The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Simplify Your Life- What's the First Step?

Episode Date: April 21, 2017

Is your life complicated, busy, and way too cluttered? You can use planners, organize closets, and give things to Goodwill, but those things aren’t the root of the problem. Jeff explains that Biblically, there’s a very important key to simplifying our lives, and without it, nothing else will bring us peace.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Episode 12, Simplify Your Life. What's the first step? 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 Kavon Show. Welcome to the show. I'm Jeff Kavins, and good to have you. you back with us once again. If you're listening to the show in, I guess, what I would call real time, you know, from week to week, you know that we just finished the Triduum, the Easter Sunday,

and what a great time that is every single year. If you're going back into the archives and listening to the shows just based on titles and what you're interested in, welcome anyway. We're going to talk about a very important topic today. I was driving to down the road just the other day. And to get to my house, you have to go along a whole series of restaurants on the right-hand side. And in the midst of those restaurants, there is a Goodwill store. And there were, I don't know, it must have been eight or nine, ten cars lined up at the Goodwill store to drop stuff off, things that they didn't need, things that they, you know, they cleared out their closets, their garages under the bed, and there they were, you know,

lined up to just drop this stuff off and get their receipt that they had given $100 worth, $200, $300 worth. And it got me thinking. It got me thinking about simplicity and how much stuff we have in our lives. So I wanted to dedicate, I guess, what is going to be the first of probably many shows. The next show is not going to be on simplicity, most likely. but you're going to hear this recurring theme in my life about simplicity and the desire to downsize and to make life simple and focused so that we can truly become modern-day disciples of Jesus

and really focus on what's important in our lives. So that's what I'm going to talk about today. I'm going to talk about simplicity. I'm going to talk about the problem that we face, why we are in the situation that we are with so much stuff. so much activity, so much information in our life. And if you talk to people about this and ask them, are you really happy with how much stuff you have

and how much commitment you have in your life and all of the online involvement? Are you really happy? Is this what you really want? Most people say, no, it's not. In fact, I'm trying to simplify my life. So I'm going to talk about the reason that we get into this situation. I think I see it in scripture, and I want to share that with you.

And then I want to give you some practical advice on how to simplify your life. If you know of someone who's struggling with this, pass the show onto them, might be a good post-Easter gift for them. Because here we are. We've been focusing on the resurrection of Jesus. We celebrated Easter, and now you're back into regular life. And we don't want to make the same mistakes that we did before. Hey, by the way, before we get into the topic of simplicity today, I want to thank you for the amazing outpouring from the last show we did on how to mark your Bible.

A couple shows ago, I guess, how to mark your Bible. Wow, did we get response? And I realized that we hit on something there, and people want to know how to mark their Bible. If you want to go back and listen to that show, I give you tons of show notes and pictures. of my Bibles. I even have a picture of an old New American Standard Bible and then the last couple

of Bibles, the RSV Catholic Edition Bibles that I've been using with all of the notes in there. And people are fascinated with devotions and how you mark your Bibles and what instruments you use, what tools you use, and so forth. But you can go and get those show notes at

AscensionPresents.com forward slash podcasts. And you might find a show in the past some topic that you're interested in as well. We give you the show notes so that you don't have to write notes while you're driving to work in the morning or on your way home in the evening. We want you to be safe, and so we provide those notes. Marisa is our producer, and she does a fantastic job of putting all of that together.

By the way, you can email me, and you can email me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. It's very simple. It is the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Well, let's get into our topic for today. I want to talk about this whole issue of clutter in our life, the desire to simplify, the desire to downsize and get rid of some of the stuff in our life. And presumably, it's for a reason. We want to downsize for a particular reason.

I think, frankly, a lot of us don't know why we exactly. we want to do that. But I think deep down inside there's a desire to serve God and to love God and to get the clutter out of our life so that we truly can be those modern day disciples of Jesus. And most of us wish that we had a 30-hour day. But here's the problem. And I know this from first-hand experience. In fact, let me just say right on the outset, I'm not claiming that I have mastered this whole topic of simplifying your life. I've done a lot of work on it. Even as a young boy, I was in love with simplicity.

