The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How I Have Changed

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Jeff Cavins concludes his testimonial series by sharing just how much remaining in the Church has changed and shaped his life. His hunger for truth and love for Christ continues to form the man he is today, and he invites us all to learn about the 12 different facets of the Church that have kept his heart and his life grounded in the Catholic faith. Snippet from the Show You are small but essential in the family of God.  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 373, how I've changed. Welcome to the show again this week. Hey, thank you so much for your response in the last couple of weeks. talking about my journey in the faith and finding out how many of us are alike. And many of you have said, same thing happened to you. And that is so encouraging, isn't it, to know that we are all going down a road that takes us ultimately to the fullness of faith?

I've been talking for the last couple of weeks about how I left the Catholic Church and why. I left the Catholic Church years ago. And then how I came back to the church, how I became Catholic once again. Those were the first two shows, show 370 and 371, and I hope that there have some benefit to you. It might be an interesting story, but more than that, I hope that it can give you some concrete things to think about when you are talking to other people. Hey, and if you're listening to the show and you're not Catholic right now, but searching, my heart is with you, my prayers are with you. We love you, I love you, and I hope that it benefits you in some way.

today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how I've changed as a result of it because it is quite a journey when you look at it growing up Catholic and then having a born-again experience at 18 you know it's so funny because when I was 18 and I gave my life to the Lord I was so disappointed in myself you know why I was disappointed because I had waited until I was 18 and I thought man I wish I would have done this when I was 12 or 13 and I look back now and say well I'm blessed that I was 18 years old when I gave my life to the Lord. Have I made mistakes?

Oh, yeah. Have I lived a perfect life? No. Am I sinless? Give me a break. Oh, my gosh. You know, I'm just like you. I'm trying.

I'm walking with the Lord. And I got my eyes on the finish line. That's where I want to end up. And I want to end up in a state of grace walking with God, just like you do. So, well, that's what we're going to do today. And I do have show notes. If you do want the show notes, all you've got to do is type my name, Jeff Kaven. one word, Jeff Kavens, and text it to the number 33777.

I love it because it's so biblical, 3377. And we'll get you on board in perpetuity. And if for some reason you did this before and you don't have them now, so do it again. And we'll get you back on there. I apologize for that. So show 370, how I left the Catholic Church that I went through everything there. And then last week I talked about why I came back in. and what were the major theological points as to why I came back into the Catholic Church.

But I really, this whole series started with wanting to tell you this one, all about how I've changed. And far from perfect, to be sure, but there's been so many wonderful changes in my life. And I'll just start with, I'm going to give you 12, but this isn't one of them, but I'll just start with this. and that is that we had two new daughters since I came back into the Catholic Church, the idea of being open to life and immersed into a culture that is very anti-abortion, very pro-family. That did a number on me even at the very beginning, and we ended up with two more kids. And so I've got three daughters all together, and I've got three grandchildren. And I would say that my marriage has really come along.

And my love for family has just expanded so much. And that's something that really goes through all 12 of these areas that I have changed in that I want to share with you. So I was growing up Catholic, left the Catholic Church. And when I was growing up, I didn't really know my faith very well. And I went over that in show 370. I really didn't know it very well. I wish I had been taught more about the faith. But I do believe as Bishop Driscoll, the late great Bishop Driscoll of Fargo, North Dakota, said to me one time when I told him, I've had it, I'm out of here.

He looked at me and he said, you'll be back. You mark my words, young man, you'll be back and you'll be teaching your people the faith. And I said, I don't think so. And I got up, shook his hand, and left. And guess what? I'm back. He was exactly right. So what can you say?

Okay, so let's do this, shall we? Let me start by saying that I have never, ever been this happy and satisfied in my life. I'm busier than ever. Sure. There's stress, sure. Can you get a little anxious sometimes? Absolutely. But deep down inside, I've never been happier, more satisfied with the Lord than I am today as a Catholic.

And I do attribute that to this amazing church that I'm a part of in all of the teachings that go along with it all the way back to the beginning, with the apostles. So let's start with number one. Number one, the pool of knowledge and revelation has expanded dramatically for me. Since I went from a non-denominational church, I was a pastor of two of them. And my pool of knowledge and revelation has expanded from scripture alone to sacred scripture and sacred tradition and beyond, really. But when we look at our faith as Catholics, there are two sources, really, and that is the sacred scripture and the sacred tradition together. they make up the full word of God. So we're not people of the book.

