Lord, what do you want me to do? If I choose wrongly am I doomed to a life of misery? Why don’t I hear anything when I pray? Why do I feel so much fear? Lord, why don’t you just TELL me your plan already so I can get to work?
Jackie Angel, Bobby Angel, Fr. Mike Schmitz
Aid in answering these tough questions is the premise of Pray, Decide and Don’t Worry, from the powerhouse Catholic trio of Jackie and Bobby Angel and Fr. Mike Schmitz.
While Catholics of any generation will find value in Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry, the book seems specifically crafted for young Catholics, offering guidance and hope in an age of heightened anxiety, loneliness, technology overload, FOMO, and more.
Jackie Angel is asking the hard questions
Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry offers a five-step process based, in part, on St. Ignatius’ Rules for Discernment and Fr. Mike Schmitz’s “Four Doors” method.
From chapter one, entitled “Seek”:
“It is so prevalent today to shrug off today questions of deeper meaning or our purpose in the universe, but it is a lazy escape from the real issues we need to address, and we avoid them at our own peril.”
Jackie Angel, Bobby Angel, Fr. Mike Schmitz
With anecdotes, scripture, inspirational quotes, and practical advice the book outlines the five guide posts of a step-by-step discernment process to reveal what God wants for you. The authors also offer prayers to use during times of discernment, and a journaling component for reflection.
Readers are invited to “treat the book like a road map, picking it up as needed. Slow down, wrestle with the themes, and invite God into the process of your decision making.”
Ultimately, Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry encourages us to ask ourselves these vital questions: How is God speaking to your heart? What are the choices that lie before you? Do you trust in his plan? Will you take a step forward without fully knowing where the road will lead?
Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry – Worth Reading it!
“In a pithy 93 pages, you get an awful lot of bang for your buck,” says Stacey Sumereau, host of the podcast Called & Caffeinated. Sumereau goes on to describe how the authors present advice in a way “that is loving, relatable and understandable, and sometimes the loving kick in the pants some of us need to go ahead and take action when we’re not sure what our decision is supposed to be.”
As Sumereau points out, “It’s not God’s answer that is important, it’s our relationship with him.”
This is how one of the reader thinks:
“As a Catholic youth, this short book was extremely helpful, illuminating, and soothing. Many of the points and questions hit straight home. It’s a book to return to again and again, to read specific sections as needed as the authors themselves suggested.”
Sarah Hui
The big question: What are you looking for?
“What are you looking for?” Fr. Schmitz reminds the reader these are the very first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the gospel of John. Having the courage to thoughtfully, prayerfully and soulfully answer that question lies at the heart of Pray, Decide and Don’t Worry.
Certainly, we can glide through our day-to-day existence without ever taxing ourselves too strenuously with big, scary questions. But as the authors point out, that is less-than-living:
Clearly we are meant to exist at a deeper level than what the world alone can offer us. To be fully human is to live for something, to have meaning to have purpose. A person without purpose is merely existing. Too many people brimming with potential are adrift because they have not answered the central question: “What are you looking for?”
Pray, Decide, and Don’t Worry offers a path for those seeking that very answer.
