.
People who are able to change the shaming voices in their heads are more likely to develop grit and determination and overcome failures.
Father Len demonstrates how he used the St. Ignatius Daily Examen to avoid shame and produce self-compassion and personal growth after being a “jerk” to a homeless man and his dog.
Father Len tells the story of Oprah Winfrey using a daily gratitude journal to help overcome the shame of being raped, having a child out of wedlock and to learn that it’s the simple things in life, not her money, that bring her joy.
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
“What I Know for Sure” by Oprah Winfrey
You can pray as much as you want, but it will be hard to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit if the loud voices of shame are playing in your head.
Shame is connected with low grade physical pain.
If you are controlled by shame, every failure reminds you what a piece of trash you are.
If you are controlled by self-compassion, every failure says I’m going to get better and better.