The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Forgive and Forgiven: Dealing with Standoffs

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Is it challenging for you to ask for forgiveness? Perhaps, it is even more difficult to offer forgiveness. Wherever you may find yourself, both are essential when it comes to healthy and loving relationships. Jeff Cavins recounts a time in his life where he struggled to admit his need for forgiveness. He shares what he learned from that experience and offers encouragement for everyone to grow in forgiveness. Snippet from the Show “Forgiveness is the restoration of freedom to oneself; it is the key held in our own hand to our own prison cell.” -St. John Paul the Great 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 383, Forgive and Forgiven, Dealing with Standoff. Welcome to the show, my friend. Just got back from France. Emily and I and, uh, Our daughter and son-in-law and the grandkids, along with about 50 other people, went to France for a pilgrimage and had just an absolutely wonderful time. We started off really looking at the life of St. John Baptiste de LaSalle. If you have ever heard of a LaSallean school, that's the founder. And we went to Normandy, which was a really, really powerful experience. and we were on Omaha Beach and then went up into the graveyard cemetery and man it's

first time I've ever been there and you hear about World War II but it was like me growing up in the 60s and 70s with Vietnam the longest war our country's ever been in for 20 years and I didn't know that much about it and I honestly didn't really understand everything about World War II, but I got a crash course in it, and it was very, very powerful. And I can see so many opportunities for families to hold unforgiveness towards, well, towards the Germans, you know, in World War II. And the alliance that was put together between Canada and England and the United States, they did an incredible job of liberating France and Europe. But I see so much hurt that could come from it. And that led me to this topic that I'm going to talk about today, which is

forgiven, forgiven dealing with standoffs. Oh, I was going to say, we also went to Lourdes, and that was powerful. We went to Lourdes, St. Therese, of the Sue, as I said, in Notre Dame, still working on that. I heard that they're going to open that by December 8th, and that's a good day to do it, right? So if you ever get a chance to go to France and look at some of the lives of the Saints in France. It's just incredible. It really, really is. But I wanted to talk to you about something that is related to the Olympics, because in 2024 now, in just a few weeks from now, we start the Paris Olympics, and the stage is being set over there. In fact, we had dinner on the same river, the very same river that goes by the Eiffel Tower, and that's the river that the opening

ceremony will be taking place on. Well, it all led me to think back to something in my life years ago during the Olympics. No, I wasn't in them. I missed them again. In fact, I have missed every single Olympics. I've missed it as far as contributing and being one of the athletes, one of the real sore spots in my life. But kidding. But it was back in the 1990s that Emily and I, well, since we we were first married, we had a tradition that when the Olympics came about, we loved watching the opening ceremony. And we would get together and we would make popcorn and get everything said. And it would be a whole evening of the opening ceremonies. And it was just an awful lot of fun. But one year, one year, it didn't go so well. And it was really because of me. And that's what I

want to talk about because what happened that evening in the opening of the Olympics was Emily and I had a basic kind of standoff, and that is where, and you probably, if you're in any relationship, boyfriend, girlfriend, married, friends, it can happen to any two people. Something happens, and the discussion stops. And it's just silence. And you're kind of waiting for the other person to do something, but they don't do it. And they're probably waiting for you to do something or say something, and you don't do or say anything. And so there is this awful time of standoff or waiting.

Have you ever experienced that? Most likely. I mean, we all think have to one degree or another. It could have been in high school. It could be between two friends. Could be boyfriend, girlfriend. It can be in a marriage, certainly. It can be amongst siblings.

Something happens there. Well, something happened that day, and I'll explain it to you. But then I'll share with you how I dealt with that. And this is an example of forgiven. When we talk about forgiveness, there's two sides to it. There is the act of forgiving somebody else, which is releasing them from obligation and not expecting them to do something to make it all better. But then there's the other side of forgiveness, which is being forgiven.

You're the one that receives it or asks for it. You ask for that release from the obligation. and you admit that you are wrong. Now, when you're dealing with one of these standoffs, somebody's got to make the first move. Somebody has to take the step forward to get this thing solved. Rarely to two people do it at the exact same moment. I've never experienced that.

