The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How to Hear God Every Day

Episode Date: June 30, 2017

God wants to speak to you every day—don't you wish you could hear him? You can. In this episode, Jeff walks you step by step through the practice of Lectio Divina, teaching you how to listen for the personal messages God wants to give you each day in Scripture.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, Episode 22, How to Hear God Every Day. 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. Well, welcome, my friend, to the show. Good to have you once again. Today's going to be a little bit different because my day was totally kind of, I guess you'd say, upset as far as my schedule goes, because I was on the way to the cabin in the woods, the deep woods of Minnesota to talk to you about something really, really important, which I'm going to do, but you know how life

happens. Suddenly, you take a detour, and today is one of those detours where I started the car up and my wife was in the garage and the car made the most unbelievable noise. and she looked at me and said, you need to do something about that. And I said, well, I got to do my show today. I want to share with the people about how to hear God every day. And she said, well, you're going to have to figure it out. So I did.

I brought the car in and I'm sitting in the parking lot right now on a curb with traffic going by, planes up ahead, wind going through, phone ringing, the whole thing. It's great. I mean, this is really where life is at right now. You can hear that right now. right now. I got a phone going off. It's all good. But I want, you know what, I wanted to share this with you. And it's going to happen from time to time where real life takes over here.

And I want to talk to you today about hearing the voice of God every day. And you know what? It can happen in the middle of a crazy schedule. Because you might find yourself, just like me today, you might find yourself thinking at the beginning of the day. It's going to be a perfect day, everything's going to go okay, and then all of a sudden there is a curveball thrown at you, and you're sitting on a curb next to a road, and it's cloudy, it looks like it might rain, and you've got responsibilities, you know, like a show here. Well, if you spend time with the Lord every morning and you do Lexio de Vina, that's what we're going to talk about, you do this four-part stage of listening for the voice of the Lord, it is amazing how

how he can speak to you. And how he speaks to you in the morning will impact your whole day, especially when you get a curveball like I did today. And I know you have too. Many of you have had curve balls in your life and you didn't expect the day to turn out the way it did, but it did. And you could use a word from the Lord. So that's what I want to get into today.

By the way, I know that many of you are on the road and you want to take notes on some of the scriptures I'm going to give you and some of the resources and so forth. And be assured, we're going to put all those in the show notes and you can find those in the show notes. I got an email from Biddy, Biddy out of Minneapolis. And she was writing and she said to me that her and her husband often listen to the show around the kitchen table or as they're doing chores around the house. They're not in the car. And that's a good point. Some of you are not in the car. You are out there and you know, you're in your kitchen. or you're in the backyard, you're mowing the lawn, you've got me in your ear, that type of thing.

Know this that all the notes are going to be waiting for you. And Marisa, my great producer, does a great job of putting all of that together. Well, let's get going, okay? So I want to talk to you about hearing the voice of God on a daily basis. Number one, this whole notion of hearing the voice of God on a daily basis. As a Catholic, is it something that you really believe in? Is it something that you experience on a daily basis? Do you actually go into everyday thinking,

not only can I talk to God, but God can talk to me? One of the basic premise, one of the basic teachings of the church is that you have been created in such a way as to hear God. You can hear God. You can speak to God, yes, but you can also hear God. And I think a lot of times we make this more complicated than it needs to be. I think oftentimes we read the scriptures and we read it in such a way that what is happening in the story could never, ever happen to us.

It's too spectacular. It's too miraculous. It's too other world, you know, and that would never happen to us. I think that one of the first things that we need to do if we want to hear the voice of God in our life, on a daily basis is we need to conclude that, number one, I can talk to God. That's called prayer. And part of prayer is God can talk to you.

