The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Feeling Like You Don’t Have What it Takes?

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Do you ever feel like you don’t have what it takes to do God’s will? Today, Jeff shares some scripture verses that show God’s provision in our lives, and how he can do great things with little gestures of faith. Snippet from the Show “Jesus called you to be his disciple, and he made that decision knowing that whatever you brought to the table, he could use.” 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 ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to The Jeff Kavan Show, episode 227, feeling like you don't have what it takes? Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Hello, I'm Jeff Kavins, and thank you for joining me. Today, as we talk about feeling like you don't have what it takes. Have you ever felt that way? I have felt that way many times in my life, whether it's financially or whether it's clout or wisdom or resources. Oh, I felt like that many times. And I'm sure you have as well.

And I'd like to address that today from a Christian perspective, from a disciples perspective, which is what we talk about every week here on the Jeff Kaven show. We talk about the Bible and we talk about simplicity and we talk about discipleship and family, so many different topics. It was in the early 1980s that I left the comfort of my little home in Pella, Iowa, and I rode my motorcycle all the way to Bradenton, Florida, packed with Bibles and clothing and all kinds of things

because I was going to attend this six-week pastoral training school down in Bradenton, and I marshaled together all the money that I had and made sure Emily had money because she was going to stay behind for that period of time. It was like a desperate hunt for that formation where I could become that young pastor that I knew God wanted me to become. And I drove down to Bradenton through storms and heat and all kinds of things, and by the time I got down there, I had very little money left. I mean very little, like $20 or something like that.

And as a result of that, I was kind of forced to fast for about 40 days. And I did. It was water, and it was a baker gave me a little slice of what was called Ezekiel bread every day. And I ate that slice every day. and that's what I was sustained by it for 40 days. And it was at the end of the six-week schooling, that it was time for me to go back up to Iowa.

And I had my motorcycle there, and I packed my motorcycle. And I knew that I had, by that time, I think Emily sent me $20 in the mail, something like that. We didn't have a Venmo or anything like that back then. And I was just happy to have that $20. I thought, man, I've got to stop in Mobile Alabama on the way back. I'm going to stay overnight, hopefully I can find a cheap dive to stay in. And I was revving up my motorcycle sitting there as everybody was getting ready to drive and out

and people were packing their cars to leave. And I said, oh, God, I need help. I need help. And right as I left, a lady came over, a fellow student who didn't know about my situation at all because I didn't broadcast that. She walked up to me and she said, The Lord told me to give this to you. And she handed me an envelope.

I opened it up and there was a $100 bill. I thought, oh, Lord, oh, thank you, thank you. Now, what's interesting is that during that time at that pastoral training school, I continued to give, but it was like a dollar at a time. And now suddenly this lady gives me a check for a $100 bill, and I'm like, whoa, God, you are amazing. I had one other incident where Emily and I were really just broke. We were young in our early 20s, and I was trying everything I could to make sure that I could spend my life in ministry with the Word of God.

And we didn't have anything, and I remember one time in a service, I put my Bible down next to me in the pew. and I was praising God and worshiping God during this service. And I sat down and I opened up my Bible, and there was a $100 bill in the Bible. Now, that lady down in Bradenton wasn't with us there, but it was another sign of, God, you are so good, you always provide for me. And I so appreciate that. And that's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes here as we get together, deep in the woods, to talk about God's provision in your life, particularly when you feel like you don't have what it takes to get whatever job or whatever you're facing done.

Now, in the kingdom of God, it's interesting because the kingdom of God, first of all, let me say this. The kingdom of God and the things that we teach are not formulas for becoming great. They are not five steps to financial success programs. They're not, they're not meant for you to become the person you've always dreamed you would be. That's not, that isn't the purpose of all this. It's always Christocentric. It's always about Jesus and in his kingdom. And his kingdom is unlike anything else in the world.

It's different than Wall Street. It's different than politics. It's different than a liberal arts, you know, education or universities. It's different than Votech. The kingdom of God is amazing. It's where the last are first, the mustard seed is compared to a mountain, the current suffering is compared to glory, and when you are weak, you become strong, and the widow's might becomes the model of tremendous giving and generosity.