Maybe you have. Let me know. Write me, The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Love to hear your story on it. So here's what happened. The day of the Olympics back in the 90s, to be honest with you, back then, I was a young pastor, I was in Ohio, and we didn't have much money. And when you don't have much money and you're living in an apartment, you can make some

bad purchases, which I did. And I had a habit of going to places like Best Buy or others, and I was really excited about buying a software package that I justified as it was good. good to use as a pastor for whatever reason. You can always justify something. I could have bought a Sherman tank and justified it, you know, but I ended up going out that day with the checkbook to one of these box stores and I bought a software package for my Mac and I honestly don't even remember what it was, but it was like a couple hundred dollars, which is money we really didn't have. And so I went out that day and I bought it, but then I was

nervous about Emily finding out that I spent some of that money that we didn't have on a software package that I really didn't need at a time that I really didn't need it. That's how it works, you know. And so I came home and I put that software package in my office by my computer, but the evidence of that poor transaction was in the checkbook because we weren't going to use credit cards because we were we were in debt by like three thousand dollars and i didn't need any more of that as smart enough to not do that but dumb enough to put it on the checkbook and so i put the checkbook on top of the refrigerator because i didn't want anything i didn't want to talk about it i didn't want anybody to find out about it and isn't that true uh that when you sin or when you

go wrong in something you typically want to hide it it's kind of like a cat in a litter box you want to hide it and you don't want anybody to see it and that's what i did that night now emily didn't know it and she didn't have any attitude of i'm going to ruin this evening by bringing finances up but typically if if i did something like that and emily asked me about it that was a true trigger back then i don't like this idea of triggers today because everybody feels like like pronouns they get to have list of 10 triggers that everybody else has to avoid. That's silly. It's like almost legislating, you know, behavior that you should have known my trigger. Well, that really was a trigger for me back then. And if Emily brought it up, I would be suspicious as to why she wanted to know because I

have a feeling she already knows and she's just going to nail me on it. And I know this sounds very earthy to you today. It's not deeply theological, but it will be in a moment. So stick with me. so we're getting everything ready checkbooks on top of the refrigerator software packages is cleverly hidden and we're getting the the hide of bed out in the living room because we're going to lay down on it sit up with our pillows and we have popcorn make some malts and watch the opening of the Olympics

so we're getting everything ready and suddenly out of the kitchen Emily says honey and I'm like yeah and she says where's the checkbook oh and at that point I felt I was nailed and I needed to cover it up and I needed to respond in some way and so I did in the most immature way I thought in my mind she must have seen it and she wants an accounting now for that extra $200 and so I'm thinking you know as we're getting ready for the opening ceremony we should not be talking about anything that could cause a problem

finance. So honey, where's the checkbook? And I responded wrong. I said, why? Now, what I'm doing is I'm responding to my own sin, my own, you know, wrong spending. Why? And then before she could say anything, I dropped the hammer. I said, you know what? Why are you talking about finances right now? And she's looking at me like, what's going on with you? And I said, no, you know what? We're going to have a nice evening with the Olympics and we're going to have a good time together and you bring up finances. She goes, but I, and I said, no, no, that's it. And I put the hide of bed back together. I put the maltz in the refrigerator and I went and sat on the couch and she's looking

to me like, what the, what happened? And I'm just standing, I'm sitting there, arms crossed stubborn. She should have, she should not have brought that up. Now this is what we do when we do something wrong. and we're afraid that other people are going to find out we shut the door or we make it their fault and that that's what happens a lot in relationships whether it's friends or marriage or or cousins or brother and sister is that in order to protect ourselves we point the finger at them as a cover for what we did and it leaves them frankly confused unless they really know you

and they can say what are you hiding what what's going on in your life that you are so up in arms about this. So I went and sat down and she's like, really? And I said, you know what? You should have known. You don't just bring up this type of thing. You don't just bring up finances. Now, I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, Jeff, boy, that was pretty immature. Well, it sure was. But I think we all do these things from time to time and we're not happy about it. And we don't want people to find out. So what do we do? Well, we get on a podcast and tell everybody. No, what we do is we just shut down. So what I want to talk to you about is what do you do at that point? What do you do when you reach this point of shutdown? And I'm going to talk about that. By the way, if you want

the show notes for this show or any other show, remember, all you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word, Jeff Kavans, and text it to the number 33777 will get you on the list. You're listening to the Jeff Kavan show. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. I want to let you about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the year and the catechism in the year. Ascension has released a new Bible and catechism app called the Ascension app. Now, here's what you get. In this app, you get the entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. Just incredible. You also get the entire text of the catechism of the Catholic Church, as long with the Catechism in a year podcast, the Bible in your podcast, and transcripts

