The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Avoiding Spiritual Boredom

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

How can we keep our faith vibrant? Experiencing periods of spiritual monotony isn't uncommon; the critical point is how we respond. Jeff shares seven ways to avoid spiritual boredom and revitalize our faith. 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 447, avoiding spiritual boredom. Good to be with you again. This is Jeff Kavens. Thank you for taking the time to join me this week to hopefully further your relationship with the Lord, with the church, and to really step into the calling that God has on your life. Not only the calling, but the ongoing equipping so that you can walk in that. And you can be a contributor to the kingdom of God as well as just enjoy the relationship

with the Lord, the intimacy that we have with God, and the fellowship we have with all the saints. Boy, we are a blessed people, aren't we? Boy, there's a lot of things happening in the world. Isn't there? There's so many things happening. In the Twin Cities, of course, we are a couple weeks out from the shooting at Annunciation School, and we just had in Charlie Kirk in the shooting there that took place a couple days ago. and there is such a need.

Charlie Kirk, if you don't know, is a conservative speaker and was shot at a college campus over in Utah. And so it's, you know, there's just so much going on in the world out there. And the world is desperately in need of peace. The world is desperate for good news. You know what? You and I have that good news. We've been given this good news by Jesus.

what he asks us to do is to go out into the whole world and proclaim the good news and if we don't go and proclaim the good news then that void will be filled with just news and it's usually not too good right so i think that when we hear about things like this these shootings and uh some of the other things that are happening in the world you know wars and rumors of wars it's really an invitation for us to become who we are the body of christ the family of of God, ambassadors for the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. We have a decision to make on that. Say, today I want to talk to you real quickly about avoiding spiritual boredom, and you might

right away think, boredom, what do you mean? Boredom? How can someone be bored? You know, with Christianity or the relationship with the Lord or the beauty of the church? Well, you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised at what can happen in your relationship with the Lord where one day you were all on fire and you couldn't get enough and you were reading and you were going to events and talking to others and having tremendous fellowship. And then over a period of time, you started to wane. You know, your fire was starting to go out.

And before you knew it, you started filling your life with all kinds of other things. But those aren't making you happy. And so you suddenly find yourself, you know, looking in the mirror saying, I think you're bored with this. I think that you're losing the edge. And that can happen. Listen, one thing I have learned over the last 45 years or so of walking with the Lord is that there are ups and downs. There are seasons in our life. You know, we go through those times where, man, just nothing goes wrong.

I mean, it's all glory. It's all beautiful. It's victory. And then we go through those dry desert places and wonder where God is and wish we could be back where we were, whether it was six months ago or two or three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. And we have to be open to the fact that we are living our lives like the land of Israel, a land flowing with milk and honey. And if you've heard me talk about that before, talking about milk and honey, show 444 goes into it. Go back and you look at show 444, The Land of Israel, a picture of your life. So what I want to do is give you some points today on how to avoid spiritual boredom.

Consider it kind of a checkup. You know, it's just a way to look at your own day, your schedule, your life, your habits, and see how you're doing and see if we can't tune up, if you will. Say, if you want these, I've got a number of ideas here. If you want them, you don't get the show notes. All you've got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, to the number 3-3-777. By the way, heads up, the podcast is on the Ascension app now.

If you're getting it through Apple, yay. But if you're getting it through the Ascension app, yeah, yay. I mean, it's just a wonderful way to get all of the podcasts from Ascension. So if you're listening on the app, hello and welcome. And tell your friends all about it. A lot easier to share the show now with all of your friends. Please do.

It's a free app, you know. Okay, so avoiding spiritual boredom. Let's go through some things here and I'll, I will extrapolate a little bit on each of these points. And each of these points, by the way, I have at one time or another needed to hear in my own life, you know, somebody else telling me, Jeff, what about this? How are you doing? Are you praying?

And so number one, number one, to avoid spiritual boredom, do not lose your life of prayer. Do not lose your life of prayer. Now, right away, you know, when I say that, you might think to yourself, oh, I don't know if that's that important. I mean, I prayed before, and I didn't always walk away feeling, you know, yippe, IA. But that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about praying and then feeling yippe IA. What we're talking about when we say pray is relationship. If you want to avoid spiritual boredom, you've got to maintain the relationship.

