The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Living the Good Life

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

What does it mean to live the good life? Jeff Cavins describes what it really means to live the good life and gives twelve aspects of living it. He also identifies the barriers we might face in our pursuit of the good life. Snippet from the Show A key to living the good life is to daily do the will 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 ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kavens show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is Show 256, Living the Good Life. Welcome, welcome, my friend, if this is your first time listening, I'm Jeff Kavans, and on this show, on this show, You always talk about living the life of a disciple, getting into the word of God. And, well, today we're going to talk about living the good life, the living the good life. It's a phrase that I often hear from one of my good friends. He says, he'll say, ah, this is good living. And he says it at meals and taking walks and going to ball games, this is good living.

And I thought about it a bit and wanted to share some insights on living the good life with you today. But first, I'm so excited to tell you this. I'm so excited. For two years now, we've had to cancel trips to Israel. And the big one with Father Mike is going to be in 2023, I believe. But we just had to cancel trips, but we ran into a pop-up pilgrimage. And what do we mean by that? This June, a few months from now, June 1 through 12, Emily and I are going to be going over to Israel and leading a pilgrimage and you're invited. Maybe you've been waiting to. Maybe you wanted to go over there for years and due to COVID, you just haven't been able to do it. Ah, we got a chance. And I'm so looking for this. I tell you, it'll be my 59th trip to the Holy Land. And I love it over there because every

time I go, it's like a mini pilgrimage where, it's a major pilgrimage actually, where you just can grow deeper in the Lord. And I want to share that experience. with you. We've gone with thousands of people before. And if you know any of them or you've heard people talk about our pilgrimages, you know that it's life transforming. And so I'm going to put up that information in the show notes. You can go to my website, jeffcavens.com, pilgrimages at the top. And by the way, get this. If you sign up now, $350 discount. For two of you, that's $700 bucks you save to go with us and you can also call Select International for more information 800 842 4842 but I'll put it in the show notes and also remember

coming up February 18th through the 20th Father Mike Schmitz and I will be leading a retreat online a virtual Bible in a year retreat and we still have a few seats so if you want those you can go and you can get the seats and join us for those three days we're both going to be talking sharing with you hearing testimonies learning a little bit more about Bible in a year. It's going to be good. Ah, this last week. This last week, you know, you know what I mean by when I say there's times where you have a week and it's just really busy and things don't seem to be going, you know, smoothly or I guess we call that flow. And this last week, I entered into two or three flows. I know I'm using that wrong,

but I entered into this, just this sense of, Lord, the good life, what you have given me, what you've given Emily and our family and the treasure of life, just the awesome treasure of life, to live, to breathe, to talk, to eat, to love. This is amazing, folks, and you're probably going to think like my daughter's thought of me when they were growing up and I'd be at the kitchen table and I'd start talking like this. They'd go, Dad, you're scaring us. Well, I can't help it. I'm excited about life.

And I hope you are too. I really do. And I wanted to take some time and just talk to you about life in general. What does it mean to live the good life? What's good living, right? Well, the world has already given you a script for this. And that is, great job, lots of money, influence, access to luxury. being liked and super duper health and you got the bod, right?

So that's good living for the world. But to live the good life does not mean that you are necessarily socially successful or financially successful in the world's terms. It doesn't mean that people you don't know and social media adore you, right? The good life certainly doesn't mean that you are liked. Good life does mean that you are loved rather than liked. And that's something I've been sharing with young people quite a bit lately, is that you are created for love.

Don't settle for likes. Mm-mm. Don't do it. Well, I was spending some time thinking about this and really wanted to talk to you about it. And I know that life can become complicated and busy. And after a while, you kind of lose track of what is really important and what the goal of life really is.

is. The overarching number one most important biggest deal in life is walking with God and spending the rest of eternity with God in heaven. Okay. Pause. Time out. My friend, there just isn't anything. There is nothing that even comes close to this goal. Nothing. Nothing at all comes close to this goal of living a good life here on earth and being with God in heaven forever and ever and ever. Make it your goal, right? Make that your goal in life. The overarching number one thing is to walk with God and to be with him forever. Before we talk about some of the points that make up a good life, I'd like to point out something, and that is that I have found that living the good life is not living at the edges, but at the core of who I am

