The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Do You Have a Plan for Living? (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Without a plan for life, we often chase superficial things that don't fulfill our hearts. Jeff expands on his previous episode about having a plan for life, contrasting material pursuits with meaningful experiences and habits. Jeff offers us nine worthwhile experiences rooted in our relationship with God, family, and community that will truly fill our hearts. Please consider supporting this podcast and Ascension’s free media by visiting ascensionpress.com/support. Snippet from the Show Meaningful experiences outrank things. 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!

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 424. Do you have a plan for living? Part 2. Welcome back. Well, I'm wondering if you are back because I didn't complete the first part of this study. Do you have a plan? plan for living part one or you're brand new to the show either way welcome i'm jeff kavens and we're talking today about having a plan for living i'll do a little recap on last week's show and then i want to talk about having a plan for life for living but distinguishing between material things and purchasing things as a means of satisfaction and experiences because there is a big difference and there's there's even some studies out that demonstrate the difference and i want to share

those with you and then tie this into our relationship with the lord and the plan that god has given us he has given us such an amazing plan and i want to share that with you hey before we get going i just want to invite you to be a part of the ongoing of the great shows at ascension press i know from talking to you know, all my friends around the country as I'm out speaking and perhaps you and I have spoke about what you are getting out of Ascension Presents shows in terms of learning how to live and how to deal with issues in your life and how to build a beautiful, holy family, so many wonderful things. Well, there's people behind the scenes that are working hard to make all of this happen. Not only do you have the teachers and the speakers and the singers and the, you know, the discussions

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and be a part of the team. On behalf of Ascension, I want to thank you. Thank you for your participation. Okay, hey, by the way, if you want show notes on this show or any of the other shows that I'm doing, all you have to do is text my name, Jeff, Kavans to the number 3377. That's 3377. Well, in our last episode, I was talking about having a plan for your life and how important that really is to have a plan for your life. And I wanted to start off

today by taking a look, by taking a look at the very first paragraph in the Catechism. And by the way, if you don't have a catechism, Ascension has the new catechism. It's the same catechism of the Catholic Church, identical, but it's packaged differently, a beautiful white cover. It's color-coded by the four pillars of the catechism, and there's some more helps that are included that I think you're going to find intriguing. And so if you don't have a copy of the catechism, we'll put it in the show notes, get yourself one, and you might want to get one for your family. Anybody who's coming into the church at the Easter Vigil, wow, this would be great. It would be a great gift.

Well, anyway, at the beginning of the catechism in the very first paragraph, it says, God infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. So right off the bat, my friend, please know this. God has a plan of sheer goodness for you, but we can't access that plan unless we know God, unless we know Jesus. And so paragraph one of the catechism goes on and says, for this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.

And he calls together all men scattered and divided by sin into the use. of his family, the church, who accomplished this when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son as Redeemer and Savior. In his son and through him, he invites men to become in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children, and thus heirs of his blessed life. Isn't that beautiful? Well, you know, as we are living our lives day to day, we can get pretty distracted, Don't you think? Pretty distracted with all that's on TV and 24-7 news and sports and entertainment. And we can go anywhere in the world on the internet. And with your credit card, you can pretty much buy anything you want pretty quickly.

Amazon same day delivery, that's not an ad for them. It's a reality for you. And one that we have to really guard against. Now, on the last show, do you have a plan for living? I ended with a quote by Samuel John. Johnson that I want to repeat because I just think it's one of the all-time best quotes in my life at least. And I hope that it impacts you as well. In this quote, what he does is he talks about how the pursuit of things is often more enticing, more fulfilling, more exciting, more

exciting, more delicious than apprehending that which we are pursuing. And in the same way, the fears that we have in our life are bigger and deeper than the realization of the consequence. I think that's true, too. So both in the pursuit of possessions and the avoidance of those things that will be fearful, it's greatly exaggerated. So listen to what he says here. He says, it is generally allowed that no man ever found the happiness of possession proportionate to that expectation which incited his desire and invigorated his pursuit.

Nor has any man found the evils of life so formidable in reality as they were described to him by his own imagination. Every species of distress brings with it some peculiar supports, some unforeseen means of resisting, or powers of enduring. let me say that last line again every species of distress brings with it some peculiar supports some unforeseen means of resisting or powers of enduring excellent quote i'm going to put it in the show notes for you so i think that's a very very important thing you have to ask yourself the question today when it comes to do you have a plan for living that big question you have to ask yourself, is your life more about pursuing things than apprehending the good, the true, the

beautiful, the lovely, the holy? Or is your life really about pursuing things? Or pursuing what you hope to have in a relationship with your boss or whatever, or whoever? And that's an important question because in talking to people, and you do have to remember, I was a pastor for 12 years before coming back into the Catholic Church, I know a little bit about human nature, and that is that, and I'll speak for men on this, but I'm sure that there's a lot of women who would concur, that their life, if they really look at it on a weekly basis, really is about pursuing something. Maybe it's saving money for something or shopping or whatever it might be. Now, the studies that are out, as I said at the beginning, do show us that that's not where it's at,

is this pursuit of affluence or the pursuit of things or the apprehending of stuff. And I see simple living as choosing to live a life that values experiences over stuff. And I think you would probably at least say on paper that, yeah, the experiences with my family are the most prized memories I have. they go way beyond my memories of hitting the enter key on the Amazon site for sure now there was a study Travis J. Carter and Thomas Gillivich at Cornell University called the relative relativity of material and experiential purchases material and experiential two things and they said when it comes to spending disposable income, experiential purchases tend to make people happier than material purchases.

