What is Mine to Do?

INTERNATIONAL MEN'S DAY SERIES 2026  |  Part 1 of 6

Most mornings begin the same way for me. Before the day gets busy, I pray, and in that prayer I ask God for the same thing I ask every morning: to guide me, help me understand the plan He has for me, and show me how I can best serve Him and the people around me.

I don't usually get an answer I can write down. But I keep asking, and I've noticed that asking every day changes what I pay attention to.

Recently I came across words shared by Saint Francis near the end of his life:

“I have done what is mine to do. May Christ teach you what is yours.”

That resonated with me because it sounded so much like the prayer I’ve been praying. I don’t think Francis was describing a grand plan. He was describing a portion, his part, and trusting that those who came after him would be shown theirs.

The Questions Change

For most of my adult life, I was driven by questions about building. What can I accomplish? How well can I provide? What kind of life can I create for Kelly, Ryan, and Katie? Those weren't bad questions, and I don't regret the years I spent answering them, because providing for my family matters.

But at 65, with two grown children, those questions hold less of my attention. The ones replacing them are harder. What have I learned that is worth passing on? What still needs to change in me? What am I supposed to do with everything life has taught me, the good and the painful?

Fatherhood has been my best teacher, mostly because it showed me where I fell short. There were seasons when I confused providing with being present, and times when what I meant as encouragement landed on my kids as pressure. I can't go back and redo those years. What I’m learning is that our past can inform us without imprisoning us. I can't change how I fathered at 40, but I can choose how I father now.

The Larger Gap

For a long time, the idea at the center of my work has been the space between what happens to us and how we respond. Viktor Frankl is often credited with it, and it changed how I think about anger, patience, and the small moments that shape a family. In that gap, we choose our response.

Lately I've been more aware of a second, larger gap: the distance between the man I am today and the man I believe God created me to become. I don't expect to close it, and I'm not sure anyone ever does. But I can own it, which to me means telling the truth about where I am, choosing a direction, and coming back when I drift. Most of whatever growth I can point to has come from returning after I got something wrong.

Who Am I Supposed to Become?

I used to think purpose meant finding the great thing I was meant to accomplish. I'm starting to believe it's simpler than that, and harder. When I pray each morning, I'm not really asking what I should achieve. I'm asking who I'm supposed to become, and who I can help along the way.

For me, the answer keeps pointing toward fathers. Men like me, who love their families and know they haven't always shown it well. Men whose kids grew up faster than they expected. Men still carrying things from their own fathers and wondering what their children are carrying from them.

I don't have the full answer to what is mine to do. I doubt Francis did either until near the end. But I can see the outline: take what my life has taught me, the successes, failures, and second chances, along with my faith, and use it to help other fathers become more intentional about the men they are becoming. I'm still learning, still repairing, and still praying the same prayer each morning, listening for the answer. Maybe that's enough to begin.

Finding Your Own Portion

If this question is stirring something in you, I’d encourage you to give it some real time this week. I don’t think the answer usually arrives as a clear and grand assignment. Francis spoke of a portion, and I suspect most of ours are closer at hand than we think, in the people already within our reach and in what our own lives have taught us.

One way to start is to sit down with a pen and finish this sentence a few different ways:

“Because of what I’ve lived through, I could help ____.”

Then look at what you wrote and ask who, specifically, is already in your life that one of those answers points to. It might be a son or daughter, a younger man at work, or a friend going through something you’ve been through yourself. That person may be where your portion begins.

If you pray, you might carry that sentence into your prayers the way I’ve been carrying mine. If you don’t, sitting with it honestly will still take you somewhere. Either way, I’d be interested to hear what you find.

Two Questions

Next week, in the second essay of this series, we’ll look at what came before us. I’ve found I can’t fully answer what I'm meant to do without honestly looking at what my father, my family, and the world I grew up in handed me. Some of it deserves to continue, but some of it needs to end with me.

These are the two questions I’ll be sitting with this week, and the ones we’ll explore together in next week’s blog What Ends With Me?

What did I inherit?

What am I passing on?

I don’t think these are questions we answer once. We keep living our way into them.