We're people of the word. And I have gone from trying to capture it all, that is, the faith from just a biblical perspective, to continually discovering truths using the other tools that God has so blessed us with, like the catechism, which gives you a very good look at the traditions of the church. And when I say traditions, I'm not talking about with a small tea like we open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. But Big Tea traditions, we're talking about doctrines, dog,

and we're talking about things that don't change from the very beginning. And so for me to study any topic now is so exciting because when I study scripture and I bring the tradition that's been handed on to us from the early church, wow does it nuance it. Wow, does it fill in some spaces that really need to be filled in in order to understand the fullness of what Jesus passed on to us. And so we've got the catechism, we've got the church fathers.

That's the first few hundred years of the great leaders. We have papal documents, which are invaluable in taking a look at this revelation that's been passed on. So my faith certainly has filled in. Let me take for an example, the papacy with you just for a moment. And we talk about how it's filled in. Well, when I read, before I came back to the church, Matthew chapter 16, where Jesus is at Cesarea Philippi, and he says, who do people say the son of man is? Well, they think Jeremiah, John the Baptist, one of the prophets, John the Baptist, raised from the dead.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, four wrongs. Well, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, you are Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father, who is in heaven. I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock, I'll build my church. Well, he gives the keys then to Peter. He says, I'm going to give you the keys to the kingdom, which you bind on earth is bound in heaven, what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.

And so Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom to Peter. And then once you realize that, then you start to make sense out of Isaiah 22, which talks about the Old Testament prime minister, what was called the Alhabayet. I mentioned that in the last show as one of the reasons why I came back to the church. When you put those together, it becomes rather obvious that somebody's in charge when the king is away. That's the Pope. That's the father. That's the Papa.

That's the al-habait, the one who's over the household. And when you see it described in Isaiah 22 so specifically, and anybody that knows anything about the Catholic Church would immediately draw a correlation. and they'd say, well, wait a minute, that sounds an awful lot like Pope John Paul the 2nd or Benedict or Francis. And you're right. And that's for a reason. So once you go from there to taking a look at what the early church taught, what the catechism teaches, and what's been passed on to us, it's like, hello, there's harmony here. This is amazing. And suddenly everything comes into focus. And you just don't get that outside of the church. A lot of good things outside the church. Don't get me wrong. But you just don't get that kind of focus. You don't get that

kind of fullness. You don't have a lens on your camera that can take all that in. But with the church, you do. So that's really good. Pool of knowledge of revelation has expanded. Number two, my faith is much more incarnational now. And I'm going to put these in the notes for you, at least the headings for you. My faith is much more incarnational. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is that in our faith, we are taking into consideration not just plain spirit, as if just spirit is truth like the Stoics did, or the Epicureans, you know, in the Greek culture. What we're, what we see in the Catholic Church is that there's incarnational precedence. And that is that things matter. Things matter. The Eucharist.

changed everything for me when I realized that bread became the body of Christ, wine became the blood of Christ, and that made such a difference to me. And so even in the mass, oil, water, candles, all of this has incredible meaning. And for some reason, and I can't figure out why, other than there must be some intentional split from the church or separating from the church, there is this teaching among many non-denominational people. Now, I'm not saying this in a personal attack. These are just observations. And, hey, I was a pastor for 12 years,

so I got a little bit of cred there, you know, as far as speaking. But there is really almost this movement that says that if you really want to be in the spirit, you have to be spontaneous. And it's got to be free of any kind of constriction. Now, I don't know where people came up with that. But it certainly isn't how the world works. It's not how a family works. You don't say, I just love all of your kids.

I want you to be the super kids that I know you can be. You can do anything you want. No, you don't. There's guidelines. There is real guidelines in your family because it is a family. And in the church, there are guidelines as well. And that is really, really important. So things matters, stuff matters.

