The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - 3 Ways to Jumpstart Your Life

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Are you just going through the motions in life? Jeff discusses three key ways to jumpstart your life and enrich your spiritual life when you find yourself in a rut. Snippet from the Show "Seek God's wisdom over the trivial things in life." Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is Show 440, three ways to jumpstart your life. Welcome to the show. I'm Jeff. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Every week we talk about things related to scripture. We talk about discipleship and putting God's word into practice. Today we're going to be looking at three ways to jumpstart your life. By the way, a shout out to all my friends that encounter in Toledo this last week. I was there giving a couple of talks and really enjoyed my time. meeting with so many wonderful people and good priests and good bishops and just a good time all together. So shout out to all the work that they're doing over at a counter. They're doing some amazing things these days. Okay. So, by the way, housekeeping here. If you do want the show

notes, because we do have some show notes for you today, believe me, all you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kavens, and text that name to the number 3377. That's two threes. And, three sevens three three seven seven we'll get you on board there well we're in the dog days of summer right now and a lot of people would say well i'm kind of in a rut you know in summer and thinking a little bit about fall and football season coming up you know it's too early to think about all that stuff right now we still have pickle festivals and pepper festivals and blueberry festivals and things happening all over the country and so we got a lot of life to live here but you know what happens sometimes. What happens sometimes is that we do get into ruts in our life. And by that,

I mean that we just kind of do what we've always been doing without really paying attention to the spiritual growth in our life. And before you know it, we're on cruise control in our spiritual life. And sometimes we just need something to kind of jumpstart our life. And so I have put together three things here for you. Maybe one of them just might jumpstart your life, your week, your month, your summer. Who knows? But as I listen to a lot of shows out there and I listen to a lot of speeches and I read a lot of books and I'm always trying to discover more and more, you know. And every once in a while, an idea, a concept, a point in someone's talk just grabs me. I think, wow, I really needed to hear that.

And it kind of jumpstarts my week or my month or my year, whatever it might be. You just never know. And so maybe you're in that situation right now where you're saying, you know, I just need something kind of stir up, stir up the pot here. I need something to kind of jumpstart me into going in a fruitful direction in my life. So I'm going to give you those today. I got three of them. you might like all three.

You might like two of them. You might just say, well, that one point, you know what, Jeff, man, I needed to hear that this week. I really did. And you know, I get a lot of email. My email is the Jeff Kaven's show at ascensionpress.com. And I get a lot of email from people saying, man, you said something and I really needed to hear it. Thank you. Well, thank you because it's nice to know that people are listening and that occasionally you might say something

that really makes a difference in someone's life. And maybe one of these three ways to jumpstart your life, maybe it would make a difference. Maybe it would make a difference. Oh, before I continue, there is an announcement I need to make, and I think you're going to like it. And I think it's going to be good for the show.

In fact, all the Ascension presents shows, the podcast. I think it's going to be very, very good, and that is this. Our podcast, this show, the Jeff Kaven show, is now available on Ascension's app. The Ascension app. You know, one of the things that people say is that they want their mom and dad to listen or they want their Luddite brother to listen. Luddite is someone who's a little slow on the tech thing.

And they want them to listen, but they don't know how to get engaged on podcasting platforms. Well, now kind of took care of that for you. We have this show, along with a number of other of the Ascension Present shows, are going to be on the app. But I can join you there every week, and that might make things just a little bit easier. I was looking forward to sharing that with you. I almost forgot, but I got it in there. I wanted you to know that. Our podcasts are now available on the Ascension app.