And let's face it, not every conversation is through the room. Right? Emily and I talk all the time. Sometimes we have wonderful conversations and other times we have just conversations. But we maintain the relationship. And when you lose your life of prayer, you begin to open yourself up to all other kinds of influences and look to other areas of answers for your life, you know, whether it be a person or a movement or a philosophy online. Staying in prayer on a day. daily basis is, I think, one of the most underestimated disciplines that we could even mention. Because we live in a culture that wants to do something and then feel something immediately. And if you say, well, I tried praying. And I didn't feel any different. Well, then you don't know what prayer is. Prayer isn't a way of getting an endorphin rush. Prayer is love. intimacy, love and relationship. That's what prayer is. And so if you are waning in the area of prayer, get back on top of it. Whether it's Lexio divina, praying scripture, the rosary, going to mass

more often, spontaneous prayer, the examined prayer at the end of the day. If you have lost some of this, recoup it. Go back and get it. As Jesus said to the church in Ephesus in the book of Revelation, You've lost your first love. Go back and do what you did at the beginning. That's what Jesus said to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 3. Number two, keep reading something of interest in pursuing Jesus. Keep reading something of interest. For example, you can be reading a book.

You know, you could read a book. There might be some articles online that you can read. It might be a book on theology. It might be a book on prayer. Could be a book on the fruit of the spirit. Whatever it is, you can stay reading. Could be the catechism. Of course, that's a tremendous choice.

But when I talk about, you know, reading something of interest, the Bible is in there too. And a lot of times people begin to reach a point of boredom in their life because they're not reading the word of God anymore. They'll say, well, I read that. Well, that's not one and done. Read it again. Listen, if you're looking for a reading program for the Bible, look no further than the Great Adventure. I mean, what we do is we, this is what Father Mike and I did for Bible in a year. We took the Great Adventure reading program, which reads in chronological order, the entire narrative of salvation history, and we laid it out over an entire year. Within the study itself, it's three months to read the 14 narrative books. But get in

and read and pray it. Okay? It's very, very important. That kind of combines number one and two, doesn't it? Don't lose your prayer life and read scripture, pray scripture, read something of interest that is engaging you. Number three, make or keep relationships with those who are excited about Jesus, his kingdom, his work, his word, miracles, you know. This is a very important one. You know, you're part of the kingdom of God. That means that you are in relationship with other people, and you're not meant to do this alone. Christianity is not a loner sport. It isn't.

It's not a lone wolf. It's a community. It's a family. And when you feel yourself sort of entering into a spiritual boredom phase, get back to those relationships. Hey, look, we have a cup of coffee. Let's go out to eat. Why don't you come over to our house? let's go for a walk.

Emily and I have a number of friends that we can go on walks with, you know, but keep the relationships, listen, keeping relationships with other people is so good because it does a number of things. One, you hear from someone else who is attempting to make this walk with Jesus. Very important. You meet with people who can be of encouragement to you. You can hear how they need to be encouraged. You get insights from a different perspective when you,

are keeping the relationship alive. So keep the flame alive in the relationships you have. Now, sometimes, you know, when people reach that point of spiritual boredom, they look at their relationships and they have to admit, we're not meeting with our friends anymore. If that's you, put her an overdrive, get going on it, right? Okay, we've got a few more I want to share with you. We'll do that right on the other side of this break. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. We can't lose our faith the way we lose our car keys. We either give it a away or we let it decay because we don't use it. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. And in my new book, Unshakeable, building a life of virtue in a world of chaos, I tell faith-filled stories that

inspire you to live a life of virtue that flows from the unshakable power of God. Although we're surrounded by a culture that mocks virtue, we can feed ourselves stories that really do uphold what is good and promote a virtuous life. When we live this way, we experience freedom and joy like never before. It's my prayer that the stories in my book, Unshakeable, will inspire you to fight the battle for a virtuous life and win through trust in an unshakable God. Order your copy at ascensionpress.com. Welcome back talking about avoiding spiritual boredom as if. Yes, as if you could. And you can. You can. People can become bored. Just like in marriage or dating. or a job, you know, if you don't put something into it, anything can become boring.

It really can. So, number one, don't lose your prayer life. Number two, keep reading something of interest and pursue it. And number three, make and keep relationships, friendships with those who are excited about Jesus. Number four, sharpen some area of your life. Are you working on some area of your life right now? Are you zeroing in on a virtue that can counter a vice that is bringing you down and might even be a part of your boredom? Are you working on something?

I've been a real student of trying to pick one virtue over a month's period and just work on that one. I think sometimes we make this way too difficult, don't you? I think we make it difficult because what we do is we see the entirety of Christianity of all the virtues and All the gifts and all of this and that. I mean, like, oh, that's just too much for me. I care. Why don't you just take one virtue? Are you struggling with something?