And it did in the New Testament, too. You know, it did. They had the water. And then even the clothing of some of the early disciples, people reached out and touched them and they were healed. Even their shadow brought about healing. So that's important. So if Jesus could come to us in bread and wine, well, that would open up a whole new economy for us, a whole new level of incarnational communicating of the truth. And it did.

And it did. So this is part of God coming down to our level is that matter matters and he can convey and he can communicate. through oil, through water, baptism, confirmation, beautiful. Number three, sacraments. Wow, did this change something for me? You know, as I was raised in the church, I didn't even know what sacraments were. If somebody would have asked me, I would have said, well, it's somewhere along the lines of kind of a magic thing, I guess, is that, poof, things happen.

And why? I don't know that mom wants me to go. And so I really didn't have that understanding at all. But when we look back at the church in the New Testament and we see what the disciples experienced and went through what they saw, what they touched, what they experienced in every aspect, sometimes we look back at that and say, you know, man, I would have liked that. I would have liked to been at the Jordan River with the baptism. I would have liked to have been in the upper room in the falling of the Holy Spirit and the southern steps of the temple and the day of Pentecost. and I would have loved to have been at that last supper. And, you know, the Jesus saying, this is my body and this is my blood.

So there, I wish I could have just gone to Jesus and said, Lord, I need to confess something to you. So in the sacraments, the sacraments, it comes from the word sacramentum, and it literally speaks of a mystery. And what you do in the sacraments is the sacraments, by the way, are invented by Jesus. They are given by Jesus. They allow us to meet him in those same important places where the early Christians met him, the early disciples, and you get to come in contact with Jesus, particularly emphasizing Eucharist in confession. It's you and Jesus. And the priest in confession and mass is in persona Christi. He is there in the place of Christ.

And so you are talking to Jesus and you get this immediate feeling. feedback. The sacraments are not magic. The sacraments are given by Jesus as a way for us to come into contact with Jesus and to experience Jesus just like the apostles did. Brilliant, brilliant. So water, incense, candles, bread, wine, cloth, oil, salt, all of it. Yay, everything, everything can be a part. Instead of going to church and just thinking and just saying words and hearing the word read, we get in involved with all of our senses. And that's the way life is. Number four, whoo, the family is big.

The family is big. And there are some good things about that and some things that are so good about that. At least it appears to be, you know, it's a big, big family. I remember the first time I went to St. Peter's Square, St. Peter's in Rome. Oh, my gosh. Was that a trip? I was walking throughout St. Peter's Square there, and I think I only heard a couple people speaking English. There were languages like you would not believe. I heard so many different languages, and there I was, and I used to be, I used to be a pastor.

And so when you're a pastor, you're kind of the center of a church, you know, you're doing everything. And when I came back to the Catholic Church and I went to Rome and stood in the St. Peter's there, wow, did I feel so. small, but wow, did I feel connected? There was something beautiful about being small and just belonging to this family, and that hit me. And then one time I went to Costa Rica, and I was in San Jose there, and I was speaking, and I had to make mass, and I went to mass, and of course, it was in Spanish, and I didn't know much Spanish except, you know, Kpasica or something like that. But when I went to Mass, I knew I was celebrating with all of these people, the same liturgy, same scriptures, were celebrating with those in heaven in the great Eucharistic celebration as well as all around

the world. And I, I couldn't speak Spanish, but man, was I connected. I am small but essential in the family of God. We are all moving together. And I remember in the beginning of the third millennium at the end of the 1900s. Pope John Paul II, he wrote this tremendous apostolic letter called Tertio millennio adveniente. And in it, he said this, and this was so great, he says, as the third millennium of the new era draws near, our thoughts turn spontaneously to the words of the Apostle Paul. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman. Now, you say, well, why does that excite you? Because it excites me because here is the vicar of Christ, the pope, leading God's people.

And he's standing before the beginning of the third millennium. And he says, as it draws near our thoughts turned spontaneous to the words spontaneously, to the words of the apostle Paul. He's leading the entire church. And I'll tell you, every time I covered him on EWTN, For six years, I covered him around the world, World Youth Day and various other events. And every time that I covered him, I was reminded that I'm part of a big family now. Beautiful.

