Too Busy for God: Spiritual Direction for High-Achieving Men

Some of the hardest people to bring to prayer are the ones who have succeeded at everything else. The man in his forties or fifties who has built the career, closed the deals, and provided for his family often arrives at spiritual direction skeptical that he needs it at all. He is busy. He is competent. And underneath, at a crossroads he can barely name, he is asking what all of it was for.

This course teaches directors, counselors, and pastoral care providers how to reach that man. Working from an interview with Fr. Michael, an experienced spiritual director, it lays out a simple, repeatable method: open with the man's victories, ask where God is calling him to grow, hold him accountable to what he resolved, and build a life of prayer gradually rather than all at once. Along the way it takes up the question at the heart of the interior life for a high achiever, why willpower runs out where character is concerned, and what grace-assisted growth looks like instead. The material integrates the psychology of self-regulation and virtue taught at Divine Mercy University with the classical spiritual tradition of Teresa of Avila and Adolphe Tanquerey.