That's the kingdom of God. Hey, by the way, if you want the show notes, let me break here for a second. If you want the show notes, all you got to do is text my name, and that's Jeff Kavans, one word, and you can text it to 33777. And on the show notes for this program, I'll even put my website on there, jeffcavens.com, because I want to remind you that coming up this next January, that's 2022, if you're listening to this in 2030, we are going to Israel, a grand pilgrimage, and we'd love for you to join us. We have one trip that is for first-timers or for people that just want to go on a great pilgrimage and then we have a special trip in January for second timers. Those are people that

have gone before and they would like to go back to some of the popular sites, but they'd also like to investigate some of the new sites. We're going to do that in January. And then next June is the big one, Father Mike Schmitz and I will be leading a great trip to the Holy Land in June of 2020. Go to my website. You can find all that out. Okay. So we're talking about feeling like you don't have what it takes. Who hasn't been there, huh? Well, there is a tremendous story in the Bible that talks about what Jesus can do with a little. Maybe you know that story already. You can take a guess if you'd like. What is that story where Jesus can do an awful lot with very little? That is the feeding of the 5,000. And I'm going to read to you a little bit from

Matthews Gospel chapter 14, where Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish and met the needs of a lot of people. This is indicative of the kingdom of God. If you feel like that right now that you don't have what it takes to feed the crowd, well, you're at home here because this is the kingdom of God. And the way that the kingdom of God operates is different than any other institution or family or organization in the world. And the reason is is because there is a rule here, a law, if you will, and that is that little in the hands of Jesus is enough. If he has called you to something, if he has called you to raise children, if he has called you to be a teacher, a mathematician, if he has called you to be a priest, if he's called you to be a religious, then you have what it

takes now. If you will give it to Jesus, he can do amazing things with it. As you may know, I worked for six years with Mother Angelica at EWTN. I had my own show, The Life on the Rock, which I started in the mid-90s, all the way into the early 2000s. And I also, for six years, was Mother Angelica's substitute for her show on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Sometimes I did the show with her. Sometimes I did it without her. She wasn't feeling good or something. But I'll never forget the story of Mother Angelica, who she had a vision in her heart, a desire within her to cover the world with God's Word. Now, this is a little nun from Ohio and has no particular broadcasting skills, very little money. And she's part of a group of nuns in Birmingham, Alabama.

In order to raise money, she roasted peanuts at the Dalitaga. Is that what it is? Yeah, racetrack in, I think that's what they call it. Yeah. In Alabama. And that's how she made money for her ministry. And then she made fishing lures to make money for her ministry. And she wrote little small booklets. But she took what she had and she gave it to the Lord. And it was not much. And she said, Lord, this is what I have. I'm going to give it to you. Lord, I want to cover the world with your word. And so she gave it to the Lord. And what do you know? One thing developed after another, after another with her continuous giving spirit. And she ended up, as you probably know, she ended up with the largest religious television network in the world, and the largest

shortwave radio and AM FM signals to the world, and a website that's amazing. One none, little experience, no education in this area, gave what she had to the Lord, and this is the kingdom. He did amazing things with it. So what you're facing right now and your life, with the obstacles that you face, whether it be financially or whether it be task-oriented or your vocation as a mom or a dad, what I want to show you with this story in Matthew 14 is that Jesus can do amazing things with what you have. When we come back from the break, we'll get into that story. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Every one of us is made in the image of God.

We are unique, worthy of love, and called to greatness. In this world, though, we can be distracted from that truth and begin to doubt God's love is real. You see, we live in a world that tells us we are not smart, attractive, thin, or rich enough. It is easy to focus on the ways we fall short of worldly perfection and forget that we are already made perfect. We are already enough. I'm Danielle Bean. author of You Are Enough, what women of the Bible teach you about your mission and worth. You Are Enough dives into the stories of women in the Bible so that you can fully see God's plan for your life.

To order, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. All right, we're talking today about feeling like we don't have what it takes to get whatever job. That is done. We've all been there. Let me share with you a story from Matthew 14. It is the feeding of the 5,000, the multiplication of the loaves. If you ever go to Israel with me, we go there. We go to that place on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Nothing like reading this on location. In Matthew 14, it says, now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore, he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, Lord, this is a lonely place. And the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. Pause there for a second. Does that sound familiar? When we have a great task before us, let's just give it to us.