All right. So back to what I was saying about jump-starting your week. I got three things for you. So let's take a look at the first one right here. This first idea, this first thing. just might be what you need in your life right now. And that is this. Number one, if you are going to jumpstart your life, your week, your month,

you need to make a decision to think about time as a treasure and very valuable. Now, that might seem like a simple thing to say, but it is so true. how often do we take time for granted and how often do we think back to the last week and we think to ourselves i cannot believe how fast that week went and man i just seem it just seems like i have done nothing but tend to the urgent things in my life like the tyranny of the urgent and i didn't get any of the really important things done in my life well making a decision to think about time different could jumpstart your week. It really could. Your life, in fact. The decision to think of time as a treasure, very valuable. I don't think a lot of people would spend their time the way they do

if it was $100 bills. I just don't think they would because I think in some ways people value money more than they do their time. I don't know that you would wake up in the morning with a whole pile $100 bills and throughout the day just leave them on the park bench or leave it at the grocery store or the gas station or throw a couple out the window. I don't think people would do that if they thought of time as being really a treasure and really valuable. Listen, I'll put this in the show notes. Ecclesiastes 311 says, he has made everything beautiful in its time. Let me say that again. he has made everything beautiful in its time also he has put eternity into man's mind yet so that he cannot find out what god has done from the beginning to the end now that's an interesting idea right there isn't it that god has put eternity into man's mind but in light of that that we are eternal beings god has made everything beautiful in its time everything beautiful in it's time. Time is not something that we waste as Christians. And you do hear that a lot coming out

of people's mouths. Well, it's just going to kill some time. Well, time really isn't given to us to kill. And I'd like to take that right out of my vocabulary. We don't waste time. We don't kill time. What do we do? We redeem it. That is, we buy up opportunities. That is, we take advantage of it. We make the most out of every single opportunity. You know, outside, of St. Pope John Paul II's house on the side of the church, right outside of his house. And by the way, I'm going to be in September. I'm going to be in Poland at his house. We're leading a pilgrimage.

And I believe it's sold out, but stay tuned. Go to jeffcavens.com under pilgrimages, and you'll stay in touch with all the pilgrimages that we are doing. But outside of his house is the side of a church that he grew up in. And it basically says this, time flies, eternity waits. Time flies, eternity waits. That is an amazing thing to wake up to breakfast to every day. I will put the picture of his room in the show notes. And I'll put the picture of this picture that he would see every day growing up.

I'll put it in the show notes for you. time flies eternity waits and i took that picture by the way i'm going to send you those two i took those pictures myself ephesians 515 paul says look carefully then how you walk not as unwise but as wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the lord is so when you think of what you would like to achieve in your walk as a Christian, I think that most people typically come up with things like, well, I want to study the faith more, like the catechism, or I want to learn the Bible. And that's a noble thing to do. And it's a doable thing, I might add, the great adventure. People say, I'd like to volunteer

for a mission trip, or I'd like to have more time in my life to pray. Or I want to send my kids to a summer camp. Like right now, it's in the middle of summer. Or I want to send my kids to a good Catholic school. Those are good things that people would think about achieving when you think about time and how you're going to spend your time. But I think that we can become even more specific on that. Like, for example, the first hour of the day. Don't look at your phone or your computers. Spend time with God. Use your time wisely. Think of it as valuable. The hours that you have today are unrepeatable. You'll never get those back again, ever, ever, ever. The last 12 hours of your life, they're done. It's done. You might have 12 more tomorrow, but those 12 are done. And Paul is saying

make the most of every opportunity. So the first hour of your day, what do you do with that? What do you do with it? Do you just sit and look at your phone? Do you look at videos that you had on YouTube that you didn't finish from yesterday and you go right back to it like a hamster on a wheel? or you just turn on your computer well forget that you might not have even turned it off or do you spend time with god is that time so valuable that that you either spend time on youtube or spend time with god what's the choice what about limit social media and and feeling obligated to watch what you devr last week you know you recorded all those shows on tv and you're like well i should probably watch those no not probably you don't have to

There's probably better things to do with your time, isn't there? I mean, talk to me. Send me an email. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Is that important to watch everything that you recorded? How about guard chunks of time for specific tasks or relationships? What about relationships in your life? And you say, you know, I just don't have time to meet with that person.

