What God Wants for Your Life: Finding Answers to the Deepest Questions

With a title like What God Wants for Your Life, this book could have been filled with sure fired to-do lists and guaranteed quick fixes purported by someone who "knows" just what God wants from each one of us. Thankfully this is just what you don't get! Instead, Fr. Frederick Schmidt offers the gift of a gracious and open invitation to share his thinking, his experiences and his guidance on what can only be characterized as a lifelong adventure and process of discernment as one seeks to deepen one's relationship with God. A gifted teacher, Fr. Schmidt not only stretched my mind with his scholarly insights but also touched my heart with often humorous and poignant observations gleaned from his own life's experience. I have read the book twice. The first time, I keyed in on clues to Fr. Schmidt's theological framework of thinking. At times he gently challenged some of my assumptions about Scripture and the nature of God. But always, such reexamination was rewarded with his gift of a clearer vision, and a freer vantage point to live in an energizing and dynamic, yet introspective and humbling relationship with God. My second time through the book, I read with my heart and pondered my own journey, my daily life, and my future. At the end of each chapter, Fr. Schmidt gives traction to his ideas by providing spiritual exercises which help to not only guide and direct the reshaping of one's spiritual world view but more specifically to teach you to live in a mental posture that will spiritually enliven and enrich the new, the mundane, the challenging, and the contradictory issues we face each day. What God Wants for Your Life continues to shape my thinking, my living and my practice of discernment as I seek to be open to God's will for my life. Fr. Schmidt has indeed shared a gift of a lifetime and for that I am so very grateful. .

Fred Schmidt brings his impressive academic and pastoral skills together in this wonderfully inviting book on spiritual discernment. More importantly, he manages to offer a fresh perspective on the challenges of seeking the will of God. Schmidt employs a wide range of historical, scriptural and theological resources to remind his readers of the essential difference between "I-Questions" where we are the center of our attempts at discernment, and "God-questions" where "our needs...take their shape and significance from something larger." (pg. 27) Schmidt's own faith, humor and intellect shine through this book in the form of literary quotes and engaging anecdotes. Each chapter ends with spiritual exercises, suitable for individual or group reflection. This is a book I will recommend to spiritual seekers in any phase of the discernment process.