That's interesting, isn't it? And I think from a Christian perspective, that would obviously be true. So then I have to ask the question, but why are experience is more satisfying? And then they answer that question, too. They said, we propose that the evaluation of experiences tends to be less comparative. than that of material possessions. So if you buy something materially, you have a tendency to compare it to other things.

And a lot of times that ends up feeling, you feel bad about it. But it's harder to compare experiential realities. It's hard to do that, right? Because they're unique and they're special and they're usually related to people and not things. Now, psychologist Richard Ryan and Tim Kaiser found the person suit of affluence was actually damaging psychologically and included severe depression and anxiety. Isn't that interesting? And the cause? When we pursue material things, we're told they will make our lives happier and more comfortable. And they don't. And so that means that they're going to struggle with that disappointment. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, scripture says. In trade jargon, these

items are called extrinsic values. In a series of case studies dating back to 1993, Ryan and Kayser examined the effects of pursuing money and material goods. And the findings don't reflect well on alpha types looking to make it big and spend it big. Obtaining wealth as a goal creates a lower sense of well-being and self-esteem, they said. And the symptoms aren't tied to how much or or how little money a person already has, nor are they tied to what country a person lives in or their age even. People from different income brackets in different countries and in different age groups shared a common characteristic. Everyone who pursued affluence as a goal turned in a lower mental health score. Across the board,

So then you've got to ask yourself, when are we going to wake up? That's not what life is about, right? That's not a way to plan for living. To be sure, affluence isn't destructive as an incidental benefit to the pursuit of other more fulfilling and meaningful goals. It's the pursuit of such inner goals or intrinsic values that make people experience a higher sense of vitality. and fulfillment. I'll say that again. The affluence isn't destructive as an incidental benefit to the pursuit of other more fulfilling and meaningful goals. It's the pursuit of such inner goals, not outer goals, not the buying of stuff, but the inner goals or intrinsic values as opposed to the extrinsic values of accumulating things. It's that intrinsic value. It's that intrinsic value. value. That's what makes people experience a higher sense of vitality in their life. And I would

argue on your behalf and mine that those intrinsic values come with Jesus Christ and his mission. And what he says is a priority and what is holy. Perhaps we need to change the pursuit of our hearts, right? Maybe that's part of why we're talking about this today, is that our hearts are going in the wrong direction at times, from affluence to virtue, from things to eternal happiness. This is completely counter to our culture and very, very difficult. You know, we're created by God and for God and our hearts will be restless until they rest in him. So how can our hearts rest in him?

And what do we need to change about our lives to assist the change? We'll talk about that in just a moment. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. I just want to take a minute and ask for your help. So since 2014, Ascension has been producing YouTube videos and podcasts and articles free online. In fact, every week, there are 18 different Essential Presents videos or podcasts that are offered to the world for free. And in fact, millions of people have been reached by the message of God's love. While these podcasts and while this content, these videos are.

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we are begging that you please support this ministry spiritually. Please pray for us, pray for the entire Ascension team, And ahead of time, thank you, and God bless. Welcome back talking about a plan for living, and we're really zeroing in today on this whole issue of acquiring things versus virtue. We're talking about affluence versus virtue, things versus eternal happiness, all of that. And this is really valuable stuff. So we left off with that, and I mentioned we're going to look at.

now at what decisions would you be willing to make if it meant that you would be happier, healthier, and freer, what would you be willing to do? What would you be willing to change if you could do that? Because obviously from the studies and from the testimony of our own lives, we know that pursuing money and affluence is not going to fill your heart. And the studies are showing that it has the opposite effect. It's like sin, though. You know sin's destructive. You no sin will leave you wanting. It'll leave you empty, but we do it again and again. You see, we can only get through this with the help of Jesus, and we can only plan for living with the help of the Trinity, where we serve our Father. We walk in the power of Jesus Christ,

and we live in Christ and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. So what can we do? Well, I do have a small list here of some things that I could suggest, and I'll put them in the show notes for you. number one there's so many things dealing with the outer extrinsic quote unquote extrinsic values of our life number one limit your food to healthy plant-based food accompanied by smaller portions of protein and a very balanced diet instead of junk food instead of shoveling all kinds of carbs into our mouths and it's not only going to have a bad effect in our blood but also in our emotions and and certainly weight gains. And so one of the things that we can do is really establish that my life and the happiness in my life isn't going to come simply by eating. And there is a counter to that.

