The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Developing Unshakeable Resolve

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Do you have the dedication to follow through on your goals? Jeff delves into the concept of developing unshakeable resolve rooted in Biblical principles. Highlighting key scriptures and stories of David's mighty men from 2 Samuel 23:8-12, Jeff illustrates how tenacity, faithfulness, and steadfastness can lead to monumental achievements even under overwhelming odds and fatigue. Snippet from the Show "Don't give up on what you believe God has given you." 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 439, developing unshakable resolve. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show. Good to have you with me. Once again, as we always talk about things that are very, very important as far as the kingdom of God goes and applying the truths from scripture, applying them in everyday life.

It really does make a difference. And more than anything else and the most important thing is it honors God and brings glory to God. And that's what it's all about. It's not really about bringing glory to our own lives. It's about bringing glory to God. So how many times in your life have you come up with an idea? And it was actually a really good idea.

And you thought to yourself, you know what? I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to plan it out and I'm going to do it. But then life got in the way and you never ended up doing what you might have even thought God was giving you at the time. Well, I've had a few of those in my day. And so I do know what that is like.

But you know, it gets worse than that. It even gets to the point where you can't remember what those ideas were 10 years later or five years later. Sometimes a week later, right? And so we come up with all kinds of ideas and all kinds of plans on what we're going to do with our life and, you know, the difference we're going to make in the world and the way we're going to raise our kids and new family habits and the whole thing. But then life just grabs you by the tail and whips you around. And before you know it, you really haven't made any progress. in life. And I know that can be very, very frustrating. I want to talk about that today

because I've had so many people say to me, I feel like I'm in a rut. And I think I can help today in doing it. And I do have some scriptures for you. If you do want the scriptures absolutely free, don't even charge a nickel. We'll get those to you. All you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to the number 3377. That's 3377. Well, as you look back at all those failed plans, there's usually one ingredient in all of that that was lacking. When you have a vision to do something or plans to do something, create something, go somewhere, whatever it might be, you typically have the idea, number one, basic idea. And number two, you have some plans on how to accomplish that idea.

And then number three, you take a look at your resources and see what you have to put towards that idea. And then the fourth is you do it. You do it. Now, it's much easier to come up with an idea than it is to actually do it. It's easier to say, I want to go to the moon. I want to go to Mars. I want a gold medal in the mile in the Olympics coming up. There's a lot of goals out there that people have,

but that's the easy part. The hard part is the doing of it. That's the hard part. And frankly, that's why a lot of people don't go and run in the Olympics. That's why a lot of people haven't gone to the moon. A lot of people haven't started companies. A lot of people haven't started ministries because the hardest part was starting it and doing it.

Now, that doing it, that's what I want to talk about here. The title of this particular show is developing unshakable resolve, and it's very similar to something I spoke to you about, if you've been with me from the beginning, all the way back on show 20. That's years and years and years ago. This is show 439. And that is the subject of tenacity.

Today I'm calling it developing unshakable resolve. see we can we could call unshakable resolve we could call that faithfulness and when i look at my failed plans or i talk to my friends like you and about about your life and the things that didn't go as you had quote unquote planned it's usually a lack of faithfulness now that's not a judgment on you i'm not judging you but i am saying that that oftentimes we do not accompany our grandiose plans with faithfulness or unshakable resolve to get something done. And I like to think of faithfulness or this unshakable resolve. And there's a lot of other names that we'll look at on this show today that kind of

describe this idea, this dynamic of unshakable resolve. But I think that this is the ingredient. There's always this ingredient that is missing when we look at failure. Or we look at failure to thrive when it comes to. ideas. So in the Bible, we talk about faith. We talk about faithfulness. We talk about persistence, perseverance, determination, a lot of different names. Okay, let's just go through them. Shall we? Real quickly, we got resolve. We got grit, true grit, you know, John Wayne type. We got doggedness, endurance, steadfastness. How about diligence, commitment, and dedication, drive,

