The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Obtaining Peace of Mind

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

Peace of mind is something we all struggle towards, but rarely achieve. Today, Jeff talk about why we are unable to obtain peace and gives you five practical ways to reach this elusive state of mind. For the full shownotes, including the scripture passages Jeff refers to in this episode, go to ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow and click on this episode.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 101, Obtaining Peace of Mind. 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. Welcome to the show this week. picturesque scene that I'm looking at right now.

Deep in the woods of Minnesota, it is snowing, and the trees are flocked, and there is a fresh coat of snow on the frozen lake, and it is just quiet and peaceful, and it got me thinking about the theme today, peace of mind, and I know you're looking for it. I know that you are searching for peace of mind to some degree or another. We all are, aren't we? and that's what I want to talk about today. It's kind of a funny time of year, actually, because we are now over Thanksgiving,

over Christmas, over the New Year's, and thank God we're over the Super Bowl. But we've kind of come to a place where, well, what's next? What's next? You know, well, we kind of look to the holidays. You know, we've got Valentine's Day coming up, and then we got Marty Grawe, and then we have Easter. And so we're kind of at a place where people are getting a little,

bit tired of winter. They're looking forward to spring. And maybe they even have a little of what we call deep in the woods here in Minnesota cabin fever. And we just came off of some record temperature of 28 below with 50 mile an hour below wind chill. And everybody was in their house for about three or so days. And during that time, no doubt, there was some conflict with family and television, you know. And when you're with your family, you love them, don't get me wrong, you love them. But when you're when you're stuck in the house for three or four days and you can't get out on pain of frostbite, then oftentimes, you know, people do kind of go after each other and they can't wait to get out. Well, I want to talk about peace of mind today, but before we do that, once again, a big thank

you to you. The show is doing well thanks to your rating it on iTunes, appreciate it, and Google Play, and I just so appreciate your participation, and I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. When you go and rank the show and make some comments, it does something to the algorithm and gets some of these vital topics out to people who are searching on Google, and they're really looking for some answers in their life. I got a wonderful letter from Heather. Heather wrote about my last show, which was show 100 called The Shape of Your Day. And my basic idea there was that if you want to change the shape of your day, you've got to start by changing the shape of your morning in your afternoon. and change the shape of your evening. And that's how you change the shape of your day. You don't just hope for it and pray for it. You actually change the shape of your day. And Heather writes,

she says, you are so very right, Jeff, here goes my wow, I needed that episode email. She said, I've been really feeling the pull from God to wake up early like Jesus did before the hustle of the day. And I've got four kids, four and under. Oh, you do have your hands full there. Don't you. That's amazing. Four kids, four and under. And she says, to spend time with, she says, I want to spend time with the Lord. She goes on and says, I've had countless very blatant reminders from God, but once I turned on your shape of your day episode yesterday, I finally decided I couldn't ignore God anymore. Yay, Heather. She said, my twins still wake during the night once, but I just got up, sat here and quiet with my coffee, and I'm reading the word. I've got a budding podcast

ministry where I pray God will use me to bring fallen away Catholic women home, specifically moms by making theology, dogma, the church easy to digest. I know this mission is from God, but I also have my vocation as mom and wife. God is very much telling me and giving her orders to tackle this ministry. That's really good. And she said, I'm sure you know this, but God uses you as a blatant sign. I couldn't ignore anymore. Well, praise God, Heather. And blessings on your podcast and the efforts that you are doing to reach women. I might suggest you get in touch with wine women in the new evangelization. They're doing a fantastic job. Who knows? You guys might become friends. Look it up at Catholic Vineyard.com. But I'm so glad, Heather, that the show made a

difference in your life. It makes a difference in my life, you know, and that's what I'm sharing is the things that make a difference in my life. If any of the episodes have made a difference in your life, go ahead and give me an email, The Jeff Caven Show at ascensionpress.com. And if you got any ideas for shows, please, please send them my way. That's how we get ideas for the show. I wanted to talk to you today about peace of mind. Now, this is something that all of us really do want and need and are searching for it to one degree or another. I have not met anybody in the last week who has said to me, you know what, if I have more peace of mind, I don't know what to do with myself. It's just so peaceful. I've never met anybody like that, actually. I think we're all struggling in some ways.

