The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Late Night Christianity

Episode Date: March 29, 2018

Do you remember the first word you said this morning? What do you do right before you go to bed? Many of us are guilty of spending those last few minutes or hours of the day on social media or watching late night television. This leads to us quickly falling asleep without a second thought about the day we just lived, or a game plan for the next. In this episode, Jeff introduces a new way for you to end the day. He explains how spending those last few moments of each day in prayer can dramatically improve your relationship with others and with the Lord. Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Use the comment box below, or email Jeff at [e-mail]. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 58, late-night Christianity. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. 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. Again, welcome, welcome to the show this week. I'm glad you could join me, whether you're in the car at home, sitting on the

back porch. Maybe you're on spring break and you've gone down to Florida or Gulfport, Mississippi or somewhere and sitting around just catching up on your podcasts and the radio shows. Good to have you with me. I'm currently right now in the cabin in the deep woods of Minnesota. Got a fire going. Spring is here, but there's still a lot of snow. The lake still has ice on it. And there's deer tracks in the backyard. And I love the smell of the wood in the fireplace right now and the crackling that it makes. And I love to come here and write and I love to come here and talk to you and share some good things about discipleship and about walking with the Lord. We're going to talk about late night Christianity today. And I remember growing up, my father saying to me that

Nothing good happens after midnight. And most of what I'm going to talk about today about late night Christianity deals with before midnight. And it's going to specifically be talking. I'm going to be specifically talking about a special prayer at the end of the day that you can look back and examine your day and see how you're doing. How is your walk with the Lord going? Do you need to make some corrections? Are there some areas of growth? Are you charting the progress of your spiritual growth with the Lord?

Those are the things that we want to talk about. And I'm glad that you have joined me. I got a lot of email and good comments and a lot of show ideas, and I do appreciate that. And I got a lot of comments about last week's show called My Dinged Up Subaru and Sin. And for some reason, that connected with a number of you. And I think we all identify with the idea that our lives are marred by sin, and we wish we could go back and make everything just perfect, but we can't. But we can go to confession, and we can make it better, and we can grow from our experiences. We can grow from our life, or we can live in perpetual despair, and we don't want to do that.

We don't want to do that. So, also, hey, thank you for going to iTunes. I know a number of you have gone to iTunes and have ranked the show and you give comments on the shows. It really does help and also going to Google. And if you're a Samsung user and you're using Google as the way of aggregating these podcasts, I appreciate you making comments there as well. It's very, very helpful in the promotion of good Catholic shows. And if you think it is, I thank you for taking action on that.

Well, you know, in my life with the Lord on a daily basis, I have spoke earlier on a show about Lexio de Vina in the morning where we sit down and we read scripture and ask the Lord what he's saying to us on a daily basis. Very, very important to have that connection point every day with the Lord. But today I want to talk about the end of the day, late night Christianity. You know, in the evening in America, people have sort of a set schedule. They kind of wind down, depending on where you're at, around 9 o'clock or so, and then they get ready for the evening news oftentimes. And then after the news, they're watching one of the late-night television shows, one of the comics who gives their spiel and brings on the actors, actresses, and politicians of our day.

and we give our time to that. We don't, really, I don't. But I know a lot of people do. And we have this kind of this pattern in our life that we follow. And I know we do in America because the advertisers are paying big money to be on the late night shows. But I'm not a part of that. I'll be honest with you. I have not been a part of that for about a decade now.

And I'm not that interested, to be honest with you. And if there's something that somebody brings up and says, well, did you see that on, you know, Fallon last night or Kimmel or whatever, I might go on YouTube and look it up if it sounds interesting and useful, but I found something different to do with the end of my day, and it's called the Examine Prayer. And that's my late-night Christianity. Right before I go to bed, I have an opportunity to take a look at my day, you know, and take a look at my heart and what I did during the day and ask the Lord if there's things that I need to correct and and also to hear from the Lord the beautiful things that he's doing in my life, and I'm actually

making progress. Someone once said, they said that a life unexamined is not a life worth living. I agree partly with that. I mean, all life is worth living, but I think that your life can be so enhanced if you will examine yourself and the progress that you're making on a daily basis. I'm actually startled when I talk to people and ask them, do you have a way of closing out the day? You know, do you have a discipline where you can kind of grade your day or examine your day to see how you are doing? And the number of people who tell me that they have absolutely nothing at the end of the day,

they just watch late night television and then they go to bed. Maybe they have a snack or something. But I want to introduce to you a new pattern of examining yourself at the end of the day. and this is called the Examined Prayer. Now, I'm not making up that title. That is actually a great title. In fact, there's a great book by Father Gallagher, if you want to Google that on the Examined Prayer,

where he does a great job. And, you know, kudos to you, Father, for putting together a great book on the Examine Prayer. Now, what the Examine Prayer allows you to do is to look back and make some changes in the evening and then look forward to the next day. So what I'm going to do in this podcast is I'm going to go through the steps of the examined prayer at the end of the day.