resilience, stamina, stictuitiveness, an iron will, unyielding spirit, never say die attitude, holding fast, unspeakable resolve. That's what missing. And I'm going to reduce all that down to, I shouldn't say reduce. I'll just say, I'm going to use the word faithfulness and tenacity as interchangeable with this unshakable resolve to do what God has called us to do. Now I've gotten so many letters over the years. I've received so many letters around the country, around the world from people that they wanted to know how to do what I'm doing, or they want to know how to do what Scott Hahn's doing, or they want to know how to do what Jonathan Rumi is doing, or Father Mike, or, you know, a bunch of other people, Sister Miriam, Dr. Mary Healy, I can go on on. There's so many people

doing fantastic things these days. And people want, they want me to give them a recipe on how do you do it, you know? Seth Schleeder, phenomenal singer, Allie Lea, phenomenal singer. Both of them, by the way, we're out at Holy Family High School in Victoria, Minnesota. And they put on a concert out there, and I got more to say about that later and in future shows. Something's happening in Victoria, Minnesota. They're doing something, they're doing something that is just plain incredible. They have started this year for the first time. Now, this is a good example right here. We have families from Holy Family High School in Victoria, Minnesota, where they wanted to do something to bring the family together, to bring young people together. They wanted to praise God,

and they put together this incredible evening called his name hallowed, his name hallowed. And they brought in Seth Schleeder and Ali Elia. And I think about a thousand people came the first night. And they've got big plans for next year. But you know what? The only way that's going to happen is if they do it next year. are faithful. They have developed unshakable resolve. And they have stamina, dedication, diligence, commitment, iron will, unyielding spirit. They're going to go forward. And the minute they would say, well, we just hope it comes together or something. It was a good idea. Those ideas tend to fall apart. My guess is this one's not going to fall apart. Because you've got a lot of faithful people that are working on that particular project. Now, that's one. I'd love to hear what

you're doing around the country as well because there's so many there's the abbey festival in Philadelphia they do a nice job too of bringing young people together together every year take a look at seek and focus there's a group that had a vision and now they are walking in faithfulness and they have a unshakable resolve in their ministry you got ascension press of course you got hallow you got augustine institute you got you got the st paul's center you have franciscan university St. Thomas Aquinas, you have Benedictine College down in Acheson. People come together and they demonstrate what they believe and their plans with faithfulness. So that's what I want to talk to you about, and I want to encourage you and light a flame under you to get going and not give up on what you believe that God has given you.

Maybe you're listening to the show for a reason. Imagine that. maybe God is trying to speak to you and say, look, I gave you an idea. I gave you a vision for something, but you got off Mark. You're doing your own thing. You forgot about it. And I entrusted that to you. I need you to pick it up and walk in faithfulness.

Now, when we look at this topic, I'm going to show you and explain three men who were only three of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of David. thousands of David's fighting men, his mighty men, right? And for one reason or another, right in the middle of 2nd Samuel chapter 23, David decides to highlight three guys. And he explains why they're his mighty men. And what they end up doing is pretty incredible. But I think what they did is not something that you would necessarily do today at work with your family with extended family and neighbors because these are related to warfare, but I think you can learn something from it and put it into practice in your life to develop this this unshakable resolve, this tenacity, this faithfulness in your life. At least it gives you some ideas

on how you could apply it to various areas of your life. So that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to do one of them right now. Then we're going to take a break and we'll come back with two of them. So first of all, let's read it together, shall we? And I'll put this in the show notes for you at 2 Samuel 23, 8 through 12. And this is the honor roll, if you will, of David's mighty men. These are the three. They're up for the Oscar. And it's a tie. Oscar goes to all three of these guys. Now, so these are the names of the mighty men whom David had. Josiah Bashabeth, a Tecimanite. He was chief of the three. Now, he wielded his spear against 800, whom he slew it one time.

Okay, that's number one. Look at it in a second. Next to him among the three mighty men was Eliezer, the son of Dodo, son of Ahohai. He was with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle and the men of Israel withdrew. He rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary and his hand cleaved to the sword and the Lord wrought a great victory that day. and the men returned after him only to strip the slain.

And then the next one, the third one, his name was Shama. By the way, that means God is there, present. That's what that means in Hebrew. He's Shama, the son of Aegee, the Herorite. The Philistines gathered together at Lehigh where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the men fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot, and defended it and slew the Philistines, and the Lord wrought a great victory.