But oftentimes when he speaks to us, he speaks to us in a very gentle, beautiful, a voice that we can hear. And you've got examples of this all throughout the Bible. You know, for example, in First Kings chapter 19, Versus 11 through 12, it speaks of Elijah, and it says, and he said, go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains

and broken pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. My friends, that is what I have experienced in my own life, that the Lord speaks to us in this still, small voice in such a beautiful way. Now, I want to ask you a question. Where you're at right now in your life, what you're experiencing right now in your life, in your marriage, your children, health, finance, emotions, age circumstances, whatever it might be. honestly could you use a word from the lord today i think i know what the answer is because you're

probably a lot like me and that yes i could use a word from the lord today and these cars are going by honking i could use a word from the lord today i could use a word from the lord every single day of my life you know when i used to be a a protestant pastor i um When I was a Protestant pastor, to be honest with you, it was very easy to take Catholics out of their church, out of the Catholic church and bring them into an independent church. And one of the questions that we would oftentimes ask them was, could you use a word from the Lord in your life right now? Could you use some guidance, some comfort, consolation? And the answer was inevitably, yes, yes, I could. And it was this idea that God could speak on a daily basis.

that really attracted people. And that was a powerful card to play. As people said, I need God in my daily life. And I know you do too, and I do as well. Well, I want to introduce you now to a form of prayer that you can do every day. It might take 15, 20 minutes every day, that if it's done at the beginning of the day,

which I would highly recommend, can give you an opportunity to hear his direction in your life. And what I'm going to propose to you is that as you go throughout your day, you're going to marvel at how what you heard in the morning through Scripture and through his gentle voice ministers to you in your circumstances throughout the day. And once we're done with this, I encourage you to do it,

but I also encourage you to share with me some of the results that you get in the coming weeks because I'd like to hear how it's working in your life. So before we get into the four steps of lexio divina, which are outlined in many books and articles on the web, I want to talk to you about some of the practical things that are involved in lexio divina. When we talk about lexio divina, we're talking about lexio, which means reading and divina, which means divine.

And when we put them together, we're talking about praying scripture every day and hearing God's voice for you, whether it be correction or encouragement or warning, whatever it might be. All right? So here's some of the basic tools that you're going to need before we get into the four steps. I'm going to try to make this simple for you and doable on a daily basis. Number one, you need a Bible. You've got to get a Bible. And I would encourage you to get a Bible that you can live in.

Maybe you've heard me say that before, but I truly mean it. Get a Bible that you're not afraid to mark in, make some notes, carry with you, put in your purse, put in your briefcase, in the car, on the farm, you know, in the barn, whatever it might be. But get a Bible that you can live in, that you're comfortable with. Because Lexio-Devina is about relationship, and it's about a love letter from your Heavenly Father to you for your encouragement and enlightenment. So I have an RSV Catholic edition.

I use that. It's a fairly medium-sized Bible, but I carry it with me. In fact, this one's due for a rebinding because it's starting to fall apart. I've had this one for a few years now. And I have a number of Bibles in my library that I've used that have been rebound several times, and I plan on giving those to my children in my will someday. I want them to see where God moved in my life, you know, on a daily basis. So number one, a Bible.

Number two, get yourself a little notebook. I use a Moleskine notebook. I'm going to put a picture of one in the show notes, so you know what I'm talking about. It's a little kind of a faux leather oiled, small black notebook with a rubber binder around it so that you can keep track of what God is telling you on a daily basis. And one of the things that I've recommended to people is that they use a marker, like a silver marker or a white marker. You can get them at craft stores, and you mark on the binding the year, like 2017, 2018, the year that you spent with the Lord. So as the years go by, you can go back and look at all of the conversations that you've had with God and his leading in your life.

So get a Bible, get a notebook, get a pen. Don't worry about getting the right pen. Just get a pen that works. Don't get caught up on the equipment. Get caught up on the process and the relationship. Put your money into the relationship, not the equipment, okay? And that's an important thing to remember. And then you're also going to need a place to meet with God on a regular basis.