Why not guard a chunk of time and make it happen? no nothing is really as valuable as your time and you can you can get your money back but you cannot get your time back now you can make the most of every opportunity and that's called redeeming the time by by doing what by knowing the will of god that's what paul says therefore do not be foolish but understand what the will of the lord is i'll put that in the show notes for you because that's Ephesians 5, 15 through 17. So that's a pointer right there. Then I think that that's really important.

So this week I would ask you, think about this, how are you viewing time, how are you spending time, are you wasting it, or are you making the most of every opportunity by knowing the will of God? Now, if you know the will of God, you know how to spend your time, right? So make it happen. I've got two more things for you that will help you to jumpstart your life, your day, your week, and we'll talk about those right after this. You're listening

to the Jeff Kaven show. Hey guys, my name's Father Mike Schmitz. I'm so excited to tell you about new cities and new dates for the Parables Tour. We're going to cities in both Michigan and Texas. If you're interested in getting tickets, you can go to Accenturepress.com slash Father Mike Tour for access to tickets

and more information. Tickets go on sale. It's Thursday, May 22nd. God bless. We're back. Are you back? Good. We're going to move on to number two now we're talking about three ways to jumpstart your day, your week, your month, your life. And the first one was to view time differently, your relationship with time, decision to think of time as a treasure and very valuable, not something you kill, not something that you waste. Number two, how about this, to jumpstart your day, your week, your month,

your life, a decision to invest in people, not things. Decision to invest in people, not things. Not things. So what do I mean by that? Well, you know, we oftentimes will spend our time investing our time so that we can acquire even more things or that we can play with things or we can collect things or trade things or do maintenance on things or store things in storage. Boy, that's quite an industry right now, isn't it? I want to make some money and then open up one of those and you can store everyone's things that they spent so much time trying to acquire. So what do you do? You invest in people.

Number one, you start off, you invest your life and your time in God. That means he's number one, beginning of the day. You are aware of God and you are in communication with God. You're in intimate relationship with God all throughout the day. You end your day with the examined prayer looking back on your day. God, how did I do? How are we doing, God? How are things going between us?

Am I spot on? Am I doing your will? I know you'll never leave me or forsake me. I know you said, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. But, Lord, I'm still car shopping. I'm still collecting. I'm still doing this. No, make a quality decision to invest in people.

That would include God here, right? Not things. The other day, I went by the Goodwill store. I think that is a St. Goodwill store for some people because it helps them get rid of their garbage. But I was driving by there and I could not believe the line going up to the backdoor of people who are going to deposit their junk, get rid of the things that they didn't want. Now, the problem is they could have given that away just to go back to the mall to buy

some more. But if your life is filled with just investing in things, then your life starts to take on kind of a shallow look to it. I've been there. I'm not pointing my finger at you. I've been there myself. And I kind of know what I'm talking about. I'm sitting here in my office right now looking at a whole bunch of books. And I have a number of books on simplifying your life, investing in people, not things. I have, and I know this is a little embarrassing, but it's all research for me because I'm doing some stuff related to this right now. I have over 50 books on how to simplify your life. Now, sooner or later, you would think you either simplify your life or just throw those books

away, but you can actually get so into a topic that you never indulge in the topic. You just study the topic, and sometimes that happens with our faith. And the decision to invest in people, not things, can jumpstart your life. So you've got God, right. How about family? How about investing your life in such a way? way that your family will benefit. You're going to take so much time a day, so much time a week, you're going to invest it in your family, your spouse, your children, your grandchildren instead of

things. What would happen? What would happen if every time you had the notion to go to the mall and window shop, instead of doing it, you and your spouse or your best friend or whoever stopped suddenly and said, hold the phone, Jack, I just had an inclination to go to the mall to window shop. And instead, when that happens now, I'm going to pray a rosary for my grandchildren. There you go. Just that right there could change your day. How about friends? Invest in friends. Infest in friendships. We just went out to lunch with a, or went out to dinner. That was last night. Went out to dinner with a couple, one of our, some of our best friends. And it was so nice just to spend that time just getting to know each other more and talking and sharing our