St. Francis was a real inspiration for me. But I have not totally mastered this myself, so I don't want to come across like I have. But I think most of us wish we did have a 30-hour day. And the problem with that, though, is that if we had a 30-hour day, you know as well as I do that we'd fill it up. we'd fill it up with a lot of things that are not real central to what we we really want to do with

our lives. So that's the problem that we're facing. So how do we get into this situation? Well, I'm going to get into that in a moment and talk to you about what I think is the core reason theologically and in our hearts why we get into such a complex life. But a lot of people, once they realize that their life is really, really jammed with content, with things, stuff, they come up with a lot of solutions on how to deal with it. But I honestly think that we're missing the mark on these solutions, on how to deal with the messiness of our lives. I heard someone say one time, and I thought it was really good.

They said that we so often buy things we don't. don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't care about. And isn't that true? That at the end of the day, we spend money that we really don't have to buy things we really don't need to impress people that we really don't care about. And the result of that is a stuffed life. And oftentimes we become angry. We blame other people. Home life is not peaceful because we just have so much, so little money, and our lives become complex. Well, there's a number of ways that we try to solve this problem. And my hands are up right now.

I've tried this in my own life and found that it actually failed. But the things that I'm going to suggest to you here that we do are helpful if you have your priorities straight. And we'll talk about how to do that a little bit later on in the show. well here's a couple of solutions one is that our lives are so busy so crammed with things with children and appointments and commitments that we've made that we think we're going to straighten this whole thing out with time systems now I remember back in the 1980s when a number of time systems really became popular you had the daytimeer you had the Franklin

time system and a number of others just go to your local office store and they'll have their own flavor of some kind of time system. So I went and I got this medium-sized notebook with the Franklin Time System. Maybe you can identify with this. I got the medium binder and I was so excited because I went into the store and I saw all of these inserts with address pages and day-to-day calendars and priority, you know, making pages and in all of that. And man, was I excited because I thought to myself, for the first time, I'm going to get my life organized. I'm going to have all my names, all my calendars, all my tasks. In fact, I'm even going to rank them, A, B, and C.

This is going to be incredible. I'll even have a whole tab for a vision for my life and my life statement and all of that. Wow, was I excited. So I came home and I put it all together, and it took me probably, I don't know, two or three days. I was up at night, you know, writing all this out and very exciting to do that. But then about, I don't know, I must have been three or four weeks later, I suddenly realized that I was right back where I was. But it was more organized, but I was right back where I was.

Just too many things, not enough time, overcommitted, and so forth. And I couldn't seem to get the things done that I wanted to get done. So I came up with this beautiful solution. And that was that my time system for daytimeer, for Franklin was a medium and that was my problem. I actually needed a large because my life was so busy. So I went back into the store. I know what you're thinking right now. Jeff, are you an idiot? Well, I must have been at the moment. But I went back to the store and I got the large one. I think they called it the monarch or something. And I got all the inserts, went home, really excited,

transferred everything over to the large one. But guess what? You bet. About four weeks, later back where I was. It didn't solve my problems at all. So then I suddenly realized that I needed not a bigger one because it was so big I wouldn't carry it around. I needed actually a smaller one. I know what you're thinking, Jeff, you idiot. Yes, I went back to the store and I got the small one and I transferred everything over to the real small one. Same thing after about four weeks. I got so frustrated thinking, how come I can't get my life in order? But then, hallelujah, something happened. And that was the invention of the poem pilot. A little technical piece of equipment that would allow me to put in unlimited names, unlimited schedules, reminders about

my to-does. I was so excited. So I went out and I bought one and I spent, I must have spent four or five day is just putting stuff in there to organize my life with this little palm pilot. And maybe you remember it. Remember, you had a little stylus that you could write with, with a little code, you know, on your palm pilot. But then I had a problem. I was trying to sink it to my computer. I got everything all messed up.