I can't emphasize this enough. If we don't have a place, and then my next point is a time to meet with him, then we oftentimes will just fall apart and we won't do what we said we would do. We won't keep that appointment with him. For me, it's the kitchen. You know, it's a kitchen table. I like to sit at the kitchen table and sometimes down in the family room in the morning. And I would encourage you pick the place like a date.

You know, remember when you were dating maybe years ago and maybe you're dating now and you pick out a place where you're going to meet the love of your life? Well, that's what we're doing here. So, find a place, make it a place that you're going to meet regularly, and find a time. Now, for most people, most people can meet with the Lord in the morning. And everybody's schedule is a little bit different. Sometimes people are very busy in the morning, and then they get off in the early afternoon. Whatever.

Find the time that you can meet with the Lord and keep it. Keep it like an appointment. I would even encourage you to put it into your calendar, your Google calendar, or whatever calendar you happen to keep, whether it's electronic or physical, but treat it as a very important meeting. And if somebody calls up and says, can you meet at 7.30 next Thursday? And you know that 7.7 to 8 is your time with the Lord. Just tell them, no, I'm busy.

We got an appointment. We have to make it another time. Always put the Lord first. Now, fifth, number one, we've got a Bible, number two, we got a notebook, we got a pen, that's number three. We got a place and a time, number four, number five is you need some kind of plan on what you're going to pray with. What are you going to read, and what are you going to pray, and what portion of scripture are you going to listen to the Lord from? Now, there's a number of things that you can do here. One is you can take the gospel of the day, which is a great way to go through the Gospels.

Every day you can read the gospel reading and meditate on that and talk to the Lord about that and listen to his voice. Some people will take the Psalms or Proverbs or they'll take another book of the Bible and they'll go through that. There's a lot of ways to do this. It really isn't a right or wrong way when it comes to choosing Scripture, but choose a way. I like the gospel reading of the day because it keeps me in touch with the heart of the church and the life of Christ. As you look at the liturgical year in the Catholic Church, it's literally, it is literally the life of Christ laid down in a calendar. And so if you do Lexio Divina on the life of Christ, you're really putting your life as an imprint on his and learning from him and becoming more like him. And that's a good thing. That's really a good thing. Now, incidentally,

Pope John Paul II made a habit out of doing Lexio-Devina on the Gospel of John every month during his pontificate. Can you believe that? All those years, I mean, he had to have gone deep into hearing the voice of the Lord when it came to the Gospel of John. And that became, I think, a real gospel for him, as for me, Matthew, is kind of my gospel, and I really enjoy doing Lexio Divina there. Okay, so those are the basic kind of guidelines and tools. Don't get hung up on those. Let's just decide on them, and then let's get into the relationship, okay? It's just like a boyfriend, girlfriend that are thinking about marrying one another. They're not all hung up in the restaurants and the booths and the drive over and, you know, the food. They're interested in the relationship.

That's what it's all about, and that's what we want to get into here. Okay, so let's get into it. Now, when it comes to Lexio-Devina, you are going to start off, and you're going to do four things. Let's say that you decide on Psalm 23, okay? Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want a very, very popular Psalm. I might hear that siren in the background. Sounds like someone needs a leading of the Lord here. to find out who that is.

Anyway, you've got four steps in Lexio de Vina. Let me go through them real quick, and then we'll kind of go a little bit deeper after the break. Number one, you've got Lexio. Lexio is you take that portion of scripture, and you're going to read. And on the other side of the break, I'll tell you how you read it.

Number two is Meditatio, meditation. You're going to meditate on what you just read. And number three, you've got Oratio, and Oratio is where you actually pray and you begin to talk to the Lord. We'll go into that after the break. And then finally, the fourth step is contemplatio. So that is contemplation.