Number five, I am linked with the early church. This has been a big blessing to me. I am linked with the early church. I don't feel disconnected anymore. It's not just something that I think about when I think about the early church. It's something that I experience. I experienced the same teachings the early church had. I experienced the same sacraments and I experienced the same teachings that the early church did.

Papacy, apostolic succession, the saints. I remember studying the church fathers and it was interesting because I discovered that my independent church, a non-denominational church, looked absolutely nothing like that early church I was reading. about. Now that's scary at times, you know. And I do mean that, that we look nothing like the early church, even though we called ourselves a New Testament church. And when I read about that early church, I wanted it. I wanted that church. I wanted to experience what they experienced. And then I realized there was a way. There was a way to experience. And you know, what's funny is I looked around before the Catholic Church at a bunch of other places trying to find out, is there

anybody that lives like this anymore? And every time it landed on Catholicism and I'm like, no, no, I can't go back. But you know what? My hunger for truth was greater than my stubbornness to stay out of the church my dad had put me in. And I knew, I knew as I looked around and every time that dial landed on Catholic, I knew there was something I walked away from. And I needed to walk back now. I did. All right. We're going to pick up with the next one.

And I'm going to take a break right now. And again, if you would like to communicate with me, you can email me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Appreciate all your support by liking the show and all that jazz and smashing this and that, yep. So thank you. But we'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. I want to let you know about an exciting announcement. that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the air and the catechism in the year. Ascension has released a new Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app. No, 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 your podcast and the Bible in your podcast and transcripts for each episode. If you're like, I'm tired of listening to that guy, I just want to read it. There's complete transcripts from each

and every episode. One thing that makes this app incredibly unique is that it includes special features that make connections between the Bible and the Catechism so crystal clear through color-coded references and all these links. The hyperlinks are amazing. I tried it out and I'm like, oh my gosh, it kind of has changed the way I read through the Catechism, kind of changed the way I read through the Bible. These features will help you navigate the Bible and Catechism even more seamlessly so you can get more out of your experience. Also, the app provides almost 1,000 answers to Bible questions, the people who listen to the Bible in the year, they wrote in with their questions. Almost a thousand answers. And those answers come in the form of audio clips, video clips,

as well as resources excerpted from some of Ascans' published works. If you want to download this app for free, super simple. Just go to the app store in search for Ascension app. 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, my friend, talking about how I've changed, how I've changed and oh i've changed in so many ways the pool of knowledge is bigger my faith is much more incarnational the sacraments give me front seat with jesus the family is so big so big and i'm so small but yet i'm needed and i'm linked with the early church in such such a such a dynamic way number six the deposit of faith what's that well the deposit of faith means that jesus has passed on to

the disciples. Some wrote about it. Some just passed it on orally. But he gave them the faith, the definitive article, the faith, not just go out there and keep, you know, just whatever. And maybe it'll be a Bible someday and printing press. But there was the deposit of faith. And for the first three to four hundred years, this is what held the church together was apostolic succession. And it was the church teaching what Jesus handed on. It wasn't even until 393 and 397 in the councils of Hippo and Carthage that the Bible was together. You see how important this was?

The deposit of faith. And the catechism gives us guidelines actually in approaching the scriptures, in approaching the deposit of faith. We're not out there just coming up with stuff. It's not going to happen. Can't, can't. we were given so much and that is what we have and we don't add more but we grow in what has been given to us i would encourage you to read in the catechism paragraphs 109 through 119 because there

you're going to get some real solid guidelines on interpreting scripture and you're going to get insight into the literal sense of scripture and the spiritual sense of scripture right by spiritual sense. We mean, you know, how did this relate to Jesus? How does it relate to you and how does it relate to the future? Great, great guidelines. That's the deposit of faith. That's what we have. Number seven, authority is essential. I have learned that. I have changed in my mind and my thinking and authority is essential. It is necessary. It is so needed. I can't tell you how many churches in America that go under the banner of non-denaam are splitting and splitting and splitting. And I'm not saying the Catholic Church is perfect.