lives, you know, what we're praying about, what we're going through. Not to mention that the shrimp tacos were really good. But besides that, the relationship was good. Investing in people at the beginning of the week, you could sit down with your schedule and say, I'm going to invest three times this week into key relationships. That will make a difference in your life. Certainly. God's kind of a given. You've got to just put that in there right away. But what about family? What about friends? What about people the Lord has put in your path for evangelization? Those people that you said, I'll pray for you. Thanks for your email. Thanks for your number. Yeah, you too. I'll pray for you. God bless. Yep, you got it. I'll remember you. Why not do it? Why not go back to that list to think about it for a moment

the last day, week, month? How many times did you say to someone that you'll pray for them? You met them. You had a little talk with them. Why not call them up? Invest in them. Say, how are you doing? I know we talked last week.

We had coffee. I was just wondering, how are you doing? How can I pray for you? Not a bad idea. Number three, here's a good one. The first one, let's just go back here for a second. The first one, a decision to think of time as treasure and very valuable. Number two, decision.

to invest in people, not things. That'll jumpstart your day. Now here's the third one. A decision to seek wisdom, not trivia. That will jumpstart your life. A decision, think about it. A decision to seek wisdom, not trivia. We are so caught up in trivial things in our culture.

We are. And you know what's interesting. Not that I've done this, but I've read about it. On YouTube, you can start to look at one trivial thing, and before you know it, when you turn on YouTube, other trivial things start coming up in the same genre. I think, how did they know that?

Well, they're a little bit smarter than you and me. And that's why we've got to get smart. We need the wisdom of God. Otherwise, we get into this rut of we go online, and the world is taking notice, and their feeding us more and more. And before you know it, we're living in a rut. So my recommendation for you this week as one of the points to jumpstart your life

is to make the decision to seek wisdom, not trivia. In other words, put it this way. You can go online and you can go wide and shallow for the rest of your life. What do I mean by that? It means that you're just dibbling and dabbling. By the way, that's a new phrase that I just made up. You are just dabbling and dabbling on all this trivial stuff and not going deep into anything. Now, the wisdom of God is something that you want to go deep with.

You want to go deep with the wisdom of God. You need the wisdom of God to navigate work, family, marriage, children, finances, all these things. you need it, but I'll tell you what you need more than anything else. You need a priority, not priorities. That's what I spoke about out at the encounter conference. You get a chance to watch that talk. That's number four. That's the bonus one, I guess, is if you can get a hold of that thing.

But I was talking about the need to have one priority. Do you know the 14th century? I'm going to share this for months and years to come to because I know that this made a big difference in people's lives when I was sharing it at the encounter conference. And that is in the 14th century, this idea of the English word priority really came to the forefront. And the word priority in the first place, the first thing, right? And C.S. Lewis brings this out, but did you know that it wasn't until the 1940s that the word priorities was coined.

You say, oh, come on. Now I'm serious. Priority. And then suddenly we've got priorities. You got a priority for work. You got a priority for family, for exercise, for food, for your finances, for vacation, for your TV habits. You got your home repair.

You've got everything, right? Priorities, which tells me this. I can look at you right now. If you tell me you got 10 priorities, I will look at you. you right in the eye and say, you do not have a priority. You do not have a priority. The decision to seek wisdom and not trivia is key to the priority in your life. And for me, it is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things are going to take care of themselves. I have a priority. I shocked the people in Toledo.