So you're going to read, meditate, pray, and contemplate on a very small portion of scripture. I don't recommend doing whole chapters. I don't recommend doing a lot, but pick out a few verses like the gospel reading of the day. or three or four verses out of Psalms, whatever it is that you choose. Okay, so we're going to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to go through these four steps with you

and give you a little bit of insight on how you go deeper into hearing the voice of the Lord for you on a daily basis by going through these four steps. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, and we'll be right back. The Bible is such an important part of our Catholic faith, but it's not always easy to understand. There are 73 separate books. and so many names, places, and events that sometimes we just stop trying to figure out how it all fits together.

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There's no other Catholic Bible study series like it, and you can get started on the Great Adventure today by creating your free account at ascensionpress.com. Welcome back, my friend. Good to have you again. We're talking about hearing the voice of God every day. And we need it, don't we? We need it. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I was listening to the news earlier today about what's happening in Washington, in North Korea, Russia, what's happening in

Hollywood and everything. And I thought, Lord, oh Lord, we need your voice. We need your guidance in the worst way and in the best way. And I can't think of a better way than to listen to the Lord on a daily basis using Lexio Divina. You know, this is actually a four-step discipline to hear the Lord on a daily basis. And it really will help you hear his voice. Before we get into that, I'm reminded of what the Gospel of John says in John 1 in verse 14. It says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. I think if you're like me, what you need today is you need the word to become flesh and dwell

with you, full of grace, which is the life of the Trinity, full of truth, which is the guide and the wisdom for our lives. We all need that. So Lexio-Devin is a marvelous way of seeking grace and truth. Number one, okay, let's say that you pick out your scripture. Let's say it's Psalm 23. It might be another book for you. That's okay. Yay. And number one is you're going to read. Now this is only going to take about maybe three minutes or so to read. And what you're going to do, first of all, is you're going to simply read through the text. And you're not going to try to meditate on it. You're not going to try to interpret it. You're just simply going to read through that particular text. Okay? So you're going to ask yourself in this first phase of reading. Read it. First of all, read it out loud to yourself. If you're in public,

feel free to read it quietly. But I would encourage you, if you're at home at the beginning of the day, read it out loud so you can hear the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. And ask yourself as you're reading it, what

phrase or words speak to you? In other words, as you're reading it, and you're reading that's sacred scripture, there's going to be a word, there's going to be a phrase that is going to leap off the page at you. And it's going to say, so-and-so, I'm for you today. Think of it like if you were reading a bunch of black words on white paper and suddenly one word or one phrase turned red or orange and alerted you, I'm for you. You know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Maybe that

word will come and leap off the page at you. All you're doing in the Lexio stage is reading and you are listening. What phrase speaks to you? Listen for the still small voice. And what I would encourage you to do that is to take your notebook and under that date, you write a date in that notebook, write down that word or phrase or phrases or words that speak to you. Okay? And there might be multiple words. You never know. But the word or phrase is saying basically to you, I am for you today. Now, you don't know why. You're not sure. We're going to get to that, okay? One step at a time. It would be like going and hearing Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and he's preaching and we're all standing on the shore and he goes on for a half an hour and all of a sudden you realize there was

one thing he said that really caught my heart. That's what we're talking about. Okay. Lexio. Read it through once, read it through twice, just simply write it down in your notebook. Number two, you're going to enter into the meditatio phase. And the meditatio phase is meditation. Now, let me start off right away by saying this. If you're my age, which you grew up in the 60s and 70s, your idea of meditation might be a little skewed. You might think of meditation as Maharaji and the Beatles and the Eastern meditation. Well, that is Eastern meditation, but it isn't far Eastern meditation or the Near East, I should say, with Israel. The idea of meditation in Israel had this idea of entering the story.