And there was those famous words that Bob Dylan's mom said to him one time, she said, be nice to people, be kind to people. Everyone is struggling with something. And I think that that is really true. want to talk to you about a peace of mind, what is an enemy to peace of mind, and maybe some steps. This isn't an all, you know, a complete program as far as we're going to exhaust every single avenue, but I do have some suggestions if you are struggling with peace of mind in your life right now that you might want to address, and that's a beginning point for you to begin to obtain that peace of mind. I just got back from my annual trip to Israel in January, and one of the great words over there that you're going to hear over and over is

Shalom Shalom. And Shalom, it means peace. And when we talk about peace, we're not talking about, hey, two fingers up, hope politics goes your way. We're talking about a deep peace of mind, a wholeness to us deep within. And that's what God has for us, is he has a wholeness and a healing and a peace within our minds and a balance within ourselves that we're not we're not shaky and unsure of, you know, what to do. We have a peace. But Jesus was a realist. You know, Jesus, he spoke to the apostles, and he said, in John chapter 1427, and these will be in the show notes, by the way, he said, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives to you, do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. Isn't that beautiful?

I love that piece I leave with you, my piece I give to you. And then he qualifies. He says, I'm not talking about television piece. I'm not talking about, you know, Pop Formator piece. I'm talking about the piece that I'm going to give you. So don't let your heart be troubled. Neither let it be afraid. You know, I like that because he's basically honest and says, you're going to have trouble in the world. You really are. There's going to be problems in the world, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. You know, back in the 1960s, when Vatican II meant met, there was a great document that described the signs of the times, what was going on in the 60s. That document was called Gaudium et Spez, the church in the modern world. And I want to read a

couple of paragraphs to you right here, because while it was directed to people in the 1960s, you would think that this was written yesterday, you know? And it talks about this imbalance in our lives and the peace that we're looking for. Listen to this, Gaudiom et spes. by the way, you can go to the Vatican website and you can look this document up. It's a great document. When I did my graduate studies, I had to actually go deep in this one document and do an oral presentation of it, and it kind of became my document. It says in paragraph four, today the human race is involved in a new stage of history. Maybe you are too, huh? Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world, triggered by the

intelligence, and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence, we can already speak of a true cultural and social transformation, one which has repercussions on man's religious life as well. I think I'll pause there for a moment, because I think that's very interesting when it talks about that we have a changing world, but these changes are recoiling upon us. In other words, they're eating us up, you know, we don't have a correlating spiritual advancement. So we're becoming very sophisticated with social media.

Your children are more sophisticated than you are, newsbreak. and these things are recoiling upon us because we're not making advances spiritually to handle these technological advances. So it goes on in the paragraph and says, influenced by such a variety of complexities, many of our contemporaries are kept from accurately identifying permanent values and adjusting them properly to fresh discoveries. As a result, buffeted between hope and anxiety, impressing one another with questions about the present course of events. Boy, you hear about that, don't you? They are burdened down with uneasiness. Wow. Pause there for a second. Hold the phone jack. I tell you what, I identify with that right there

because I'm getting tired of watching the news. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, all of it. It's like, I'm uneasy about all of this. all of these, I'm burdened down with the news. I don't like this, right? It goes on and says, this same course of events leads men to look for answers. Indeed, it forces them to do so. And then it goes on in paragraph 8 and says, within the individual person, there develops rather frequently an imbalance between an intellect which is modern in practical matters and a theoretical system of thought, that is your faith, which can neither master the sum totals of its ideas nor arrange them adequately into a synthesis. So basically what it's saying there,