I shocked them. I told them that my children were not my priority. I said my wife is not my priority. And one lady went, whoa, he's like, what? I said, you have to understand. My priority is Jesus to seek first his kingdom. Now, if I do that, my wife's going to be taken care of. My children are going to be taken care of. Hopefully I'll be a good steward with finances. But it's all going to take wisdom. And that's part of this seeking First, the kingdom of God and his wisdom. Go deep, not wide. James chapter one, I'll put this in the show notes for you. He says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given to him. So I would say this, you need wisdom, ask for it. It comes in many forms, the word of God, for sure. Conversations, a dream maybe even, a thought, maybe even a billboard, writings of one of the words. the saints without applying the information, it remains just information. You might study some of the things of the saints and you might study the Word of God, but if you don't apply it, it's just information, then it stays information. To those who apply the information of the sages, wisdom, there will be fruit. And the fruit of wisdom comes by doing the Proverbs or any truth in the Word of God. James also goes on in chapter 3 in verse 13. He backs this up. He says, Who is wise? Let him show by his good deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

So the Bible tells us that that instruction is valuable. Wisdom is a treasure. Wisdom offers protection. It brings success and honor when applied. When applied, it is strength. So why should we ask for wisdom? We're independent by nature. We cannot solve all our problems by ourselves. Can we? We really can't. We need help. And that's why we need to ask for wisdom. Proverbs 4-7, the beginning of wisdom is, get this, get wisdom. That's the beginning of wisdom. How do I begin to get wisdom, Jeff? Get it. Start accumulating wisdom. Start collecting it. Get yourself a moleskin. Get yourself the Insight Journal from Ascension Press.

Father Mike Schmitz and I put that one together. It's a journal to put your wisdom into it. We'll put that in the show notes for you. That would be a wise thing to do. All wisdom is hidden in Jesus, you know? All wisdom is hidden in Jesus. And Jesus has given the keys to the kingdom of Peter. The church is the pillar and the support of truth.

So you can get wisdom from the Word of God. You can get wisdom from the Word of God. to be sure. But you must do God's word. If you want the fruit of wisdom to manifest, you must do God's word. How about the catechism of the Catholic Church? It's a systematic and organic presentation of God's plan of sheer goodness. There's lots of good stuff in there. A lot of wisdom. Get you some. We've got encyclicals, church documents, great wisdom for everyday living. For example, Familiar's Consortio. No, you don't have to say good Zunate.

That is Pope John Paul II's writing on the family. Familiar's consortio, get you some. It's good wisdom. Listening to the elderly and wise people, read the lives of the saints. Don't read a ton, but read well. Read well. Don't just read a lot. Read well.

Prayer. Spending time with Jesus. Proverbs 2.6 says it is the Lord who gives wisdom from him come knowledge and understanding. And just recognize our dependence upon God. It's a source of wisdom. Listen to what the catechism says. And then I will get ready to draw this episode to an end. Paragraph 301, with creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves.

He not only gives them being in existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them and being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom of joy and confidence. That's paragraph 301. Isn't that beautiful? That's beautiful. And then I guess finally, I would say, and I'll circle back here, keep a journal, practical wisdom, mullskin, Evernote, Inside Journal from Ascension, it's already set up for you to start collecting wisdom. Okay, so that's what I wanted to share with you this week, just three, three ideas that I think

about now and then, three ways to jump, start your life. Number one, decision, a decision to think of time as a treasure and very valuable. We don't waste it. Number two, decision to invest in people, not things, and that means God as well. Number three, a decision to seek wisdom, not trivia. Wisdom, not trivia. And remember, the show's starting now. It's on the Ascension app.

It might be a lot easier for you to listen to it in the car while you're running. Or while you are, while you're studying time as a treasure. while you are investing in people and you're seeking wisdom. So let me pray for you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I love you. And I thank you for my friends. I thank you, Lord, for the relationship we have. And I pray, Lord Jesus, that one of these three ideas may just contribute to jump-starting

my friend's life, my brother, my sister, and giving them a bit of a wake-up to focus and to live for you. I pray this in your mighty name. In the name of Jesus, amen. Name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit. I love you. Looking forward to talking to you next week.