I couldn't get the thing to sink. And it kept jamming on me. And so I called tech help. And I must have spent hours on the phone trying to get this thing to work. right. It ended up with such frustration in my life that you know what I ended up doing? Going back to the medium-sized Franklin time system. Yeah, I know. But that's what we all do. Don't we try to find things they're going to get this clutter out of our lives. So, well, that was my time system. But I also did another

thing, which I called a rampage. If you ever talk to my wife, ask her about Jeff's rampages. rampage is when you go through every room in your house, every closet, every drawer, your office, you go through your folders and your filing cabinet and everything, and you just start throwing away everything you don't need. You get bag after bag, box after box, and you end up putting some in the trash, you give some to recycling and you give some to the goodwill, and you're going to rampage. You're going to get rid of all of this. Well, I did that, but I didn't find that my life was a lot simpler because when I ended up giving away

a lot of the things that I felt I didn't need within a year I went out and bought those things again. You know where one of the big problems is? It's your closet. It's your closet. You go into your closet and you got your fall wardrobe, you got your spring, you got your summer wardrobe. And then you got your wardrobe that you have

so when you lose 10 pounds, you'll be able to fit into that. And so that is another means of, you know, complication in your life. We have organizational systems, computerized systems, and so forth. We've got everything, but our lives are still out of control. We call this the tyranny of the urgent. And the tyranny of the urgent, that means that we have become slaves to the urgent things, in our lives. We have become slaves to the popular things in our lives rather than the things that are really, really important. And this has led to a whole wave of books. Go into a Barnes

and Noble or somewhere, go online. You'll see that there's all these books now on this area of simplicity and downsizing in our lives. And I think that society is crying out to be more simple. this tyranny is when someone has absolute power and control over your life and I'm using it in the sense of the urgent having control over our lives we're victims of tyranny the tyranny of the urgent you know Henry David Thoreau once said and I think it's it's very apropos here he said there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root When it comes to bringing sanity to our lives, we are hacking at the external branches

and leaving the root issues untouched. And I know that's the truth in my life at times where I'm hacking away at these branches thinking, you know, organization systems, goodwill, a simpler wardrobe, all these things are going to make my life easier. These are branches. But what Thoreau is saying is that we need to hack at the root of the world. of the problem here. There was a great Quaker teacher by the name of Thomas Kelly.

He once said, one of my favorite quotes when it comes to simplicity, he said, I would suggest that the true explanation of the complexity of our program is an inner one, not an outer one. The outer distractions of our interests reflect an inner lack of integration in our lives. We are trying to be several selves

at once without all ourselves being organized by a single mastering life within us. I see our attempts to control and regulate life, no matter how good we are at it, leave the inner man fragmented still. The simplicity that we seek is not one of organization in management. It's good. and there's a place for that. But the simplicity that we seek is a relationship. And my friend, I would suggest to you that if we can develop that relationship,

you know where I'm going with this, this relationship with Jesus, the relationship with God, the problem of your being out of control and your fragmented life is going to start to take care of itself. because you're going to have that one single mastering life principle and that is your disciple of Jesus and everything you buy and everything you say, I'm going to sign up for that, I'm going to get involved in this, it is all focusing on that one, one key,

which is Jesus Christ in your life. That's what I have found. I found that to be true in my life. And I think, you know, that the example is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the example. He's the one we're looking to give us an example of what it means to have a focused life. You know, I've been teaching scripture for about 40 years now in walking with Jesus as a disciple for about 40 years.

And this one idea, kind of just, I want to be honest with you for a second here. I always am, but I mean, let me be more transparent. I have such a desire in my life to be wholly 100% focused on Jesus and the work that he has for me. Not only my time, my heart, my money, all my assets, my family, everything, I want that to be focused on Jesus. Now, we're going to talk about Jesus here in a moment, but I want to share with you what I believe is the problem of why we become so complicated and so busy and cry out for simplicity. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