Now, in full disclosure, this is what I do. At the end of the day, before I go to bed, I usually take a few minutes, and I go through this process of examining my day and making the adjustments that are necessary. I think that this prayer, to be honest with you, is very popular, right. now with faithful Christians is because Pope Francis is, you know, of the Ignatian bent, and this is an Ignatian prayer. It's an Ignatian prayer. And I think that the Lord is bringing this to us for such a time as this. Now, the whole issue of the examined prayer at the end of the day really follows a biblical pattern in the book of Deuteronomy. If you've studied with me

in the book of Deuteronomy, you know that Deuteronomy chapter 1 through 4 is looking back on Israel's history. Just to situate you real quickly, Moses writes the book of Deuteronomy, but he writes it from Mount Nebo, that area before Joshua, in the book of Joshua, takes Israel over into the promised land and takes Jericho, and then they're defeated at AI, and then they take the north and the south and divide up the land in the book of Joshua. But before Joshua comes across, Moses gives a history or a second law to Israel before they cross the Jordan River from the plains of Moab. So it goes like this. Deuteronomy chapter one through four is looking back. Moses is reminding Israel, the younger generation that grew up in the wilderness in the book of

numbers, he's reminding them to look back, to learn the lessons of the past. Where have you been? What has God done in your life, you know? And I like what Deuteronomy 4-9 says, keep your soul diligently, lest you forget what you have seen. And that is a great, great verse when we talk about looking back on our day. And by the way, this only takes about five to ten minutes. Honestly, it's what I spend. Maybe I'm not spending enough, if I'm not, correct me, but I'm spending five to ten minutes at the end of the day, just examining my day. Deuteronomy 4-9 once again, keep your soul diligently lest you forget what you have seen. And then it goes on in Deuteronomy 5, chapter 5 through 26, and it's in the present, faithfulness, walking with God in the

present, his expectations for them now. And you'll note, that in Deuteronomy 5 through 26, it said five plus times the phrase today, or this day. Okay? So we're looking back in chapter 1 through 4 at Israel's history. 5 through 26, we're looking at the present, and then 27 through 34 of Deuteronomy looking forward to a future with hope. Ha Tikva, the hope, Tikva. and we're looking forward to the future, the generation that's going to enter the land. Now, there is this memorial principle in the examined prayer at the end of the day.

In fact, the catechism talks about this in paragraph 1363 to 1372. And I'll put this in the show notes. By the way, time out, time out, time out. We're going to send you the notes. All you got to do is email me at the Jeff Kaven Show. That's the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Sign up. Just tell us you want the notes. We'll send them to you every week. I just remembered that. We're changing everything here. So this memorial principle, the principle can be found in the sacramental life of the church.

Think about the Eucharist, for example, the power of looking back, the power of looking back, making present in the Eucharist. looking forward with hope to the future. That's what, that's the memorial principle that we find in the sacraments. We look back, we make present, we look forward. Beautiful. Yay. Okay, so let's look at the examiner prayer. I'm going to give you the basic steps of the examine prayer here and how you can, how you can go through it. I'll give you just a, just a first step, and then we're going to take a break, and we'll come back, we'll go through the rest. The very first thing that you're going to do is you are going to prepare for this five, ten minute period at the end of the day with simply a prayer. It's just simply a prayer.

You want to quiet your mind down. And full disclosure, I said earlier, usually I'm sitting on the edge of the bed. And Emily might be getting ready, you know, in the bathroom or the kids are downstairs and they're going to bed. But I'm sitting there quiet on the edge of the bed. and I usually will just pray something like this. Lord, and I'll do the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Lord, help me to look back today to see what today was like in terms of success and following you and the areas that I fell short

and I need to make a correction in Jesus' name, amen. I mean, pretty eloquent, huh? That will not end up on a holy card, but it is my prayer. and I just try to make it real with the Lord every single night. So with that little prayer, I open up. And now the very first step of the examined prayer is called Thanksgiving or gratitude. You're going to give Thanksgiving or gratitude. Now, what I'm going to do now, I'm going to take a break.

And I'm going to come back, and then I'm going to share with you these steps of the examine prayer. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. The Great Adventure Catholic Bible Study Program is the most popular and acclaimed Catholic Bible study out there, and it has helped hundreds of thousands of people find new meaning in their lives. If you want to encounter the power of God's Word and better understand how your life fits into the story of salvation history, consider participating in a great adventure Bible study. To preview the first session of any TGA Bible study for free, create an online account at ascensionpress.com.