Don't get me wrong. We got our own set of problems, but we're not splitting every other week or every other month. And I started seeing that in the movement there and found it quite depressing, I guess you could say, in that it didn't seem that we could agree on what the deposit of faith was, or all that was needed is someone to get a word from the Lord that you don't belong there and get enough people behind them and boom there it is you're gone you know and that happened to so many people and my heart goes out to them i pray for them so authority is essential people ask well how has the catholic church stayed alive all these years even when we were goofy ourselves

well i think one of the points is authority authority churches are splitting like crazy and who do you listen to? Do we have any connection with the early church? By what authority are you speaking? Where did you come up with that? Why should I follow you? All of that. Jesus gave his authority to the disciples with a certain dose of it, a bigger dose you could say to a Peter. And we have been that way ever since. And we're still here. Number eight, it's a big playing field. What do I mean by that? Well, I have changed in that I'm not paying just attention to the saints on earth. I'm not just paying attention to the body of Christ in front of me.

I realize now that the body of Christ is made up of those in heaven, those on earth, and those who are going through purgatory. That is a teaching. We're not going into that right now, but it is a process of this purgation, this purifying, before we step into the Lord's presence. It's biblical, it's needful, and what a favor. You know, nothing impure is going to go into the presence of the Lord, and we go through that and plenty of scripture to back that up.

But then there are those in hell, and that's something where I do not have any influence, but I can pray for those in purgatory, and I can ask for the intercession of those who have gone before me, saints who are in heaven. You know, there's this unwritten rule, and I don't know where it came from among non-denominational churches, and that is that the game is as big, and the playing field is as big as this earth and what's happening here. But not so, according to Scripture. Not so, according to the teachings of the early church. We still have a relationship with those who have

gone before us, the saints. We're still a family. There's nothing in the Bible that would ever, ever say that we are not a family anymore. And if you're a family and our loved ones and friends and super saints are perfected in heaven, well, who better to call on to pray for us? We don't worship saints. We don't worship Mary. But man, we have relationships. And that's something that has really changed in my life. Number nine, accountability for sin. Accountability for sin. I have changed in this area. And I would say, generally speaking, I take sin more seriously and that I'm accountable and that I've been given this sacrament of reconciliation to go and to actually speak them, talk to the Lord about my sin, whether it be venial sin or if you happen to be immortal sin,

you need to go to confession. But I'm able to go and talk to the Lord about those areas of my life. they're not in accord with his will. And that is so valuable. I have changed in that. I used to have kind of this independent spirit, you know, that it's me and God, and I can take care of this, and I can just say, Lord, I'm sorry. And it's all taken care of because he knows I mean it. Sometimes.

And it's not true. It's just not true. You know, it's like somebody told me, I think this has happened two or three times where people say, well, I don't need to go confess my sins to some priest. Oh, well, there again, we've got to learn about. the faith. You're not just confessing your sins to some priest. You're meeting Jesus in Prasonic Christi. You're meeting Jesus, the great high priest through this priest, and it's for your benefit. Why do we push the benefits away? Why? Why would we push away the opportunity to

ask St. Augustine and John Paul II of all people, Mother Teresa, to pray for me. Why do you push that away. Oh my gosh. I'll never go back to that. So accountability for sin. I take sin more seriously now. And the church has really helped me to define the degrees of sin, the seriousness of sin, and also the healing from it. And so yay to that. I have changed in that area. Number 10, do not feel alone at all. I do not feel alone. I don't. That's sort of a change in my life, to be honest with you. Jesus, yes, Holy Spirit, yes, but the communion of the saints is wild. And you know what I do is I've got that communion of saints are people that we can learn from and ask for prayer and then also grow from their example. And I started to develop

in my activated disciple course. I started to develop this idea of choosing saints to be in my posse and that a wise priest once told me he said when it comes to the saints don't go wide and shallow in other words don't know a couple things about all of them go narrow and deep get to know a few of them really well ride with them walk with them and that's my posse and so i've got i've got st augustine because i'm a bible teacher i got st joseph because i'm a husband and a father i've got mother teresa because i need to remember the poor i've got st francis because of simplicity and I have John Paul the second because I'm a leader and I'm facing a culture that is opposed to the gospel and he was too. I've got my posse and so I'm not alone. I'm not alone. And if you feel

alone in your life right now develop a posse, I have all five of their metals on a chain. I don't like wearing metals so much. So I put it next to my bed and sometimes I just put them in my pocket and I just don't like things around my neck. It feels like someone's choking me all day long. So, you're not alone. Number 11, being Catholic humbles you. I have experienced humiliation. Oh, yeah. I've experienced humility, I think, more in my life.