It's the Eucharist that our lives really become more fulfilled when we consume the Lord. We listen to His Word. We obey His Word. We are nourished on the Eucharist. Number two, limit your need for things. Put a limit on it. Consider a simple wardrobe or simple transportation. Do you really, really need the new car? Entertainment. Do you have to be entertained every night? Do you have to see every movie that comes out?

Do you have to keep buying? And so we limit our need for things because things are not what we need. It's Jesus. It's the grace of God. It's the presence of the Lord. It's his plan. It's relationships that. really matter. It's family. It's your marriage. So number one, limit your food to healthy food.

Number two, limit your need for things. Number three, focus on moving physically throughout the day. We're such a kind of a lazy society, you know, just sitting around all day and working and then going home and sitting around all evening. Walk at least, at least 20 minutes, half an hour a day. Get seven hours of sleep if you can. Now, everyone's a little bit different there. I tend to not take a lot of sleep. So I'm up pretty early at 4.4.30 in the morning. And a lot of people are like, oh, man, I go to bed at 10. I got to sleep till 7 or 8 the next morning. I couldn't do that if my life depended on it. But get enough sleep. Get enough sleep. Number four, this is very interesting. And I would highly suggest it put a premium on being with family. Put a premium on.

being with family rather than searching the internet for something to buy. Be with them. Put the darn phone down. Spend time with them. Look at them. Talk with them. Pray with them. Love them. Hold them. Put the dang phone down. Spend time together. Set times where you're going to get together. You're going to eat together. Put the phone down. Okay, enough said. Number five, become involved in some of serving other people on a weekly basis. You know, my mom was a volunteer for several organizations, and she found great fulfillment in that.

And I think that as mom and dad, you have the responsibility to get your kids into some aspect of serving other people so they know what it feels like. So they experience it. They have something to say about it. They can compare it to other endeavors in their life and find out that loving and serving other people was actually quite satisfying because we're created for that.

Number six, Sunday, rest on Sunday. Spend the time with your family. Spend the time with your social network. I didn't say online, but your social network, your family, extended family, key friends, take walks, avoid discussion about work, money, problems. Take a rest, take a Sabbath rest. God baked that right into the entire, creative universe at the beginning because you know why because god created everything on six days

but then he rested on the seventh day now we were created on the sixth day the same day as ardvarks were created but we're not ardvarks they are ardvarks and they are created where the rest of the animals were on earth on the sixth day you were created on the six day but you weren't created for the six day. You were created for the seventh day to enter God's rest. You need that. You know you do. You know it. Because I do too. Number seven, spend at least one hour in daily prayer and meditation spiritual reading. One hour. You say, Jeff, how could I possibly do that? Oh, don't go there. Uh-uh. All we got to do is look at the TV habits at night. I'm the average family in America is watching about three to four hours every night.

Uh-uh, we're not going to go there. Spend at least an hour in prayer in meditation and spiritual reading. Keep a journal of your experience. Track your progress. You know, sooner or later, we have to decide this is serious. It's serious enough to give an hour of my day to spiritual growth and making sure that I'm physically and spiritually and mentally and emotionally fit to serve the Lord here. Instead of just consuming garbage, both physically and socially, mentally.

Number eight, spend 10 minutes a day assessing your relationships. Determine what you could do to foster peace with anyone that you are at odds with. That's a good suggestion. And number nine, stay mentally active, reading, puzzles, games, whatever you want to do. But not just in the alpha wave length of watching TV at night, but stay fresh. Exercise your brain. God gave it to you. Okay. So that's what I wanted to share with you.

I wanted to share a little bit of that with you. And I imagine I could probably go on to number three for this series, but I'm not going to. But I did want to share that with you. And that is, I'll just give this a synopsis, and that is that experiences outrank things and experiences. that are critical like family, your bride, your husband, your children, relatives, good friends. These are the top things in life, pursuing the Lord, doing what he has called us to do.

These are the important things in life. And these are the things that will bring real life and real joy and real health, happiness, satisfaction. But if you get stuck in pursuing things, all of the studies. say it's not good for you mentally physically in every way we need to be smart we need to listen we need to listen to the empirical evidence that just pursuing things in life is not the way to go pursuing affluence not the way to go no matter your age no matter your education no matter your country the results are all the same it's not desirable but jesus the word of God, the plan that he has, go back to Catechism, paragraph number one and read that again,

this is what's worth pursuing. Let's pray. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you so much. We thank you for bringing us on this great adventure and equipping us and fulfilling us. Lord, help us to make the right decisions in our life about this whole idea of plan for living. We thank you, Lord, for giving us the insight and the power to make these changes in Jesus. name, amen. I love you. I'll be praying for you. God bless.