220: A Podcast You and I Want to Listen To

Have you noticed how everyone seems to have a podcast these days? Most of them just don’t appeal to me. So, in 2018, I created one that does— a podcast I want to listen to and one you’ll want to listen to as well. I’m going to give you an example of what I mean shortly.

Welcome to Season Nine and episode 220

But first, I’m John Certalic and you are listening to episode 220 of You Were Made for This, a podcast about … well, … stick with me and you’ll soon find out soon.

It’s been quite a number of months since I recorded any new episodes on a regular basis. It’s not been for want of anything new to say—no, it’s just the opposite. There are so many things I would like to talk to you about. Things like how bandages are so poorly designed these days, the alumni directory I just signed up for…for my grade school. And how come we don’t see hitchhikers anymore?

Topics like these interest me, but I don’t think they’d be a podcast you would want to listen to. So I decided that before I recorded any new episodes, I needed to retool and decide on a clear, distinct focus for moving forward. I needed to spend more time thinking about what the podcast should be about that would make me want to listen to it.

Several possibilities excited me at first. But after a few days or weeks, they all lost their luster, and my interest in them waned. Nothing seemed to click. In the meantime, I spent several months writing weekly blog posts for our website, which you can still read.

 Returning to the beginning

Finally, after a lot of indecision,I found myself drawn back to the title of the podcast we came up with back in 2018: “You Were Made for This.” 

I began reflecting more about the title’s meaning. Maybe the central unifying theme moving forward was right under my nose in the title. I know that the focus of the first 219 episodes was finding joy in the relationships God intends for us. That’s been the focus since 2018— it’s the This we are made for. 

I still think this is a pretty important This. But now I’m feeling the need for a different, yet related and expanded this in a podcast you and I would want to listen to. Especially as I think more about all that this implies.

The word this implies a singularity of purpose. It connotes a decree of certainty and confidence.    When you hear someone talk about this you know what you’re getting. It’s also personal, this is. It’s honest and authentic.

You can’t say the same about that.  That is an external word. It’s impersonal, less connected to any of us.  There’s an aloofness about that. I don’t think I could listen very long to You Were Made for That. It’s not a podcast I would want to listen to. It just sounds too cold. Kind of bossy, too. Like my third-grade teacher sternly waving her ruler at me.

An important question

There’s something warm and inviting about this, which is important to me in a podcast I want to listen to. I’m guessing it’s important to you, too. But it does raise the question of what is the this we were made for.

The answer found in the first 219 episodes is that in some form or other, ea