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I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. Welcome back. We're talking about forgive and forgiven dealing with standoffs. How do you do it? How do you do it? And I left you before the break with that standoff. My wife and myself, we have a standoff, but in all fairness, she doesn't even know why. But I do. And there's really nothing that she can do about it. I'm the one that has to, I have to take the step forward to deal with this. I really do. Now, forgiveness from the side of forgiving, forgiveness is to absolve someone of any payment, to do away with a debt owed, and at the center of the definition of forgiveness is the word release. Like in Matthew 18, 21 through 35, it's a story of Peter asking how many times we should forgive a person when they have wronged us. Then Jesus tells a parable to communicate just how serious God is about it.

And you might remember that. You remember the story of the man who he owed 10,000 talents, and that is 150,000 years of wages. He was forgiven of that, and then he would not forgive a guy who owed three months wages. So as a result, he was put into prison to pay it all back. And the Lord said, my father will do the same thing to you if you don't forgive from the heart. So there is the forgiveness aspect. But one of the beautiful things about this is that we can ask for forgiveness. We can forgive, but we can also ask for forgiveness, which entails guilt, that you are guilty

of something. You know you've done something wrong. And they might not even know what you've done, but you're the one that has to bring this out. Now, the reason that I'm mentioning this today is because the Olympics are coming up. And every Olympics always reminds me of this story. But I want to ask you, is there anything going on in your life today where there is a standoff where you and your, say, sibling are not talking, a colleague at work, your marriage, your best friend, your neighbor, whatever it might be? My question to you is this, how are you going to solve it? and do you know more or are you more mature quote unquote than the one that you are engaged in the

standoff with if you are more mature you're further along in the faith or you're guilty that is that you are the reason that there is a standoff now you are the one that's responsible for taking this step and asking for forgiveness now in that story about the Olympics with Emily and myself, here's what went through my mind. Suddenly, the scripture comes to my mind from Ephesians, husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. That's what came to mind. Now, I have to conclude that's the Holy Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit speaking to me to love Emily the way Christ loved me, right? And that is to lay down my life and not to insist that I'm right, but to love her as Christ loves me with that.

agape type of love not just a friendship type of love but agape type of love the love that really cares about the person's eternal welfare so that's a very important point right here is that you are the one that has been given by Jesus the ability to forgive and ask for forgiveness and we do this with the Lord we ask for forgiveness from the Lord but it's harder for us to ask for forgiveness sometimes with other people because of this. And this is what I thought. If I say to her, this is my fault, I'm the problem. Checkbook is on top of the refrigerator.

Then she's going to be thinking, and this is the fallen nature, isn't it? She'll be thinking, well, she can do this any time and ruin an evening. No, I got to teach her a lesson. I got to show her. You know, this is so mature, I know. But I got to show her that, you know, you can't do this on the night of the Olympics. leave finances out. That's a rotten way to try to control someone, isn't it?

And that's what I thought at the time. No, I can't give in to this. And no, no. And this will ruin the night anyway, even though it's already ruined. And so I thought to myself, okay, what should I do? Well, I just need to come clean on this and say, I'm wrong. Please forgive me. I'll take back the stupid software, you know.