let me put that in the layman's language for you real quick. It's saying that there's an imbalance in our lives between intellect, which is modern, social media, technology, science, astronomy, whatever you want to talk about, there's an imbalance between that and your system of thought, your faith, your walk with God, you don't have a system of thought slash faith that can master the sum total of all ideas that you're dealing with, nor arrange them adequately into some kind of synthesis, some kind of narrative. And so we are overburdened with no answers. In short, our inner compass is off. It's off. Let's admit it. Let's admit it that sometimes our inner compass It says often we don't know what is up or down in our life, and we're stressed. We need peace

of mind. We need shalom, shalom in our life. So wisdom has something to say about this. In Proverbs 317, it says about wisdom that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. I like what it says in Proverbs 423. It talks about the fact that we're very complex and capable of greatness and capable of falling apart. It says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life. Pretty good. To start off here, let me cover the big thing that really brings an imbalance to our life and takes the peace of mind away from us. That peace of mind that we're going for is a shalom, a peace of mind where our minds are settled on the Lord, peaceful. We are at a place where we're not anxious and worrying because we know that our lives are in his

hands and he will care for us as a father. We don't need to be anxious for tomorrow. We don't need to be anxious about what people think about us and all of that. We don't. We can reach that point of peace, a peace that passes all understanding. But the big enemy to peace, you know what it is? It's sin. sin. The word sin in Hebrew, chet, means to miss the mark. It's like an archer's term. You know, it means to hit the bull, and to miss the bullseye. When Apollo systems, years ago, came back into the ocean with a space capsule and they missed the mark, the Israeli headlines said that the Apollo had sinned. They missed the mark. And if you miss the mark, which is righteousness, being right with God, you're going to feel the comeuppens. You're going to feel the results of that. Now,

you know, Pope John Paul II had something to say about this in his writing called Reconciliation and Penance. You ought to get that. Another one really, really good. Reconciliation and Penance will put it in the show notes. A paragraph 15, he said, as a rupture with God, sin is an act of disobedience by a creature who rejects, at least implicitly, the very one from whom he came and who sustains him in life. It is, therefore, a suicidal act. Oh, wow. Underline it, underscore it, highlight it,

take it out of the show, put it on an index card, carry it around. Remember that. It is a suicidal act. Wow, I almost feel like pausing here and just kind of reflecting on that for a moment. Do you know what that means? That means that an act of sin is hurting you, it's killing you. That's very powerful. It goes on and says, since by sinning man refuses to submit to God, his internal balance is also destroyed, and it is precisely within

himself that contradictions and conflicts arise. My friend, if we're going to get peace of mind in our lives, the first thing that we need to do is to make sure that we are not walking in sin. Now, there's two kinds of sin, right? There's venial sin which wounds the relationship with the Lord. It weakens the relationship with the Lord. But then there's mortal sin which breaks the relationship with the Lord. Either one can, especially mortal, but venial sin can whittle away at the peace inside of you. If you are caught up in venial sin, and you're not dealing with it by going to Mass or going to confession,

it can whittle away at the peace in your life. If you're in mortal sin, well, good luck. you're really, you're really in a tough place. And if you're going to try to find peace of mind without reconciliation with God, good luck. If you obtain it, write a book, it'll be a bestseller. But it can't happen. And so you must go and go to confession and make sure that you're starting from a place of, at least you have a relationship with the Lord, the Lord who gives you this peace of mind that passes all understanding, right? So sin is a big thing, and I want you just to think this week, as I will too, about my life, and I'm a sinner, I admit, and I wish I wasn't, and I have to deal

with that in a responsible way, and so do you. So if you really want peace of mind, you have, you have to do an examination of conscience to find out, am I walking according to the will of the Lord? You can use the Ten Commandments, you can use a sermon on the Mount, you can go online and you can find lots of ways to do an examination of conscience to see where you're at and then make the adjustments. Own it, confess it, deal with it. We're going to take a break when you come back. I want to talk to you about a few things that you can do to prevent that peace of mind from going away and what really contributes to a lack of peace of mind. I think it's going to be helpful, practical. I think you're going to like it.