It is so much bigger than being a pastor of a local church. I cringe at some of the things I used to say, you know. And I was listening to a few tapes and look at some of my notes. I think, oh, it's so young, you know. And now that I'm reminded what Paul says. You know, Paul says when I was young, when I was a child, I talk like a child, live like a child. But now that I'm a grown-up, it's different.

And I've experienced that. I feel like I've grown up more. And yeah, and so I think there's more opportunities for humility in the Catholic Church. Because of its size, the robust body of teaching, so many moving parts that are one Wonderful. You can't be the guy for everything. You can't be the center of every project. It just doesn't happen that way. And that's good for you. That's good for me. That's really, really good. So I've also learned from people like St. Therese, that small is powerful. From Mother Teresa that Jesus comes to us in hideous disguises. Yeah. And number 12, I have have learned. This is the last one. I have learned what leadership is. I've learned more about it, I should say, about leadership. I've changed in my view of leadership by thinking about people like St. John Paul II. You know, I covered him. I think I mentioned that to you. I covered him on

EWTN for six years and my life changed radically by just being around him. My whole theology is colored by him in Pope Benedict. Years later, I met him, John Paul II, in his private library with my family. And I met the man who so inspired me and taught me more about being a leader, not only in attitude, but also in approach. And I learned that from Pope Benedict as well, as well as other great saints out there. I learned more about leadership and what it means to be a leader that lays down his life and it's not about you. Leadership is not about you. it isn't light leadership is about the sheep as jesus said in john chapter 10 i am the good shepherd he said my sheep know me they know my voice they know they and i know them by name i lay down my life for them

i die for them i'm the leader i'm the great shepherd and then he wants us to follow his example so well in short i'm definitely more satisfied with my life and my relationship with the lord I don't experience some of the anxiety that I experienced before I felt I was on my own, before when I felt like I was on my own. Saturday nights are different. I'm not just making up a sermon. I'm jumping deep into the Word of God in the church and coming out of this beautiful pool of treasure with such a blessing. I would end by likening my change to a stained glass window.

If you've gone into a beautiful church, you stand on the outside of the church and you see these wonderful big windows, and it's obvious that's a stained glass window. You can make it out that it is, but it's not real clear. It's not in focus. It's, you might get a slight idea of what's going on, but you certainly don't see it clearly, not enough light. You're not enough of the right angle. but once you walk into that church and you see the same stained glass windows from within the

church suddenly everything is bright everything is clear the communication is right on and it's yay this is amazing how beautiful and i would say that that's what my experience in the church is too maybe you would concur i'd love to hear your story i'd love to hear what you your insights are. I really would. And inside the church when you're looking out, that's when you see the color, the nuance, the clarity, the people, the acts that are taking place in those windows, the lessons learned. You didn't see them on the outside. You were maybe slightly inspired, but it was when you came in. That's when the lights went on. And that's what happened in my life when I came back to the Catholic Church. And it's nearly 30 years now that I have been back.

I have only been away from the Catholic Church for about 15 years of my life, and I'm older than that now. Anyway, so, yes, most of my life I've been Catholic, but I've been away long enough to know that what I have now is what I was longing for, and I hope that you'll find that as well. So let me pray for you, and yeah, I'd love to hear from you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my beautiful friends to you today, and I, Lord, I ask you to continue to bless them and clarify their walk with you, their faith, their experience with you, help them to mature and grow up. I pray, Lord, for my Protestant friends who may be listening.

I know where they're at. I know what they're going through. I know what they're thinking about and what they're feeling. I've been down that road. And Lord, I'm asking you to wrap your arms around them and lead them and guide them and give them a hungry heart. Give them a hungry heart. I thank you, Lord, that you're gentle and you are kind. And you will reveal yourself completely. And so I lift up my Protestant friends who might be listening. Please know, Jesus loves you. He wants to give everything to you, everything in Jesus' name.

Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful week. Thank you.