The Devil Doesn’t Need You to Be Evil — Just Mediocre

Well, hello there, my friend.

Jonathan Doyle with you.

Welcome to the Daily Podcast.

Welcome into the studio, at least metaphorically.

You're here with me, and I'm with you, and it's a great blessing

to do so, and I hope that I can bring you something useful today.

This week I've been talking about kind of this great cosmic

battle between light and dark.

Well, not just that.

I've talked about a lot of different things if you've

heard this week's episodes.

But I, I really believe, as I've said recently in episodes, that

there are two forces running the cosmos or running through the cosmos.

And wh- whatever your faith perspective is, of course, like, you know, most

of the world's great faith traditions obviously recognize this, and human

experience tends to recognize this, that there is light and dark, good and evil.

And I want to suggest to you today that if you had an enemy, if you

had… If… Let's just say for a moment that, uh, that evil is real I

always think that it's subtle, right?

Like i- if, if I was the evil mastermind of the cosmos, would I want you to

be doing really, really bad things?

Would I want you out there being wickedly corrupt and wrecking everything and,

a- and just burning the place down?

And, and yes, we can all agree we see that happening at times all over the world.

But in general, if everybody was doing that all the time, things would break

down so fast, uh, that if you were the evil mastermind of the cosmos, it

would be kind of obvious that this was happening, and people would sort of

look to it and go, "We're sick of this.

We're sick of all this evil and chaos." And I know some of us actually already

feel that because of the way things are going in the world at the moment.

But do you get what I'm getting at?

That, that the darkness is subtle, and it, it's rarely gonna tempt you

to do anything really, really awful.

And, and the focus of this message is something more subtle and more

important, is to say to you that if I was the evil mastermind running

the cosmos or in the cosmos, what I'd want for you is not that you were

despicably evil, 'cause that would be too obvious, and everybody would notice it.

What I'd want for you is mediocrity.

What I would want for you is for you to build nothing, want nothing,

contribute nothing, experience nothing.

I'd want you to be… I, I, I'd want you not to cause me any problems.

I, I wouldn't want you being noble.

I wouldn't want you building something remarkable.

I wouldn't want you serving and blessing people.

I wouldn't want you encouraging others.

I would want you, as I always say, trapped in a small story.

You see, I believe that the evil in the cosmos is the master of the

small story, is the master of the victim story and the trauma story.

Now, let me say that carefully 'cause I will not-- I am not discounting anybody

listening to me that has had serious setbacks in life, 'cause I can promise

you with all authenticity that I have had some absolutely horrific ones myself.

So I'm just not discounting that.

But one of the things I've noticed about this current moment in history,

uh, there's a great focus on trauma and a great focus on victim stories,

and I- I'm not discounting it.

Please, please hear me properly, right?

But often people can get trapped in those stories, and

their life becomes that story.

And it's, it's, it's a story that can be quite limiting if that's where we set up.

You know, I, I said last week in a podcast that, uh, that suffering

is a place that we pass through.

It's not somewhere to build a house.

That's mine.

I invented that saying.

I think I did.

I haven't heard anybody else say it.

That, that suffering or trauma or, or, or wounds are places that we pass through.

And yes, they shape us, and yes, they impact us, and yes, they have

a, have a story to tell about us, but we don't build a house there

We don't build a house there.

It's one of my concerns about what I call the therapeutic industry.

If we're not careful, people can, can, in that therapeutic, endless therapeutic

model, can get trapped in that story, and I think there's another story being told.

It's a bigger story.

It's a story about healing and light and possibility and growth

and magnificence and overcoming and enduring and perseverance and

resilience and, and refusing to bend your knee at the altar of setbacks.

There's another story that can be told, and the story that many

people are getting trapped in is the small story of mediocrity.

Not being bad people, not doing heinous, evil crimes, just settling.

Settling.

I remember years ago, this priest used to tell this story, and I think it's true.

He, he'd be driving back.

He, he used to go on these retreats and have these solitude retreats out in

the country, and he remembered driving, um, past this farm, and you know how

farms have g- often got names, you know?

And there was one that was called Thistledoo.

It was spelt like T-H-I-S-I-L-D-O-O, Thistledoo.

And it was like, "This will do," right?

Like, probably the owners thought, "This is really nice,"

so this will do, and Thistledoo.

But he, the priest told this great story.

He said that many people in, in their life, in their spiritual journey, in

their experiential journey, in their relational career journey, they settle

for what he would say is, "This'll do.

This is enough.

I- I'm comfortable.

It's okay.

It's not great.

It's not what I wanted.

It's not what I dreamed about when I was 14, 15, 24, but this'll do.

It's not terrible." Friends, there's a lot to be said for, for, you know, getting to

a good place and feeling that, "Okay, I've got a good family, and I've got, got…

My job's okay," and not saying that's necessarily a problem, but

I just don't think that we are the kind of beings ontologically, in

our essence, that is designed to live in a place called Thistledoo.

We're, we're, we're human persons created in the image of God to

get into this much bigger story.

And so again, if I was your enemy, I, I wouldn't tempt you

too much to anything dramatic.

I'd just sing you back to sleep.

It's okay.

You know, your health's fine.

You know, your kids are okay.

They're okay.

Your job's fine.

You, you'll get, you, you'll get exhausted if you try too much.

Just shh, back to sleep.

Friends, I ain't going to sleep.