Well, thank you for returning. I know you're hungry for the Lord and you want to know what to do at the end of the day. Great Ignatian prayer, the examined prayer. And before the break, we were just talking about some of the background to it. But let's get on with step number one. Step number one is Thanksgiving or gratitude. The very first thing you're going to do after an opening prayer is you are going to simply review the gifts that God has given. you during that day. We're going to start off this prayer with Thanksgiving. Now, you might ask

yourself, why in the world are we starting with thanksgiving at the beginning of this prayer? It's very simple. When we start with Thanksgiving, we're going to look back on the day and we're going to be reminded of the good things, the gifts that God has given us during the day. Now, why do we do that. Well, as Father Gallagher brings out in his great book on The Examined Prayer, yes, I am promoting that. Am I getting something from it? No, I'm not. I've never met him, but I appreciate his writings. He mentions the fact that when we give God thanks at the end of the day, it gives us a connection to the gift giver. So instead of starting off with, oh, geez, it's been a tough day. Thank God that's over. Or, Lord, I can't wait till tomorrow. No, we start with, Lord, even in the midst of

difficulty, you have been so good to me. You really have. And by reviewing what God has blessed us with, we look into the rear view mirror. You know, I mentioned earlier about Deuteronomy, one through four, looking back, we're looking into the rear view mirror of his faithfulness. and it gives us confidence when looking forward. God wants us to get a glimpse of his abounding love. Now, for Ignatius, there was no sure way to grow in love of God than to consider the many blessings he gives us every day. As Father Gallagher says, the giver is present in the gifts.

Isn't that beautiful? I love that. I've never forgot that. It's one of those little gems, a piece of gold in my spiritual life. Now, scripture is the recording of God's saving work. It shows us what God has done. We want to be aware of what God has done. And it's amazing how often we forget, yet forge ahead into our tomorrow, you know?

We've got to stop, friends. We've got to stop and start giving God some credit, the good things that he's done in our life. Let me pause right there. I got my hand in the tea position. Time out, okay? Here in the northern woods cabin right now. Fire blazing, deer in the backyard, lake frozen. Time out. What has God done in your life in the last couple days? What are the gifts that he has given you in the last couple days? Let's just give him praise right now. God, you are so good. You are so good. And I praise you, Lord, for all of your provision with my health. and the good things that you've given me to have a family and provide for my family,

truly you are faithful and you are good. Amen. So that's the first step. Thanksgiving or gratitude, contemplate as love and the gifts. Number two, here's the second one. It's a simple petition. Very simple petition. It's very short. Jesus, show me what you want me to see in my day today. It's really an act of faith and hope and love all at once. And so that's it. That's a Second one, it's a simple petition. Lord, show me what you want to see, want me to see about my day. Now, step three goes into a little bit of detail here. And this is going to call for you to have turned on your little video at the beginning of the day and tape everything. Because at the end of the day, you're going to look at it. You're going to review the past.

Okay? So at night, as I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, I'm going to review the last, you know, 17, 18 hours or so. And as much as we can, we're going to review tasks, we're going to review events, conversations, our thoughts, how we spent our money, what we said to people. And we're going to ask the Lord, show me what you want me to see. Now, this next point that I'm going to bring out is so important, my friend, you have to believe that if you are going to petition the Lord at the beginning and you are going to engage him in relationship about your day, you have to trust that he is going to show you what he wants to show you. And how is he going to do it? Probably nothing greater than thoughts. Did you get that? Nothing greater than thoughts. The room is not going to shake. an airplane with a trailer behind it's not going to go over the cabin even here in the deep woods you're not going to hear voices most likely some of you might but you're going to have a thought

you're going to have a thought and as you say that maybe a conversation came up at a meeting you had at the office maybe the way you spoke to your wife or your husband maybe the way you dealt with your teenager, maybe a quick reminder of how you treated a poor person in such a marvelous way. It's both positive and it's the negative. And so you're going to review this very, you know, just take two or three minutes and review your day. And the Lord may highlight something for you. Like, for example, you know, oftentimes we don't review our day. Let me ask you this question. what is the first word that you said today? Do you even remember? Can you recall? The first meaningful conversation? As a rule, we're not very recollected. We go from one event to another and

crash at the end of the day and never give those events a second thought. Sitting down with Jesus, watching the YouTube video of your day is a marvelous exercise. And I want to ask you a question. do you think you could do that? I'd love to hear your comments. Write me at The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Think about this day, where were your victories or failures? Don't beat yourself up. That's not the, that is not the purpose of the examine prayers to beat yourself up.

It's to examine your life. We're on a journey with Christ, and he is a long side of us. So that's step three. Review the day. And you know what, I've, in fact, I've got it right in front of me here. I've got my Moleskin notebook with my average pen that costs 69 cents. And I do the Lexio-Devina exercise, and I write down what God is saying to me at the beginning of the day. And then, at the end of the day, I use the same notebook.