and what has been given to me by the Lord and my gifts and the calling on my life, my vocation, and so forth. In other words, living the good life is not living at the extremes, which we have a tendency to do, don't we, particularly in the West. By extremes, I mean things like the extremes of materialism and consumption. Living the good life is not about yachts and wine and champagne. And I know we joke about it and say, well, it's nice to give it a try, you know, and win the old lottery. But somehow, some way, deep down inside of you, every one of us, we know that that real living and good living isn't on the extreme edges, nor is good living found for most, least, living with a philosophy of asceticism, that is, severe self-discipline and

avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons. Now, the sweet spot seems to be somewhere in the middle, right? Of course, God calls some to live an aesthetic life for a particular purpose, but for most, not so much. It's there in the middle that we find this. You could say that part of living the good life is living a life in moderation, in moderation. That puts you squarely in the middle there. Now, there's some barriers to living the good life before we get into some of the points. And for example, using the world's standards of success to measure your life can be a barrier to living what I would call the good life. It can really be a barrier. it really, really can. And this could mean, you know, standards of job success. This could mean

standards for income. This could mean social media influence or this could be what you think people think of you, right? That could be a barrier. And I'm all caught up in what people think of me. Do they want me? Am I going to be included? Am I important, right? And this could be, this barrier could be the fear of missing out, you know? Fear of missing out, FOMO. And you're missing out on something due to health or circumstances or your age, right? So, and then I think one of the biggest barriers to living the good life is the modern notion of happiness. I wrote a book called When You Suffer. And in that book, I get into a whole chapter on the meaning of happiness and mentioned the ancient question, what is the end of life? And Aristotle's answer is

happiness. Happiness is what we seek. And I think that's true. You are all looking for happiness in our lives. The meaning of the word happiness, though, it has changed since Aristotle's time. Today we define it as something wholly subjective. Happiness is a feeling, my feeling. The pre-modern writers meant that happiness, they meant that happiness was an objective. state, first of all, not merely a subjective feeling. The Greek word for happiness eudaemonia literally means good spirit, good spirit, or good soul to be happiest to be good. You do good, right? That's how you end up with a happy life. But for modern man, what gives his life meaning or her life meaning, feeling good. The ancients answer, being good is what I like. And feeling

good is not compatible with, say, suffering, but being good is. You see, you can live the good life even if you suffer. Furthermore, the most popular modern answer to the question of what it means to be good is to be kind, to not make others suffer. Now, by the standard, God is not good if he lets us suffer. But by ancient standards, God might be good even though he lets us suffer. if he does it for the sake of the greater end of happiness, perfection of life, character, and soul. Peter Crave talks about that in his book on suffering. So suffering does not refute belief in a good God to the ancient mind because a good God might well sacrifice our subjective happiness or our objective happiness. But the modern mind finds it hard to make that

distinction between the subjective happiness and objective happiness. Therefore, it finds it hard to believe in a good God who lets us suffer. Kind of a little spiritual rubics cube there. If we're going to live the good life, we have to adjust our attitudes regarding what is success and what is not success and what, if anything, the world owes us. Entitlement destroys the good life because it makes the good life dependent upon other people rather than our own decisions, our own will, our words, and our actions. All right. Let me lay the foundation here and Paul lays it in, or Peter lays this foundation. I love this. He talks about so many good things related to the good life. And I want to read this to you. Just kind of soak it in for a moment here.

It's really, really good. All right. Second Peter, one. His divine power has granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason, for this very reason, make every effort to. And this is why I love this. He's saying here, Peter's saying, that God has given you every gift, everything that you need to live a godly life. He has given this to us. It's there. You might not see it.

You might be blind to it. You might be looking at something else. But it's there, my friend. It is there. And I've lost focus before. I admit, I have, but I know that to live the good life means, and that is to get to heaven, to walk with God here on earth, to walk in his joy and the fruit of being a member of God's household. It is there. And I love what Peter says. He says, for this very reason, make every

effort to get it, supplement your faith. We're big in his supplements these days, aren't we? I mean, the breakfast this morning, Emily had three or four of them for me. Vitamin D, vitamin C, and a few other things. So we're used to taking supplements. Make every effort to supplement your faith with what? A virtue supplement? And he goes on and says, with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge supplement.

That's good. Self-control. That's a good supplement. steadfastness, another way of saying faithfulness, and godliness, godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. Those are your supplements for today, and his power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and he just has. There's no excuse, Paul says, and Peter says, supplement that with some of these things

that I just mentioned. I'll put that in the show notes for you, by the way, and if you don't get show, notes. All you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's one word to the number 3-3-777. 3-3-7-7. I'll tell you what. I'm going to take a break when I come back. I'm going to get into some of these points of what makes a good life. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Okay, here's the gut check right here because if nothing changes, nothing changes. Do you want to be holy? And do you want to be an instrument of renewal in this world? And if so, So do you believe it's possible?