And I'm going to talk to you about that. I want to share that principle with you because it's one of those things that has absolutely changed my life, my understanding. So stay with me. We're going to take a break right now. and when we come back, I want to get into what I think is the reason why our lives have become so complicated in what the solution is. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Father Mike Schmitz, and I want to invite you to join me at the National Catholic Bible Conference this coming May, May 5th through the 7th, in Houston, Texas. At the conference, you will hear from an amazing lineup of presenters who will help you grow in your faith and your understanding of the Bible.

including Jeff Kavens, Dr. Michael Barber, Sarah Chris Meyer, Thomas Smith, and Dr. Ed Sree. To learn more and to register, go to Catholic Bibleconference.com. I hope to see you there. Welcome back to the Jeff Kavins show. I'm Jeff, and we're talking about simplifying our lives. We're talking about getting focus for our lives. This show is probably going to spill over into three, four, five, six more shows in the future. at different times. But I want to set the stage now

for what we're going to be talking about later as well because I think it's a theme simplifying our lives that we're constantly dealing with and we have a hunger for it. I mentioned before the break that I was going to share with you what I think is the problem when it comes to fragmented lives and busy lives and the tyranny of the urgent that we so often experience.

And it goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 and I want to read just a few verses here to you. Genesis 3 and starting with verse 6 talks about the original fall of our parents, Adam and Eve. And what actually went on in that original sin? When you think about the trees in the garden, God told Adam and Eve, you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you will die.

death will be the result of disobedience to God. And so they had access to all the trees in the garden, but it was this one tree, the knowledge of good and evil, that they were told they shall not eat of it. Now, when you think about that tree, we know that Eve went over and she looked at the tree in the garden. Up until this point, they are walking with God in the cool of the day. There is this harmony in their life, this simplicity of devotion.

in their life. But now they see the tree and Eve makes three observations about the tree. I want you to listen to these three observations. I'm reading from Genesis 3 and verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And then it goes on in verse 8 and says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

So let's take a look at that for a moment. Okay, this is Genesis 3, 6 through 8. It tells us that there were three things that Eve observed about the fruit. Now, we normally would say, well, the fruit must have been really, really bad, you know. And it represented bank robbery and murder and adultery and fornication and all kinds of gross sins. But if you listen to what she saw, it's actually good. It says that it was, number one, it was good for food. The fruit of that tree, the knowledge of good and evil, was good for food.

Number one, what's not to like about that? Number two, it was a delight to the eyes. It's beautiful. What's not to like about that? And the tree was to be desired to make one wise. What is not to like about that? So it's good for food, good and beautiful to the eyes, makes one wise. Sounds like a deal.

That's a great thing. But the problem is that God said, listen to me. Walk according to my will. Walk according to my ways. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. Well, you know the enemy came in at that point and challenged Eve. And of course, she ate, and Adam ate.

And it says in verse 7 of Genesis 3, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sowed fig leaves together. and made themselves aprons. Wow. Wow. So the fall took place very early on in salvation history. But what we see is that they were not tempted by outwardly evil things. What they were tempted by and what led them astray

and what contributed to the loss of peace in their life, was actually things that tasted good, beautiful to look at, and made them wise. You see, what they failed to do was to acknowledge the Creator, and they grasped at the creation. They made the creation an idol, a God instead of the Creator, and they wound up losing life. They wound up with complication in their life. In fact, listen to what Paul says. This is so powerful. You've got to get a hold of this.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11 in verse 3. And he said, But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Listen to this translation. This one, that was the RSV Catholic Edition. Listen to the New American Standard Bible. I love this translation.

2 Corinthians 113. But I am afraid, Paul says, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. Did you catch that? Adam and Eve were led astray. They were led astray. They were led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. How?

By grasping at what tasted good, looked good, and made them wise. Now, there's nothing wrong with things that taste good, is there? All in moderation. As long as you got Jesus on the throne. As long as God is number one. There's nothing wrong with things that are beautiful, as long as everything's in moderation. You have Jesus on the throne, God is there, number one,

and makes one wise. There's nothing wrong with being wise, nothing wrong with accomplishments in our lives. But if it's an idol, it's a problem, and it'll complicate your life. You see, my friends, if your life is spent, if your life is spent pursuing simply things that taste good,

look good, and puff you up and make you wise, man, you're going to complicate your life. Your life is going to get so complicated. You know why? Because there's never going to be enough out there to make you happy. There's never going to be enough to satisfy your soul. You will be like a hamster on a wheel for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life.