You can use the same notebook, too, to examine your day. And you might end up with half a page, three-quarters of a page, a whole page for every single day. but if you do it day in and day out, week in and week out, month, year in and year out, you're going to end up with quite a treasure trove of wisdom and insight and reflection on your own life. And I know, if you're listening to the show right now, that's the kind of person you are. That's the person you are. And God will meet you. So that's reviewing the past.

Now, step four. Let's review it real quick. Number one, Thanksgiving and gratitude. Number two, simple petition. Number three, review the past. Number four, repent in the present. Ask for forgiveness. Once you have gone through that YouTube video of your day with Jesus as uncomfortable as it might have been from two to four yesterday, for example, repent. Just say, Lord, you know, I blew it there. I got to repent of that. Now, there's two kinds of sin. There's venial sin which weakens your

relationship with God. And there is mortal sin, which breaks your relationship. with God. If you've got venial sin going on, you are forgiven in the Eucharist, but still it's a good thing to say, Lord, I'm going to repent of this. If you've got mortal sin going on, you need to get to confession because you are dead. Your relationship with God is broken and you need to get to confession before that last heartbeat. And that is very, very serious. So repent in the present asking for forgiveness. So, for example, if you were at work earlier in the day and you knew that some of your comments toward a colleague were uncharitable, this is the time at the end of the day to say, Lord, forgive me. And then make a note about tomorrow in what you're going to do. And that's

the next step, actually, is that you're actually going to do something about it. If there are positive points where you are reminded by the Lord, well done, good and faithful servant, then acknowledge it. You did a good job. Yay. Okay. Now, I wrote on my Twitter feed a couple days ago. A few days ago, I said, you know, the first thing I want to hear after my last breath is well done, good and faithful servant. By the way, join me on Twitter. Every day, I'm trying to put out something that will make a difference in our lives, starting with my own life, obviously, but I hope it over spills into your life. My Twitter handles just Jeff Kavens, and I'd love to, love to meet you there as well. So that's the reviewing of the past, and then repenting in the present. Number four,

number five, the very last step is renewal, looking to the future. That's basically what we were talking about earlier when we were talking about Deuteronomy 27 through 34. It's looking to the future. And that's the optimistic aspect of it. Before you go, to bed, you've got a game plan, you've got some ideas and what you're going to do differently tomorrow. And you take everything Jesus showed you and you use it to make concrete intentions to think and to act and to speak differently tomorrow, looking to the future. What a beautiful way to go to bed, huh? To be able to look back, talk to the Lord about where you're at, where you're going to go tomorrow. It's not much time. And it's for the investment at the end of the

day. It yields dividends that you will not find on Dr. Phil, Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Oz, or Rush. You won't find those dividends, but you will with the Lord because he wants you to grow more than you want to grow. But if you make the effort at the end of the day to spend that time with the Lord, trust me, believe me, it will make such a difference in your life. This is show 58, and I can tell you that as we look back over the last 50, 58 shows. There are so many wonderful gifts that God has given us and tools to grow in our faith that even if you only came as far as 58, what we've been sharing will change your life because it's rooted in Christ and rooted in the disciplines of being a disciple. And I hope you

pick this one up. And I really would like to hear from you. Could you write me? The Jeff Kavan Show at ascensionpress.com. Not only about this show, but any show. show in the past if it has really touched your life in some way. And I do encourage you to go to iTunes and Google and rate the show and also make comments because it helps in the algorithms. And there might be right now, there might be someone sitting in Wyoming, Gillette, Wyoming, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, California, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Miami, Florida, Paducah, Kentucky, Des Moines, Iowa. Madison, Wisconsin, Bismarck, North Dakota, that right now doesn't know that what they're going

to search for in a month from now came up in their search results because four or five of you ranked the show and they needed to hear something from the Lord. That's where we're partners, just saying. Well, coming to you from the log cabin in the deep woods of Minnesota right now with spring starting to warm up and the fire going on. I love that smell. I got to tell you. And the crackling of the fire, spending a little time with you today talking about all things, discipleship and growing in the Lord.

I want you to know, I appreciate you spending some time with me here, and I want to close in prayer, and I want to lift up your needs and your life to the Lord right now. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friend who spent this time with me today in the car, at home, spring break, at a coffee shop. I thank you, Lord, for them, and I lift up their needs and their life to you right now, and I ask you, Lord, to meet them in such an intimate way and show them who you are, but who they are as well, and the great plan of sheer goodness that you have for them.

I pray, Lord, that they will grow in wisdom and stature, just like you did 2,000 years ago here on earth. To you be all the glory, Lord. We love you. We praise you. We give you complete credit for all of our life. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you, my friend. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you.