other people. Let's send them away. There's agencies for this. There's other places to eat. Other people will show them the way. Yeah. God is big. He'll do that. We have a habit of outsourcing our problems, of giving the challenge to somebody else because we have taken stock and we just don't have what it takes here. My friend, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something about the kingdom of God. So often people will say when faced with a task, these words, that's not my gift. Oh, I have heard that so much. I've even used that myself. That's not my gift. As if everything that Jesus calls me to do has to be in my wheelhouse. That's baloney. That isn't the kingdom of God. And you know why? Because doing things in the kingdom of God, being successful in the

kingdom of God, is not dependent upon your gifts or dependent upon your resources. It is dependent upon Jesus and our total reliance upon Him. This is the fun of it. This is the joy of the kingdom. This is the great adventure. I love it. So there's a was send them away they'll buy food for themselves yep and i can go on back to my dvr and watch my favorite show and then he goes on in matthew 14 and verse 16 jesus responds to them and he said they need not go away you give them something to eat and they said to him we've only got five loaves here and and two fish. And he said, bring them here to me. Now let's pause again in the story, shall we for a moment? This is powerful stuff. If you listen to this carefully, this is powerful

because when Jesus told them that we don't need to send the people away, you as my 12 disciples, you give them something to eat. The very first thing they did is they took stock and they came up with the conclusion that this is all we have. They had their five loaves and their two fish. They got it from some kid. And they brought that out. Looked at the five loaves and the two fish. Looked at the crowds.

Look back at the five loaves and the two fish. Looked at the crowds. Look back at the five loaves and two fish and said, we don't have enough. We don't have enough. And what did Jesus say? This is so beautiful. He didn't say, well, go over to Tiberius to this particular fish shop and buy a bunch of them. I'm just going to multiply money here and you go do that.

No, he didn't do it. He didn't say, well, I know of a restaurant down the road where they could go. He didn't. He said, so you've only got five loaves and two fish, A, that's for the Canadians. he said bring them here to me bring them here to me he didn't say well give that to the people then divide it up get a fine little cutting knife chop it up into thousands of little pieces and go out and give it to the people he didn't even say that what did he say he said bring the five loaves and the two fish to me pause what are you facing right now we'll talk about what to do with that

in just a minute, but get a hold of this. The direction for what you have is to Jesus. It's to Jesus. Jesus is the center of this story. He is the one who can meet the needs of the people. He is the one who can do amazing things with five loaves and two fish. Bring them to me. Bring them to me. It's kind of like someone who has $100 and they say, well, I want to, by the time I retire, I want to have I want to have $100,000. Well, what are you going to do with it? Well, you bring it to the one who knows what to do. You bring it to someone who is a financial planner, maybe.

You know, bring it to them. They'll do something with it. And in this case, Jesus says, bring the five loaves and the two fish to me. And then look what he does. He doesn't even do anything with a fish yet. He says, guys, you need to get these crowds ordered and have them sit down on the grass. Because they're standing up ready to go. He says, get the people to sit down. And another one of the tellings of the feeding of the 5,000 talks about get them ordered into

little groups. And so, in other words, set the table, get this place ready, have him sit down in the grass. And then he takes the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and he blessed. Little side note, Jesus doesn't bless. food, he blesses his blessing God. Baruchata, Adonai Elohino Melahualam, Hamotsilachim, in the Aritz. Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who causes bread to come forth from the earth. That was his blessing.

That was his bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. And he broke it then, after he blessed, he broke the loaves and the fish, and gave the loaves back to the disciples. Quite an exchange, huh? What do you have? Five loaves, two fish. Bring them to me. Bless, break, give it back. And then he gave it back to his disciples, and you know, if you read between the lines, he had to have said, all right, now go feed him. Now, pause there for a second. Can you imagine the look on the disciples' faces. As Jesus said, turn around and give it to the people. You talk about feeling stupid. You talk about feeling inadequate. And to make it worse, one of your high school sweethearts is out there in the crowd. What's she going to think about you?

What's your father-in-law going to think about you out there in the crowd? You really seriously, Lord, you want us to turn around and face the crowd? That's exactly what he wants. Putting it another way, we could say that the Lord wants you to turn around after he has done something with what you had. You gave it to him. He wants you to turn around and face the problem. He wants you to turn around and face the situation. Now, if you're going through a tough time in your life right now,

the goal of this is that you're going to come to Jesus. You're going to give Jesus what you have. He can do amazing things with it, but you're going to have to turn around at some point and face the problem. Don't run from the problem. Don't farm it out. Don't outsource it. It's your problem.

and you can get through this, even if you don't feel like you have what it takes, the truth is you have what it takes if it's in the hands of Jesus. And in this case, it was all of them together. It was their teamwork, if you will. It wasn't even one of the disciples. It was all of the disciples who were participating in this incredible happening, this miracle on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee. And so he says, it says he broke and he gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd.