But I found it hard to do, to admit. that I was wrong. But the fact that I was refusing to admit that it was wrong was costing me the night. It was costing me joy, happiness, bonding, family, all of that. And if your children, if you're married and you have children and they're observing this, you talk about confusion, they don't know all the details. They just know, dad's a hard person to live with. Or mom's a hard person to live with, which I'd rather use as an analogy, of course. course. So one of the things I want to remind you of here, and that is this, the nature of God in these standoff situations, the nature of God comes into play here. God, Yahweh in the Old Testament,

his son revealed to us in the new, is different than the Greeks and the Romans and the Syrians and all the other Mediterranean people of the biblical times. One of the supreme achievements of Jewish thought is the character it described to God. Number one, God is one. Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Shmaa Israel, Adonai Elohino, Adunai Echad. The Lord is one. That is one of the supreme achievements of the Jewish thought. And that is to understand that God is one. The Greeks, the Romans, the Syrians, and most other Mediterranean people, would have said two things about their God's character. First, the gods tend to be amoral. Amoral. Second, toward man, they are predominantly indifferent. They're amoral, indifferent.

The Jews reversed the thinking of their contemporaries on both of these points. Whereas the gods of Olympus tirelessly pursued beautiful women, the God of Sinai watches over widows and orphans. While Mesopotamia's Anu and Canaan's L, God, were going there aloof ways, Yahweh was speaking the name of Abraham, lifting his people out of slavery, and in Ezekiel's vision, seeking his lonely, heart-sick exiles in Babylon. You see, God is a God of righteousness, whose loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting, and whose tender mercies are over all of his works.

And God forgives us. In Jesus Christ, God has come, laid down his life to forgive us and to bring us back into a right relationship. You could say that there was, in a sense, a standoff. I'm left in my sin. I don't know what to do. How did I get into the situation? And God comes to me, loves me, and forgives me, and releases me. Now, Jesus didn't have to ask for forgiveness, did he?

It's unlike us. but we take this idea, the supreme achievements of the Jewish thought, that God is one, and that God is not amoral or indifferent, but he's involved with us as our beloved. We're his beloved. He is the bridegroom and we're the bride, and he takes that step. That's what we're supposed to be copying. That's the way we're supposed to be living. And so there was no other answer than for me to love Emily the way Christ loved me. no other answer. All other answers would have ruined the evening, could have ruined the week, month, year, marriage. And so I'm the one that has to do something. And you got to suck it up,

you got to take a deep breath, and you got to do what is right. Even though you don't feel like it, even though you feel insecure, even though you feel vulnerable, even though you feel someone may take advantage of you, you've got to do the right thing. And so I responded that night to what the scripture says. I responded to what Paul said, to love Emily as Christ loved me. And so I sat down next door on the couch and I said, this is my fault. I am so sorry. And then I spilled the beans, went and got the software package, got the checkbook. This is my problem. I'm going to take it back and I'm so sorry

for having ruined the evening. Please forgive me. When I did that, there was a release in my heart and Emily felt better about that evening but it only came because the person me that was really responsible for the mood and standoff that evening did something about it and that's what I wanted to share with you this week is that if you're in one of those you have to ask for forgiveness if you were sinned against then you forgive but this is a very unique aspect that God gives us, the Yahweh gives us, is the ability to do this. Think about it for a moment. What would life be like if you simply could not forgive anybody? Or you couldn't receive forgiveness? I think life would be a lot shorter because I think we'd be so bound up inside

that we just couldn't live. And what if we accumulated all these hurts and we had to live with all of them as we gathered them one on top of another? It would be awful. But God, God created us in such a way that we can release people, forgive them, and we can ask to be released. We can ask to be forgiven. The fact that the evening was ruined says something about sin. It says something about going astray, and that was financially. But it can be in many other areas. If you feel the pain, then something's wrong. And if something's wrong, you've got to ask yourself, can I do anything about it? That's what I wanted to share with you. So I'm going to challenge you this week as your brother in Christ. I love you. And I am

challenging you this week. If you are experiencing any of this, do the right thing. Own up to it and simply say, this is on me. I am so sorry. This is not you. I want to take responsibility for my attitude and my actions. And I'm asking for forgiveness. I'm asking for forgiveness, please that's a simple message but it's a message that can set you free and if you're all bound up in it this week especially you know around the holiday when family gets together sometimes this comes out then walk in the truth because jesus said i am the way the truth and the life you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free let's pray name of the father son and the holy spirit amen jesus we love you so much and we thank you for showing us a better way to live lord we

to your word today this week. Help us to have the courage and the love to respond to the standoff the way you would be responding. I thank you for this and ask for the prayer of our lady. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you. Talk to you next week.