There they are. Those are the three guys, and each one of them did something incredible that you're going to learn something from, and you can put it into practice in whatever it is God is given to you in your life. It could be just that vocation as a husband, a father, a wife, mother, best friend, priest, employer, employee, whatever it might be. Okay. So when we talk about developing unshakable resolve, tenacity, faithfulness,

we are keeping a firm hold of something, not easily pulled asunder. Now, the first guy, let's look at this one before we take our break, shall we? By the way, I'll give you this in the notes. You don't have to stop running here or pull over on the side of the road. I'm going to give it all to you, okay? Once again, if you want the show notes, it's Jeff Kaven's one word. it to 3377. Text it to the number 33377. So we have Josiah Bashabeth. He's the Tecmanite. And again, what does it say about him? It says that he was the chief of the three. He wielded his spear against 800, whom he slew at one time. Are you kidding me? Seriously, 800, two might be nearly impossible for me.

800. Now, what is this? Get a load of this. This guy slew 800 Philistines. Now, what kind of tenacity is this? What kind of unshakable resolve does this man have? I would say this is tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. Have you been there? Have you experienced that before? Overwhelming odds. You look at the task before you. You look at the hurdles and all the obstacles in the way and you think to yourself, This is going to be almost impossible. I don't have the resources, the time, or the strength to get through all this. Yeah, you're right. You don't. But I do know someone who does. His name is Jesus. This is tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds.

The odds of victory of 800 Philistines going up against Joshua Bashabeth. The odds are astronomical. He probably didn't even know there were 800. If you knew you'd probably quit, I know I would. If I knew, someone said, well, Jeff, today you're going to fight 800 guys. I'm going to take a nap. I'm not going into work. So I think that the thing that we have to look at here, when we look at Joshua Bashabeth,

who is tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds, is that we have to emphasize not his strength. I don't think the strength of this guy is the emphasis. But what is? It's tenacity. He got through 800 guys. Now, imagine with me, the temptation to stop after three guys. And that's a pretty good day.

Take out three Philistines. That's pretty good. We've got to remember the Philistines are good warriors. They're the ones who learned how to work with metal, iron. In fact, David had to go to them to get his sword sharpened. And so, I'd be somewhat satisfied after three. you. So what if I want to give up after three? What if I want to give up after 10? 10 is certainly more than I've ever done before and I deserve a break or at least run, right? But was there a

temptation to give up after 120? What about after 311? What about after 429 and 516? What if after 730 I'm saying, that's it, that's it. And I have no idea at 730, there's 70 more to go. this guy just didn't give up that's the kind of unshakable resolve you need to get that thing done that god has called you to and if it's to raise those kids you need that unshakable resolve put them first put jesus first serve your family to heck with your stamp collection right or your duck decoy carving get to what god has called you to do i don't want a bunch of letters on decoys now. But you know what I'm saying, and I really mean this, it's get your head on stray as to what God has called you to and develop unshakable resolve. That's how it works. I would say that if you

are at work and you feel like it's astronomical odds, I would say draw strength from this guy in his example. I've got two more for you. We're going to look at old Eliezer and Shama in just a minute. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. husband is 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. Welcome back. All we're talking about developing unshakable resolve today and we just looked at Joshua Bashabeth.

This guy, he had tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. 800 Philistines. That was quite a day. Now, the second one from the reading here, and by the way, again, the reading is 2 Samuel, 23, 8 through 12. The second guy is verses 9 and 10. That's Eliezer. And let's look at what he did again. Next to the first guy, Josabeth, right?

Josabeth Bashabeth. The next one to him is Eliezer. The son of Dodo, that might have been a hurdle right there. He was a son of Dodo, the son of a hoai. He was with David when they defied the Philistines who were gathered there for battle and the men of Israel withdrew. Did you catch that? The Philistines are gathered there for battle and the men of Israel withdrew, leaving Eleazar alone.

He's alone and everybody, I'm getting out of here, I'm getting out of dodge. And he's like, what? Don't leave me alone. They left him alone. And he rose and struck down the Philistines until, get this, his hand was weary and his hand cleaved to the sword. And the Lord wrought a great victory that day. Okay. Now, you probably have experienced this kind of fatigue before it.