Now, you know as well as I do, if they started off with a loaf, now they have less than a loaf. If they started off with a fish, they have less than a fish. But what they had, even though it was less than what they started with, they gave it away. They divested themselves of that. they gave it away and there was that moment you know that they experienced this moment where they gave it away and suddenly it hit him this is dumb this is crazy now what am i supposed to do well what you're supposed to do is what you did at the beginning you brought him to jesus now go back to jesus turn around now and look at jesus and lo and behold he's got a bakery going

he's got a bakery going and a fish shop right there right there on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee he's got a whole load of fish and a whole load of bread and he starts giving it back to them and they go out to the crowd further come back to Jesus get more go back out to the crowd come to Jesus back to the crowd back to Jesus

whoa it had to have hit them at some point man as Peter looks over at Andrew do you know what's happening I know what's happening. What's happening? We are walking in the kingdom of God. That's what's happening. Yeah, we could have sent them off to Wendy's. Yeah, we could have, we could have, we could have given them a couple bucks and go up to McDonald's. But here, they're operating in the kingdom of God. And it says in verse 20, and they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces left over. Not bad. Not bad for a day's miracle.

Not bad. And get that, they ended up with more leftovers than what they started with. And then the kicker here is verse 21. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children. So you could be looking at 15,000, 20,000 people. that were fed with five loaves and two fish. What are the critical parts of that? Of that story? The critical parts are the need of the crowd, the little that they had, giving it to Jesus, Jesus blessing it and breaking it, Jesus giving it back to them,

they turn and face the problem, they give it away, and they return to Jesus, and the cycle repeats itself until they were all fed. I love it. Now, maybe you don't feel like you have enough to be a disciple. Maybe you feel like that's not your gift. That's not your wheelhouse. That's not, that's not center lane for you. But when Jesus called you to become his disciple, he certainly did not make that decision based on your storehouses. He made that decision because he knew that whatever you brought to the table he could use and he knew that the goal of your calling was to become like him. Put that in your wheelhouse and turn it.

Maybe you don't feel like you have enough to be that father or the mother that God has called you to be. listen what you have right now is enough if you will be in constant relationship with jesus learning being transformed being faithful he will use you that's the kingdom of god it's not a university it's not a public gathering place it's not the optimist society or the lions club it is the kingdom of god and that's how he operates. Maybe you don't feel like you have enough of what it takes to be that employee or employer. Yes, you do. If it's in the hands of Jesus, with God, all things are possible. There's more than enough. There is more than enough in the midst of your pain.

there is more than enough in your suffering, in your finances, or whatever it might be. There's more than enough to face your fear, your anxiety, your emptiness. There's more than enough if you will turn and give what you have to Jesus. So what I'm going to challenge you today this week to do is to take a moment, grab a pen and paper, and take stock? What is it that you, what area is it that you don't feel like you have what it takes? Is it being a parent? Is it being an employee? Is it a task? A job at the church? A new opportunity? Take stock. What do you have? Write it down. Maybe it's four or five things that you do have right now, even though I know that's not enough. I know, I know, I know. I know.

I'd write it down, and then I would like you to take that list to church before the blessed sacrament during a holy hour, and I'd like you to take that list, just you and Jesus, and lift that list up to him and say, Lord, I am giving you what I have. Use it, Lord, to meet the need that I don't think I can. can meet. Isn't that a beautiful assignment for this week? Take stock. And I'll leave you with this verse. I love this verse from Galatian 7. It really illustrates the principle here that we're talking about in Matthew 14. I'll give you these in the show notes. Paul says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For he who sows to his own

flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. So my friend, give what you have to him. If the little that you have is in his hands, it's enough. Amen. Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my friend to you today, and I pray, Lord, that you would encourage them and show them, Lord, that what they have given to you is enough for what you have called them to. And I pray, Lord, that they'll have the courage to do it and to be faithful day in and day out. And may they experience the joy and the exhilarating enthusiasm of walking in the kingdom. I pray this in your mighty name, in the name of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit. I love you, my friend. Look forward to talking to you next week.

Thank you.