Do you know what it looks like? Do you know where to begin? Because if nothing changes, nothing changes. My name is Father Mark Mary. I'm a Franciscan friar of the renewal. And I wrote a book called Habits for Holiness. And it pulls from over 800 years of Franciscan tradition, wisdom, and experience of radical and total discipleship

in the midst of the world, but in a way which begins with little steps and works not only for religion, not only for priests, but for everybody. The change you desire is possible. the conversion you desire is possible, the renewal you desire is possible, the healing you desire is possible, and it begins with little steps. So to guide you on your way and to help you make the next best step of renewal in your life, I'd invite you to pick up a copy of my book,

Habits for Holiness. God bless you. I had a feeling you'd stick around with me because if you're like me, you want to know what makes a good life. Now, Emily and I have had a few discussions about this lately, and I'll say, honey, listen to this. And I'll give her one of the points I'm going to give you here today. And I'll say, isn't that really the truth? Isn't that really what we should be focusing on in our life? Okay, aspects of the good life. And these are not necessarily in a hierarchical order, although I do have a couple at the end because it kind of fit there. But number one, I would say is pay attention to the condition of your soul.

If you're going to live the good life and you're going to experience that peace and that joy and that purpose that God has for you, well, you're going to have to pay attention to your soul. And more specifically, you're going to have to pay attention to the condition of your soul. You can't just ignore your soul and expect it somehow some way. You're just going to be happy and you're going to have that, you're going to be in that, you know, flow, as they say. It doesn't happen because the condition of our soul has a big impact on our life in general. Be honest with yourself about the condition of your soul. Develop virtue in your life. If you want to live the good life, find out what the vices are in your life that you are struggling with

and then counter those with a corresponding virtue and work on it like a project, not as a book to read and say, ah, that was a good book. Hey, that was a nice tape. Hey, did you see that show? No, work on your soul. If you want to live the good life, pay attention to the condition of your soul. Bible says it like this. It says, pay attention to your flocks, the condition of your flocks. You know what conditioned sheep are in and your flock? What about your soul? Another one, dealing with aspects of the good life that I think is really important, is to live a good life means that you daily, daily affirm and do the will of God for your life. You have to find out what is the will of God for you.

Pay attention to your vocation. If you are a woman and you're married and you have four children, guess what? living the good life is going to be walking in God's will in that situation. That's where it comes from. Not going to find it in the bottom of a bottle or in a pill. It comes from doing the will of God. Oh, what a satisfaction comes into our lives when at the end of the day we can say, I did the will of God today in my life.

And I'll tell you what, that happy meter is going to go off because that's the way we are wired. If you're married, you make that marriage a priority by doing some study, examining your heart, and making the adjustments that are necessary to live a good life. By the way, your husband will appreciate it. When you pay attention to the things that are core to you, like your vocation, you can then appreciate the good things in life like nature, leisure, family. And I think that this is an important point, to be honest with you, and that is that sometimes we say, well, the good life is walking out in the woods, you know, and smoking your pipe and having some ice tea, or whatever is good for you, you're out there. You've got leisure, nature's beautiful day and so forth.

If you don't tend to the will of God in your life, you're fooling yourself if you think that you're just going to go out and enjoy nature and leisure and the birds and the, you know, whatever. but ignore the very heart of who you are, it just doesn't work that way. But if you deal with who you are, you have a much better chance of enjoying nature, you know, in that beautiful walk around the lake. So when you pay attention to the things that are core to you, then you're going to appreciate some of these other things. The third one, to live the good life means that you deal with sin in your life so that the peace of God, which passes all understanding, can fill you and encompass

you. If you want to live the good life and you want to experience the happiness in life that God is calling you to, you must do the hard work of rolling up your sleeves, look in yourself in the mirror and saying, okay, adjustment time. Just yesterday, I brought my daughter's car into one of these like valvaline places, you know, where you go in for 30 bucks and get your oil. And I know what they're doing. He's looking through the computer and the record and so forth. And then he comes up with his iPad and he shows me, he says, Mr. Gavins, I want to show you this. You're due for a air filter change. And you are due for a, and he goes through a list of somewhere under 10,000 things that have to happen to my car. And the point, the point is, is that

he's saying if you want to get maximum out of this car there's going to be some adjustments along the way that you need to tend to and for your life in your marriage maybe you need to have something looked at you know maybe you need to adjust how you relate to one another when you come home from work whatever it might be but when you neglect sin in your life like my car They said, you've got three things here that, oh, you got a sinful car, Mr. Kamens. You got a sinful car, and you need to repent by buying $300 worth of stuff from us. That's, well, that's another story. But when you neglect sin in your life, baggage is the result.