tuned. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. If you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Leadero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents. That's YouTube.com slash ascension presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. You are back. I'm back. And we're talking about. peace of mind, obtaining peace of mind specifically, and we're talking a little bit about Vatican 2 before the break and how sin ruptures this relationship with God, and we need to own it,

go to confession, and take care of that. Sin really, really wreaks havoc on our soul. But there's a number of other things that you can do to either obtain peace or prevent that peace from leaving. I want to go through these kind of quickly with you in the time that we have together this week. Number one, if you're interested in obtaining peace with God, you can have peace through obedience to the Word of God. Now, when I say the Word of God, I'm talking about scripture. I'm talking about the tradition that's been passed on to us in the church. If you are obedient to the Word of God, you're on your way to peace of mind. But if you are disobedient to the Word of God, well, that's called sin. And that results in a lack of peace.

Now, King Saul in the Old Testament in Samuel, 2nd Samuel chapter 15, included in the notes, Samuel lost his peace, you know? King Saul, or not Samuel, but Saul lost his peace by disobeying the Word of the Lord. In fact, he did it a couple of times, and as a result, his peace was gone, and it resulted in him even wanting to murder King David, the young David, who was to be the same. second king of Israel. And so when he lost his peace, his relationship with those around him was at that point crippled. And he was in trouble. You know, the scripture says in Psalm 119 in 165, great peace have those who love thy law, nothing can make them stumble. That's a beautiful

thing. Do you remember, by the way, how did Saul gain his peace back? Well, part of what contributed to him, at least gaining some of his piece back was young David on the harp playing praise music. Isn't that interesting? Music can have a big, big impact on you. You can listen to some misogynist rapping music if you want to. It's that can be very negative. You're going to lose your peace, I guarantee it. You can listen to some beautiful, beautiful music with fantastic words.

and it has a peaceful effect on you. Oftentimes when people say that they're looking for peace, I suggest they listen to praise music in the car. And there's plenty of it. And instead of listening to talk shows and controversy and arguing, put some praise music on. That's what got to King Saul's heart, right? Yep, you bet. So that's one thing. Obedience to the Word of God. Make sure that you are in God's Word. For example, my wife and I, we pray every morning together and do Lexio DeVis. Vena, and we stay with God's Word. And I encourage you to get into God's Word and to be obedient to it. You know, you can lose, number two, you can lose your peace through anger. You can lose your peace through anger. Those famous sayings at the door of Delphi, know thyself, and it wasn't in the

positive sense. It wasn't know your gifts. It was meant in the sense of know your weaknesses. Know your weaknesses. Or in today's parlance, you'd say, know your trigger points, you know. What really gets to you. Anger is an interesting thing, because when you are walking anger, you literally are losing the peace of God. Proverbs 1911 says, good sense makes a man slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 29 and verse 11 says, a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man quietly holds it back. Now, there's a simple rule to anger here, and I've done I've done several shows on anger. You can look them up earlier. Perhaps we'll put that in the show notes for you. We did a whole show on anger. And real quickly, there's a basic rule here, and that is

anger is not in itself, good or evil. Okay, it's a passion. It's like love. It's not good or evil. Anger comes when justice has been violated, or you sense that, or you perceive that justice has been violated, and you feel like you've got to do something about it. So righteous anger leads to what? Correcting a wrong. But if that anger that you're experiencing is just because you've been inconvenienced, you've been dissed in some way, and you're going to get angry about it, you can find yourself in sin, and your peace is gone. Anger, you see, if it's taken up in virtue, it becomes It's a positive thing. But if it is taken low by vice, it can be a very devastating thing. And one important thing to understand is to know your triggers. Do you get angry after you drink?