This is, this is tenacity in the face of overwhelming fatigue. It is developing unshakable resolve in the face of overwhelming fatigue. But to enter the story more fully, let's just do this real quick, and you probably have done this growing up. You take your right index finger and you take your left hand and you grab that index finger and you squeeze with all of your might. And I want you to do that right now. If you are driving, do not do this. Just imagine it. so you're squeezing that that index finger you're squeezing squeezy squeeze squeeze now i want you to

squeeze just a little bit longer there squeeze don't let up don't let up at all squeeze now just let up slightly just just slightly so and get your finger out and pull your finger out but don't move that left hand now slowly i want you to try to open your hand slowly you feel it you feel it it's hard isn't it It's like it's glued. It's like it has been glued. Your hand. It is like stuck. And that must have been something that this guy, Eliezer experienced.

He fought all of those Philistines. While everybody else withdrew, he rose and struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary and his hand cleave to the sword. And the Lord wrought about a great victim. that day. Oh, but the story's not over. Look at this. And then the men returned after him only to strip the slain. Oh, oh, look at you heroes. Look at you, mighty men and women. Yeah, Eliezer did it all. You might have experienced something like this, by the way, back in school. Remember in high school when you had to divide up into a group of four for a project and you got

together and you came up with this project? And then three of them never really did a darn thing about that project and you ended up doing it all. And they returned when the grades came out and everybody got an eight. Okay, you've been there. Or you were one of the three. Now you got to go back and repent. So Eliezer fought until his hand clung to the sword. You know, Hebrews chapter 12 1 through 3 talks about considering him Jesus who endured opposition from sinful men. So you will not grow weary and lose heart. In Colossians 317, I'll put this in the notes for you. says, whatever you do in word or deed, do it all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 1031, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

Romans 8 35 through 39, nothing shall separate us from the love of God. And then Paul goes into this litany of all kinds of problems that are really geared towards separating you from God, but you're not going to do it. You're going to keep your hand on that sword. It doesn't matter if everybody else in that finance committee at church leaves you with the bag to do all the work. Doesn't matter. You're the faithful one. You're going to do it. They're going to come back for the award ceremony at the end of the year. That's okay. You know who you are, right? All right. Now the third one. Shama. It says in verse 11 next to him with Shama,

the son of Aghi, the hererite. The Philistines gathered together at Lehi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the men fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and slew the Philistines and the Lord wrought a great victory. Okay, Shama, what's Shama going to serve up here? Well, Shama, which means God is there. God is present. This is demonstrating. Well, before I tell you, go back just for a second. Did you hear what this guy's fighting about? Next to him was Shama, the son of Agi, the hererite. Philistines gathered together at Lehigh where there was a plot of ground full of not gold, not silver, not bronze, lentils. It's like a bean.

There was a plot of ground full of lentils. And the men fled from the Philistines, but not this guy, Shama. Uh-uh. He is going to take his stand in the midst of the plot of lentils in this bean field. And he's going to defend it. And he slew the Philistines, and the Lord wrought about a great victory. Are you kidding me, Shama? I can understand if it was gold or there was some kind of pearl a gray price buried in that land or something.

But are you kidding me, lentils? It was a beanfield and you fought for the beanfield? Oh, you know what this is? This is tenacity in the face of a humble or a seemingly, I should say, humble assignment. You ever felt like that? All your buddies are out there and they're getting these awards for selling all this insurance and going on trips and everything else. You got this job that doesn't yield cruises for sales, but you know you have to do this.

And you might even have a second job so that you can put your kids through Catholic school. And you feel at times like that this is such a, at least appears to be such a humble assignment and that people are out there pursuing their dreams and everything. And you're trying to make a living for your family. I know a lot of people like that, you know what? I run into them. Sometimes I go to the hockey game or I go to the Minnesota Wild or I go to a Minnesota Twins game or something.

And I'll run into someone. They'll say, hey, Jeff. And I look over at the popcorn stand or the hot dog stand, whatever it might be. And I see someone that I know. And I know they work at 3M or they know they work at Honeywell. or I know they're a teacher. What are you doing here working in the snack bar? Oh, just making extra money to get my kids into Catholic school.