A weighing down of the soul, a heaviness that influences and colors every other aspect of your life. you cannot live a good life when you are living many lives it's not the way you are created listen you are created to give fully to give fully to be you and your life is a gift to God an offering that does not have conflicts that's what you are called to do let's see now that is one, two, three. Okay. Is that right? Yeah. Three. And the fourth one, to live the good life, means all things in moderation. This is an important thing right here. And I think, oh, that old adage, everything in moderation. Well, it's really true, and it's actually part of the teachings of the church, is that all things are permissible, as Paul says, but not all things are advantageous. In other words, yes, it's permissible,

but it might not be the right thing for you to do here. And so a good guide is all things in moderation. You go to that Christmas party at work or, you know, your cousin's birthday party or whatever it is. Everything in moderation. That goes for eating. It goes for drinking. It goes for consumption, materialism, buying. We don't live at the edges, do we?

We know who we are. and there's nothing wrong with that. Nice glass of wine, right? If you drink wine. There's nothing wrong with, you know, going out and enjoying the ocean or anything. It's when things go out to the edge and it becomes everything in our life. And that's where we have problems. So the next one, to live the good life means that you know the difference between rich in the sense of this world

and being rich in the sense of the kingdom of God is a big, big difference there. In this world, the idea of being rich is typically something that is seen. It can be observed. You bought this. You drive that. You wear this or that. You go to that country club, whatever it might be. And it's fairly easy to kind of gauge that.

But there's a difference between that. And the riches that come in the kingdom, which typically are the internal things of joy and happiness and meaning and belonging to the church, belonging to Jesus. And so that's something that we need to do is really to know the difference between being rich in the sense of the world and being rich in the sense of the kingdom. And not get them messed up, you know, not get them messed up to where we start to really believe that if we have much, that means that we're rich. Oh, Mother Teresa pointed this out. In fact, last week I gave a talk on my show, if you've missed it. It was a graduation talk to St. Thomas Aquinas.

She nailed it. She hit it out of the park. And she talked about a poverty in the United States, but not a poverty in terms of riches, but a poverty in terms of life and relationships. Very powerful message. You can look that up. That show 255. Here's another one.

Living the good life means that you have learned to be content in all things. Wow, wow, wow, is this one important? You want to live the good life? You want good living? Okay. Then I'm going to just say it the way it is, my dear friend, you need to learn to be content in all things. Paul put it this way to the Philippians. I'll put it in the show notes for you.

He said, not that I complain of want, for I have learned in whatever. state I am to be content. That's good living. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound in any and all circumstances. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do all things in him who strengthens me. That's good living. You can live with much and you can live with the little, but you've learned the secret

to good living. And that is that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and strengthens you because you know that we don't gauge winning and losing by things, but we gain winning and losing by our relationship with God and the richness that comes out of this relationship. Okay, the next one, enjoy the good life. That's enjoying warm, affirming, trustworthy friendships. That's good living. If you've got good friends, if you've got good friends, if you're you've got good friends that you can get together with and you trust them and you share your joys and you share your sorrows and you pray together and you have each other's back and you have a common interest in the kingdom of god there will well up in that relationship a joy that will

feed you a joy that will strengthen you a joy that will affirm you that's good living that's good living how many people right now are searching for a friend searching for just a friend that's good living the next one filling your mind with truth rather than waiting in the arguments and conspiracy theories of cable news night after night oops i touched one i got i got too close there i think no you know i didn't your life is very valuable and there's so much for us to do here on earth that it doesn't make sense to soak in controversy and sin Paul even, Paul even says something about this. He said, let no one deceive you. This is from Ephesians 5, put it in the show notes, absolutely free. Let no one deceive you with empty words,

for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not associate with them, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no, we'll read this, listen to this, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness. Night after night. Your night. But instead, expose them, for it is, okay, you got to get this.

Pause. Drum roll. All right, for it is a shame even to speak of the things. things they do in secret. You want good living? Avoid that. Living the good life is making your mind up that the most important affirmation in the world that really counts is God.