I'm just not doing it.

I love sleep.

I'm a… You know, anyone that knows me and how I train knows

that sleep's really important, has its place, has its function.

But at the existential level, I ain't going back to sleep.

You know, one of the, the reasons that I don't drink is because, and I'm not

saying you shouldn't, because it's, it, you know, people, many people can

drink really well and well successfully.

But many people can enjoy it, and that's fine.

But I didn't wanna do it because it put me to sleep.

I didn't wanna be asleep.

I wanted to be awake.

And so your risk is not that you're gonna end up on death row

for doing something horrendous.

That's not gonna happen to you.

The real risk is that you can sleepwalk through a life of mediocrity And

I don't know if that's confronting to hear, and some of you are

gonna press stop now 'cause you're like, "Who are you to tell me?"

I'm just like, I'm just a friend sort of saying, "Look, I think there's a

bigger story for you. I think there's a bigger story." And what's in that story?

Well, it's gonna be different for all of you.

Some of you, it's gonna be relationships that have broken

down that are gonna get healed.

Some of you, it's gonna be new businesses and new careers, and some of you,

it's gonna be enhanced relationships, and some of you, it's gonna be,

you know, better health and fitness and better finances and all these

different things that are significant to us, a deeper spiritual life.

Who knows?

But that's a bigger story, right?

It's a bigger story, and that's, I think, what you're made for.

Was a great quote the other day that I… Where did I put it?

I, I posted it somewhere.

I think it was John Henry Newman.

Cardinal John Henry Newman is one of the greatest intellects of the 19th century,

and he famously said, "Do not fear death."

He said, "Do not be afraid that your life will have an end. Be much more afraid

that it will never have a beginning. Do not be afraid that your life will have

an end," because that's guaranteed.

Like, every single one of us, have you met somebody that is immortal?

Well, technically, C.S. Lewis used to say that we are actually immortal

beings 'cause we, we do have a life after this one, of course.

But, but you haven't met somebody that's never died yet, right?

So death's, is, is the journey for all of us.

Transition into this wonderful, beautiful next stage that's coming after that.

So don't worry about that 'cause that's gonna happen.

But it is worth being afraid that you could get to the point of death and

look back and say, "I didn't live.

I just played it safe all these years, and I just didn't live." I don't want that

for you 'cause that is not the story you were made for, and you wouldn't want it.

I mean, if you're listening to any of this and going, "Yeah, yeah,

yeah, Jonathan, you're just trying to gee me up and get me excited," I'm

going, "Well, let me ask you this.

If I could, if I could say to you that you could make this happen for somebody that

you care about, would you do it?" Like if I said to you, think about someone that

you do care about, maybe it's a spouse or a child or a friend or a parent, and

I say to you, "Look, you only get one person to pick, but, uh, whoever it is,

we can magically make their life just pop.

It's just gonna come alive.

They're gonna have-- They're gonna just be alive and healthy and well and passionate

and engaged, and they're gonna do all these things and reach all these people

and go all these places and do all this stuff." Would you want that for them?

I mean, how many of you listening to me would go, "No, no, I wouldn't do it.

Can't think of anyone." I mean, seriously, how many of you would go, "No, no, I'd

much prefer they were just mediocre"?

Yeah.

I wonder if this is confronting.

Maybe the reason that we want that is because if too many people around us start

to change, then it exposes us, right?

So the best way to bypass that is just by going after a big life.

How do you do it?

Well, Thomas Aquinas in the fourteenth cent- in the thirteenth century was asked

How do you become a saint?

If you're not familiar with Aquinas, he wrote the Summa Theologiae, the,

the sum of all theology, and eighty-six volumes he wrote, and he was asked the

How do you become a saint?

And he said two words: Will it.

Will it.

Desire it.

How do you change your life?

How do you get into a bigger story?

Well, the first thing is you decide that you want to.

Maybe that's all this message will do for you today.

You'll just go, "Yeah, I am settling. I am cruising. There is more I could

do." And if all that-- if that's all I do today, I have had a good day.

I have had a good day.

So, my friends, there is an enemy that you have, and that

enemy wants you back to sleep.

He wants you in a small story.

He wants you settling.

He wants you building a little outhouse on the farmland of this'll do.

And you're not made for that.

That's just not what you're made for.

That's not who you are.

You're made to make manifest the glory of God that is within you.

All the skills, potential, passion, energy, future, it is all there,

and I don't care whether you are six, sixteen, sixty-five,

ninety-five, there is still time.

A few years ago, I'm gonna finish now, but a few years ago, I, I said, um,

I, I spoke at this clergy retreat.

It was a huge privilege.

It was a very big diocese, archdiocese, and then they asked Karen and I to

come and speak to all of their clergy.

It was a very privileged experience.

So we had hundreds and hundreds of priests and bishops in the

room, and we got a day with them.

And, and one of the things that I said, because I looked out in the room

and there were these young guys that had just come out of seminary, and

there were, there were these priests that had, like in their 90s who'd

been priests for, like, 70 years.

And I went after those 90-year-olds and I said to them, "Do not, do not

dare have the pride to believe that your story is finished," because you

can be 99 and have a conversation that really transforms another person.

So no one listening to this gets off.

No one.

We're all called into this bigger story.

I gotta stop.

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God bless you, my friend.

I hope that's useful, and you and I are gonna talk again tomorrow