Let me pause right there for a second. I just feel like this is a word for someone. If you get angry when you drink and your family is wondering what in the Purgatory is happening to you. You need to be honest about it. And you need to drop that. You need to pluck that out. It's destroying your life. It's a trigger point for you. Let's be honest. You can't handle alcohol, right? Having a glass of wine, nothing wrong with it. But if it causes you to abuse your family, there's something wrong. You have no peace there, and neither do they deal with it. End of my word. I just felt like I needed to say that. And so know your trigger point. When people are late to appointments, does it set you off? Not enough sleep sets you off? The things you eat sets you off. When someone says something about you, set you off. What are your trigger points? Learn to protect those and to make your mind up that I'll only get angry about things that I feel are an injustice and I can change and I will do something about it. Another thing is peace is destroyed by envy. Oh, man, I did a whole show on this one earlier too. This is powerful. powerful stuff. You know, great trivia question, what was it that brought Satan into this world? Wisdom, chapter 2 and verse 24 says, it was envy. It says, but through the devil's envy, death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it. Wow. That's powerful. You know what envy is? Maybe you've heard me say this before, but it would be, as St. Peter says, it'll be good for you to hear it again.

Jealousy is just, I want what you want. Well, jealousy isn't necessarily sin, but envy is deadly. It's one of the deadly sins because envy is when your blessing makes me sad. This happens a lot in families, doesn't it? Peace is gone in your heart when you realize that your sister is doing so well, and it's making you sad. You're thinking, man, I wish I didn't feel sad. I wish I felt happy for. You see, this is deadly. We got to deal with it. If you want peace of mind, you can't walk in envy. You can't. You cannot. You cannot. You cannot. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's an upside-down gospel. You know, the gospel says we rejoice with those who rejoice and we mourn with those who are suffering, right? Uh-uh, not envy. Envy says, I rejoice with those who are suffering, and I mourn with those who are rejoicing.

It's upside down. If you're struggling with that, I promise you one thing on the show today, you are not going to obtain peace. How do you deal with it? You've got to go to the Lord, and you've got to learn to confess that as sin. Go to confession, confess it as sin, and begin to rejoice in your sister's blessing and take stock of what God has given you and rejoice in what you have rather than curse what you don't have. This is going to take practice for you, but you can do it, you can do it, and you know it it happens almost every Christmas with that, that darn Christmas card that your sister sends.

Remember that card? She writes in that card about what the families are doing. She's got a picture of the whole family there and says little Bruce is elected mayor of Boston and Eric is now, he's the head of nephrology at Boston General. Massachusetts General, Susan just got her Ph.D. in Little Bradford, well, he won the Pinewood Derby and Cub Scouts, and you're going, I hate them. Then you got a problem. Then you got a problem, and you got to deal with it. So remember what Proverbs 1430 says, a heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Oh, I don't want to deal with that. Take care of it, okay? Write me about it. I want to know how you took care of it. But take care of it. Number four, hope is a big thing when it comes to obtaining peace. It's a theological virtue, you know. You do have hope.

I've heard people say before, I have no hope. Say, well, have you been baptized? Yes. Then you've got hope. Because at baptism, you've got three pints of theological virtue in your blood. You got faith. You got hope, and you got charity. So you got hope.

Well, what are we talking about when we talk about hope? Well, we're not talking about hope so. And we're not talking about hope from your perspective. We're talking about hope as a result of looking at God's plan and God's perspective. It says in Syrac chapter 2 in verse 6 and verse 9, it says, trust in him and he will help you make your way straight and hope in him. You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, for everlasting joy and mercy. And then it tells us in Hebrews, chapter 6 and verse 19,

it says that we have this as a sure and steadfast hope, right? Steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain. And so what God wants to give you in relationship to peace is an anchor, and that's hope. Whatever you're facing right now, my friend, you and I are together right now in the car, you and I are together right now at the club, we're together, and I'm telling you right now, you got an anchor, it's hope, it's been given to you, don't ignore it, don't deny it, don't say it not me. I'm unique. I'm one of a kind. Humbug. You are not. I'm going to say, baloney. You're not. You're not. You got hope there. Stand on that hope. Begin to cultivate that