Oh, wow. Well, God bless you. Wow, you're tenacious. You have unshakable resolve. Praise God. That's beautiful. James says in chapter 1 versus 2 and 4, 2 through 4, perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete,

not lacking anything. Tenacity in the face of a humble assignment. Let me just bring this down to an area where all of us, I think, can understand it. You know, I raised three daughters, and I have three grandchildren. And when I was raising my three daughters, they would come home

and they wanted to listen to certain kinds of music, and they wanted to have friends over, and they wanted to watch this movie and that and do all kinds of things. And they wanted some of the cable TV that was out there. The other kids were talking about. And I said, you know what? I'm not responsible for all those other families out there in Minnesota.

But I am responsible for this one. This is my beanfield. My family is my beanfield. My daughters are my be are my beanie babies. And I have a responsibility for what comes into this beanfield. And I am not going to let the enemy come in to this bean field. I'm not going to do it. Rock Group wants to come into my daughter's bedroom and talk for two or three hours?

Uh-uh. Not on my dime. This is the beanfield that I have been given. This is what I'll fight for. This is what I will die for. It might not be that important to you. It might not be important to anybody else who's out there trying to make a career and get awards and notoriety and a lot of money and so forth.

That's okay. I have this beanfield to defend. And maybe you feel the same way. I want to encourage you today. if you feel like this lot in life, this humble assignment in life is something that, you know, if you didn't have kids, maybe you go do something else. I want you to recognize that before you, given to you, are children created by God. They are eternal beings created in the image and likeness of God.

And of all the people in the universe, they are yours. And they ultimately belong to the Lord. And you are a steward to take care of them. Fight for that beanfield. That's what I had to do when they were growing up. And I wasn't always popular when I said this cable company will not come into my home. These boys will not come into my home. I will not have that music in this beanfield.

And I wasn't very popular for a while. I hope I'm more popular now with my kids, now that they're grown up. But I think that they would agree because now I'm seeing my grandchildren and I'm seeing my daughter fighting for them as her being. field. So I want to encourage you today. I know maybe it's been a long day for you and maybe it's been a long month. Maybe you're tired. And when you're tired, it's not the time to give up. It's a time to become more tenacious. There'll be times to rest. There will. There will be times to rest. But right now, you don't want to give up on raising those kids. You don't want to give up on

the task that God has given you. That seems like overwhelming odds. And maybe you do feel that overwhelming fatigue. Listen, Jesus will give you the strength. Wait on the Lord. You'll rise up with wings like on eagles. Pray in the spirit. Go to adoration. Fuel up.

Receive the Eucharist as much as you can. Get into the Word of God. Go and attend to the important things. Your priority is Jesus. All these other things that I've been mentioning, by the way, these are not priorities Jesus is your priority and from him

you will be successful in all these other areas if your priority is Jesus and he will strengthen you you will run and you will not fatigue and so make sure that in the midst of everything that's going on on your life right now make sure that you are tending to your soul

and that you're feeding yourself and allowing Jesus to comfort you and lead you and console you. And give him honor and glory. Give him praise. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. But the weapons of our warfare are mighty. They are spiritual. And we fight battles of demonic forces and heavenly places. So step into the game, be faithful, and pray that God will help you develop unshakable resolve. Do we pray? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, I love you so much, and I thank you. I thank you for what you have given me in life. I thank you, Lord, for my brother, my sister, and I lift them up to you right now, and I ask you to

lead and guide them and give them strength. I ask you, Lord, to draw them with your prevenient grace, that wooing grace of yours, drawing them into an intimate relationship with yourself, bring them into that place where all is good, all is peaceful, all is sound in your presence. I thank you, Lord. that you cause all things to work together for those who are called according to your purpose. Lord, may we stay on target in serving you and seeking first the kingdom of God in your righteousness. We know you'll add all these things to us. Help us, Lord, to develop and determine that one priority in life. That we all want to hear one day, well done, good and faithful, sir.

Good and faithful son, good and faithful daughter. servant of God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. I love you. God bless you. Do me a favor. Share this with someone who needs to hear it today. Maybe you know of one, two, three.

Maybe you know of a hundred people who need to hear about developing unshakable resolve. Do me a favor. Take 10 seconds and send it on. And if you got this from a friend, give them thanks for doing that. God bless you. Love you. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you.