Are you struggling with one area of your life? One of the deadly sins? Are you struggling with envy? You're bothered by other people's success? Well, you just might want to develop that virtue of gratitude of what God has given you. Don't take an afternoon. Don't take a day. Don't take a week.

Why don't you take a month? Why don't you just take a month and focus on that and say, you know what, I'm going to get on top of this. I'm going to focus on that area. Or you can focus on a book of the Bible. Say, you know, the next month, I'm going to own Leviticus. I'm sort of kidding. You can own a book. Maybe it's a gospel or it's, you know, Galatians or Philippians and think, I'm going to immerse myself.

When you immerse yourself in God's word and you go after an area of your life that really needs attention, It's really hard to get bored because you're seeing yourself in the mirror of God's word. All right. Number five, develop your relationship with your posse. If you're new to the show, the posse is the saints that you have taken into your relationship, into your orbit, I guess you could say, into your sphere. And I have five in my posse that I'm every day. I have a relationship with them.

I ask them to pray for me, you know. They're not God. they're not some kind of God creature. They're humans who are with the Lord now in heaven like St. Augustine, St. Joseph, Mother Teresa, right? We've got John Paul II is in there for me in Augustine. I think I mentioned Augustine. Well, keep that relationship with your posse. They're not going to leave you bored.

Read their writings. Pray. Ask them to intercede. Look at their life. What areas can you copy in their life? You see, if you leave prayer behind, and you're not reading something and pursuing it, and you're not keeping a relationship with good friends, and you're not focusing on improving an area of your life, and you're not in a relationship with your posse, what do you expect but boredom? It's just natural. It's anti-supernatural.

Number six, really important if you want to fight that boredom in your life, confession. There's nothing like unconfessed sin that begins to detain. your relationship with the Lord and your sensitivity to his voice and your sensitivity to sin. Yeah. And it was Pope Paul the 6th and Vatican 2 who said that this lack of sensitivity to sin is one of the greatest concerns of our day. When you're no longer even looking at sin and saying, that's a problem. That's a barrier to my enthusiasm for the Lord.

Go to confession. I'd recommend going every month. You know, go every month and work on your soul, a soul that's not being worked on, a soul that's not taking custody of itself, and what you do and what you say and what your eyes look at, everything else, you're prone to be bored and you're going to start looking for other things in the world. Don't do it. And number seven, feed on the Eucharist.

Do not try to go alone. You need the greatest fuel. the grace of God. You need the bread from heaven to fuel you and give you power and to motivate you. You can't do it on your own. And if you are not receiving the Eucharist on a regular basis, get on it, you know. Start tomorrow. Or if it's early today that you're listening, go to Mass.

And when you receive the Eucharist, say, Lord, I'm struggling with being spiritually bored. I'm here. I need help. I need fuel. Thank you for feeding me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you, Lord, that you are here. You are Emmanuel. You are with us. So, you know, we could probably go on and give 10, 15, 20 ideas on what to do with spiritual boredom. I'd like to hear from you, actually. You can write me the Jeff Kaven show at

ascension presents.com. Is it ascension press now? I'll put it in the show notes, but I'd love to hear from you. And to know, how are you doing? and how does this help? And do you have other ideas on how to stay sharp in the Lord? Okay, so that's what I want to do this week. Just encourage you a little bit about avoiding spiritual boredom. I've been there. I imagine the popes have been there.

I imagine the saints have been there one time or another. Because you're entering boredom doesn't mean you're bad. It doesn't mean that your life is filled with sin or anything. But when you don't tend to yourself and your soul, then these things can happen. Don't beat yourself up about it. Let's get up and do it. Go after it. And take this as a reminder from the Lord that he loves you. He's pulling you to himself, wooing you, if you will. And these are some things to think about in that wooing process. Prevenient grace, theologians call it. God is wooing you. He's calling you to himself today. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you and we praise you.

we just take a moment today, Lord, to lift you up, and we give you honor and glory and praise. You are amazing, and we worship you. There's no one like you. You're the creator of the whole universe. You have all power. You created us. We submit ourselves to you today, Lord, and ask you, Lord, help lead us out of boredom and into a dynamic relationship with you. In Jesus' name, amen.

I love you, my friend. I really do, and I look forward to talking to you next week. Remember, don't get bored. We'll see you.