And a good life is the ability to link experiences, insights together, resulting in more truth and wisdom and insight. The two things I want to share with you here at the very end are so important, and that is one, to live the good life means that you are preparing. to live a fruitful, holy, and exemplary life in old age. You have to know when the changes of life come. By changes of life, I mean your role at different stages. Your role in life in your 40s is different than your 60s, 70s, 70s, and 80s.

If you are 60, 70, 80, or 90, act like it. Now, I'm not saying act like you're tired and worn out, but act like someone who has experience and can give to the next. next generation. Stop pretending that you are 30. You're not. God doesn't need 70-year-old hipsters. He needs men and women who are 70 and have some sense of authority, prudence,

tradition, and wisdom. Very, very powerful. Now, this last one that I'm going to share with you is really, really important. And center stage when it comes to living. The good life. This last one is To live the good life means that you are preparing

for a good death. Ah, Jeff, you landed the end of the whole show on a downer. I was really with you. Really a good talk. You had to bring that. You had to bring the final act into it, didn't you? Yes, I did because part of living the good life

is preparing for the good eternal life. It really, really is. And deep down inside, I think that we know it. We don't want to talk about it. We kind of live in denial. But I have found in my own life, and I'm over 25 now, in my life I have found that

the more I focus on that good death and preparing to be with the Lord, the happier I am. The more content I am. And the more I have a sense that I'm living the good life. Hiding from death brings complexity into a family. Modern man does everything that they can do to avoid death or talk about death.

It's nearly taboo, you know, in some families. And the number of families that have made zero preparation, both spiritually and physically, is absolutely staggering. Suddenly, a family member dies and everyone looks at each other like, what do we do now? What do we do now? well living the good life means looking at death square in the eyes making sure that your soul is in a state of justice and you have helped your relatives in the process that they are going to go through when you die the time to talk about death and to prepare for death is not when you get the call from the funeral home

or the doctor what do we do what do we should have known what we were going to do right So I'm an advocate of pre-planning funerals and paying for them if possible. Not yours, I mean, I'm not going to pay for that. But you, I'm an advocate of that. You pre-plan your funeral. You say what you want to have said. You have music that you want. You want your life to make a statement to all of your family members.

You know, kind of joke at times when they say that so-and-so died surrounded by loved ones. Listen, if you are surrounded by loved ones, tell them to leave because most people die that way. Just a joke. But pre-plan, think about it. By doing so, you show the rest of the family that you are okay with dying. And you love them enough to ensure that the transition will go as smoothly as possible. That's a message of love to your relatives to be able to say, when I pass, I don't want your life going into confusion. I've taken care of this. Not only have I taken care of it physically,

but I've taken care of it spiritually. I'll see you on the other side, right? That's good living. That's really good living. And you set a precedent in your family. You give an example to your children about life in general. The last thing you want to do at the end of your life is suddenly go into absolute shock at the fact that you are dying or that you've got this disease now and you're in utter shock. This is all part of living the good life. And if we're not living the good life,

the news of imminent death is staggering, shocking. It will shake you to the core. but if you are living a good life this is part of it and this is how we end our prayers you know we say hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee right and how do we end it pray for me now and at the hour of my death amen now if you've said rosaries over the years listen you've asked for this probably thousands of times in your life you've already been looking at it. You've been looking at this for years. You've been praying about this moment because that moment is part of living the good life. All right, my friend, it's been good to talk to you today.

I had to get that off my chest. I've been thinking about this. And I, you know, I said to my wife, I said, I've got to talk to my friend about this on the show. And so I'm glad you and I could have this time together. And by the way, I do appreciate every week getting together with you. You are a good friend and you are so loved by God. And it's just a privilege to walk with you in this life. And what we can gain together and learn together is so wonderful. And I appreciate you and I'll pray for you. I would ask you to pray for me as well. And if you want to go to Israel with me in June, we'll pray together over there. So whether I see you next week or whether I see you in Israel or whether I see you at the Bible in a Year conference, which all that

information will be in the show notes, I do look forward to seeing you again. Shall we pray? name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, I love you. And I thank you, Lord, for my friend who's taken the time to spend a few minutes together. I pray, Lord, that you would really challenge them about living the good life and all the things that can go into it and all the things that I didn't even mention. Lord, life is good. You are good. Help us to navigate. Help us to share life with other people. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son. Son, in the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you, my friend. You have a fantastic week.