It wasn't, you know, emptying your mind. It was filling your mind with the content of what you were reading. praying about. And it's kind of like, it's kind of like the image is of a, in Isaiah is of a lion who kills his prey and then he haggas. That's the, you know, the word for Hebrew, or word in Hebrew for meditation is haga. And, and in Isaiah talks about how the, how the lion haggas over its prey. In other words, once the lion is, apprehended the noise that a lion makes after the lion apprehends its prey is that ha-gah it's this meditating it's this um kind of a a satisfaction but when

we come to meditation we're talking about we're talking about entering the story we're talking about using our imagination and that's something that that many of us are not used to is that God is is calling us to use our meditation and we start to enter the story whatever scripture you've chosen you begin to enter it in your in your meditation or in your imagination rather and you ask yourself what does this word mean for my life right now how do i see myself interacting with this phrase this word what would this truth look like in my life what needs to change in my life. So you actually get into it, you enter the story and see yourself there with the Lord

engaging in the truth, in the statement, and starting to personalize it. So you went from simply reading it to now you are entering it and you are meditating on it. Hagga in Hebrew. I got a kick, just a little side note. I got a kick, you know, about thinking about this when I was a a kid growing up. Marlon Perkins, Wild Kingdom, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, was on television. And I got a kick out of Marlon Perkins. He would be out there in the, you know, in the African Sahara Desert or wherever. And there would be animals behind him, lions killing gazelles. And he's selling insurance. As in the background, you see the lion consuming the gazelle and the noise that the lion made was Haga, it was just this going over it.

Kind of like a, in a modern day setting, kind of like a cow chewing the cud. A cow has, what, four stomachs, I think? And they would chew the grass, it go down to one stomach, comes up and they chew it again. It goes down to the second. Comes up, they chew it again.

Going over and over and thinking about this. That's meditatatio. Then you reach the third stage, which is Oratio. all this is in the show notes again. Oratio means pray. Isn't it funny that when we talk about praying the scriptures, we haven't been doing it yet.

It's the third stage where we begin to pray. And this is the point where there is a spontaneous exchange of honesty and thirst between you and God. I love what St. Augustine says. He said, God thirsts that you would thirsts. for Him. It is here in the third stage of Oratio in prayer that you can abandon your heart to the will of God and say, Lord, what I have been meditating on this scripture, what I feel that you are saying to me regarding the scripture, I want to do it. I want to give myself

completely to you. It's in this third stage, my friend, where you ask the Lord how your thoughts and actions should change in response to your meditation. You want to enter that. You know, Psalm 23, the Lord leads me, you know, into green pastures. If I were thinking about that in Lexio de V, I'd ask myself, what are the green pastures, Lord, in my life? Where is that place of rest that you seem to be drawing me to today? The Lord might answer me with an hour of meditation at the local church and adoration. He might say the rosary, he might say, take a walk and let me talk to you. He might say, just go find a field and lay down and let me minister to you. He could say a lot of things, but you've got to trust that he can speak to you in that still small voice and that you

don't have to walk away thinking, I'm crazy. You're not crazy. You're hungry. And you want to hear God. Communicate to the Lord if you sense that you need to repent or any plans of change in your life. That's an important thing. St. Ignatius of Loyola once said, I love this quote. He said, take Lord and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me to you, O Lord. Now I return it. All is yours. Dispose of me wholly according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, for this is enough for me. Isn't that great? Well, after you've had a time of prayer where you have really decided on what it is the Lord is saying to you for that day, you enter the fourth

stage, which is contemplatio. Now, contemplatio is to contemplate, right? And this is not so much something that you do as a place you arrive. It's like after a long day, husband and wife who've been working all day with kids, teenagers, work, all of that, they end up at a lake, sitting on a bench, overlooking a lake, holding hands, and saying nothing. They just enjoy being with each other. That's contemplatio. Let gratitude rise up in your heart as you lovingly rest in the Lord at the end of your time of prayer. All of this takes about 20 minutes. Think of the Apostle John. One of his disciples, it says in John 1323, one of the disciples whom Jesus loved was lying close to the breast of Jesus. St. Bernard of Clervaux said, the grace of contemplation

is granted only in response to a longing and insistent desire. Let me ask you, my friend. friend? Do you really, really desire to hear God? Do you really, really desire to hear him? Well, according to St. Bernard of Clairbeau, the grace, the life of contemplation is granted only in response to a longing and insistent desire. St. Teresa Vavilah said contemplative prayer is nothing else than a close sharing between friends. It means taking time frequently to be alone with him, who we know loves us. And St. John of the Cross said, learn to avoid or learn to, he says, focus on attention and loving, waiting upon God in the state of quiet.