hope by putting that hope in Christ. And looking not to the future from your own perspective and your own talents and your own resources, but his perspective, his talents, his resources. Remember, he's got a plan for you, a good plan for you. The very first paragraph of the Catechism says, it's a plan of sheer goodness. One more scripture there, Proverbs, I love it. Proverbs chapter 10 and verse 28 says, the hope of the righteous ends in gladness, but the expectation of the wicked comes to not. You see, the hope of the righteous is going to end in gladness for you. Keep walking in hope. And then the last thing I'll share with you, oh boy, there's so much. where I could share, but time is running out.

One more thing I want to share with you, this peace of mind comes through forgiveness. We've done shows in the past on forgiveness, so we can spend a whole 45 minutes on that or so in past shows, so you can look that up, and we might put that in the show notes as well. We're just going to keep putting all this stuff in the show notes for you. But peace of mind through forgiveness, Proverbs 16, 7, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. You see, peace of mind comes by having a pure heart, and I want to encourage you to listen to my past podcast on forgiveness. I'm going to make a note for my wonderful producer, Christina, to make note of that for the notes so that you can

listen to that. And let me just kind of synopsis, give you a synopsis of it. We are called by God as a people who have been forgiven for everything. And part of that is that now it is expected of us to extend forgiveness to other people no matter what, no matter what, no matter what. I know you're thinking, but you don't know that what's happened to me, Jeff, you don't know how they hurt me. Listen, all I know is that whatever we did in our own sin, it brought God to a cross. nothing compares to that. We can do this. We can forgive. And we as a people who have been forgiven are called to forgive and extend that forgiveness to others. And if we refuse to do that, then the consequences are a lack of peace of mind. And we ourselves will be handed over to the tormentors.

Scripture says this. Did you know that? Scripture tells us, Scripture's got a lot of really wonderful, wonderful things to say about forgiveness. One of my favorite, one of my absolute favorite scriptures comes from the Gospel of Matthew. And it talks about, you remember the man who was forgiven for so much in his life? And then he went out and he wouldn't forgive someone who owed him just a little bit. Do you remember what the consequences for that were? The consequences were that he originally was going to have to pay back everything, but the master forgave him of everything. But the fact that he would not forgive somebody else just a little bit meant that the master gave him all that debt back and made him pay. And he turned him over. And Jesus ends, oh boy,

he was turned over to the tormentors. And Jesus ends that, that parable by saying, so will my Heavenly Father do to you if you do not forgive others from the heart. And so that is very, very powerful, very powerful. And I encourage you to meditate on that, to take that very, very seriously, because that's what happens when we literally refuse to forgive other people. so I'm going to put all that in the show notes for you as well so anyway I wanted to share that with you I want to share just a couple of these things with you we might talk about it more on other shows but this is what was on my heart this week to share with you and and I know I always need to hear it myself I want that

peace in my life and I know that sin will disrupt it but I do know that there's some things that we can do to obtain the peace of God in our life and we want to make sure as good disciples that we that we do that, right? So again, thank you for ranking the show, going to iTunes, and giving me your ideas for shows. Send me all of the correspondence at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com, and I've got some surprises coming up in the weeks ahead. We're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to think we're going to add an addition to the show, and I think you're going to like it. So feel free to share this with your friends. Let me pray for you, okay? In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray for my friend right now that that is listening and joining me here.

And I pray, Lord, that you would show them the areas of their life where they may be missing the mark and not obtaining the peace that you have intended for them. Give them boldness, Lord, to correct these things and to get on the right track in obtaining the peace deep within. Lord, we ask you for this peace that passes all understanding. We pursue you. the prince of peace, the one who will give us this peace that passes all understanding. Show us now, Lord, as we examine our heart, the areas that we need to change to obtain Shalom. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Listen, my friend, I love you, and I'm praying for you, and I ask you to continue to pray for me, and I look forward to seeing you right back here next week. God bless. Thank you.