Contemplation, he says, is nothing else but a secret, peaceful and loving infusion of God, which he admitted will set the soul on fire with the spirit of love. I love it. Let me give you an example of contemplation. Now we're going to get ready to wind this up because I know you're probably going to work or getting home or something. Or as Biddy says, dinner's going to be on the table in a little bit. But when it comes to contemplation,

one of the most natural ways that I've seen men do this is with their cars or their trucks. Just bear with me. They go on the driveway and they see this dirty truck. They look at it. They realize what needs to be cleaned up. They think about it. They actually clean it up.

And then when it's done, they sit there and they look at it so proudly. You know, they walk around and they look at it from different angles. They're not doing anything anymore. They're just enjoying the fruit of their work, their labor. They even look down the block to see if, hey, is my, A neighbor looking at my fine Ford F-100, and they just enjoy it, right? Or the mom at the end of the day that has been working so hard, you know, and she's got the kids all bathed and ready for bed and rooms cleaned up,

and she sits down in the kitchen with a cup of tea and just thinks, wow, what a day. You see, it's the contemplation at the end of the labor. it is the souls coming together in love as a result of what they have discovered together. That's what you do in Lexio Divina. Now let me give you a fifth one. Now this isn't what Guigo the Carthusian, who originally came up with these four steps mentioned,

but I'll throw it in. Operatio. Number five, it's a resolve. What are you going to do now? come up with a simple, doable plan to put your time with God into practice. What are you asking me to do, Lord? The catechism says in paragraph 142 and 143, our response is faith.

This involves both the intellect and the will, and what the church calls the obedience of faith. So I'm going to leave you with that. You've got four steps, reading, meditating, praying, contemplating, but then there's a resolve. What are you going to do with it the rest of their day? Now here's where the gold comes in. You take what you have written down in your little journal, then you go out into the world throughout the day, you start observing, you start listening for opportunities to take what you gained in Lexio de Vita in the morning,

and you put it into practice. You will be surprised, my friend, at how God prepared you for the day He can do this because he's God and he loves you and he wants to direct you and he wants to comfort you and correct you. And so go into this and at least give this 30 days. Don't give up after a couple days. Give it about 30 days. You know, people have said it takes 30 to 40 days to develop a habit. Well, this is a great habit to develop. And if you do it day after day, week, week after week and month after month and year after year,

you will have a bunch of notebooks that will represent an account of your encounter with Jesus. As I'm saying this to you right now, to be honest with you, I've got a hunger in my heart to want to go deeper. I've got a hunger in my heart to want to talk to the Lord tomorrow morning already because I'm like you, I need Jesus, I need direction, I need correction, I need consolation. And that's what this is all about. Please write me, if you will. Tell me how this show has impacted you and in the days and weeks after this show. Write me, The Jeff Kaven Show at Ascensionpress.com. The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com.

me know the fruit of your time with God. You can hear the Lord every day. Appreciate you going to iTunes and leaving comments, share this with your friends, and I look forward to talking to you next week. Let's close in prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, I thank you for my brother. I thank you for my sister. I thank you, Lord, that you created them to hear you and you put a hunger in their heart lord meet them in lexio de vina meet them in your word and speak to them in such an intimate way and a fruitful way i pray that all of our lives will change as a result of an encounter with your word pray this in jesus name amen name of the father and the son and the holy spirit my friend's been good it's been good to be out here in the parking lot

I'm talking to you in front of Applebee's and a car dealer, and I hope that the shows have some benefit to you. God bless.