So one of the things that I've noticed, and that's really my point in today's show with you, as you're in the car, whatever you might be doing, is that I want you to take a look at the complexity, of your life and see if that complexity isn't related to going after the things of this world rather than going after God's will. That's the most important thing. And you know what? That was the key to Jesus' life. Let me just share a few things before we close out this show about Jesus because Jesus is the solution because you have to ask yourself, is there any escape from this

pattern of living that you're in? Yes, there is. and the answer lies in the life of Jesus. In John chapter 17 in verse 4, Jesus said something so beautiful. He said, Father, I completed the work you gave me to do. Wouldn't it be great if we could all say that? That at the end of every day, we could say, Father, I did what you wanted me to do today. I didn't just pursue the beautiful, the tasty, and things that would just advance my life.

But I pursued you and your will. At the end of the week, wouldn't it be nice to say that? At the end of the month, at the end of the year, at the end of your life, wouldn't it be great to be able to say, I completed the work you gave me to do? You know, Jesus worked hard, yet his life was never at a feverish pace. He tended to the important things. He attended to the things that his father had him do.

And one of the ways that you can start to simplify your life is to take a look at your vocation. Are you a father? Are you a mother? Are you a son? You are a daughter? Are you a religious? You are a priest? Are you a generous single person? Right away, your life has some focus now. What does God require of you with your time and your resources? Jesus had that one focus on his father and his life was simple, yet he accomplished so much. Jesus faithfully put himself day by day in a place where he could receive his father's instructions and this relationship with the father gave him a sense of direction set a steady pace and enabled him to do every task that God assigned. In fact, let me open the door to his prayer life for you

just for a moment here. A beautiful excerpt, beautiful paragraph out of the catechism gives us inside view about his prayer life it says this in paragraph 2602 that's 2602 says Jesus often draws apart to pray in solitude on a mountain preferably at night he includes all men in his prayer for he has taken on humanity in his incarnation and he offers them to the father when he offers himself

Jesus the word who has become flesh shares by his human prayer in all that his brethren experience. He sympathizes with their weaknesses in order to free them. Now listen to this. Oh, this is so good. It was for this that the Father sent him. His words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret. My friend, I want to encourage you today that if your life is out of kilter,

It's out of whack. You are out of control. You need to start by realizing this is not an external problem. This is an internal problem. And the answer is an inside job. God wants to do something in your heart. He wants you to be focused not on just the tasty, the beautiful, and things are going to advance your career in your life.

He wants you to focus on him. He is Lord. He is Lord of the living and the dead. He is the Lord of all the universe. and he has a will and a plan for your life. And one of the most important things that you can do to start to simplify your life. In future shows, I'm going to talk about wardrobe,

I'm going to talk about the garage, I'm going to talk about commitments, I'm going to talk about your email. We're going to do that on future shows. But today, it's time to get that relationship in order. And I would recommend to you that you have a time every day, a time every day where you can get, get together with Jesus and open his word and listen to him.

And that's the first step to begin to simplify your life. Jesus said in Matthew 1128, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. Guess what? He said, I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. So I'm out of time today, but oh man, I got things to share with you. We're going to continue with this in a lot of shows in the future.

when talking about simplicity in our lives, because I know you desire it, I desire it. And I know that if you go to the bookstore, you order off of Amazon or whatever books, secular books on this topic, they might be able to help you, yes, with the external. And that is important, and we're going to get into it. But nobody can help you with the internal mess,

the knots that have been established in your heart as we conclude here I want to suggest you one more thing and that is this there's a great novena and it's a merry undoer of knots you got knots in your life boy we've got to do a show on that too don't we have you got knots in your life is your life complicated get a hold of that that novena get a hold of that novena and and begin to pray and ask the blessed mother to take those knots away in your life life. This can only be done through the power of Jesus, but she knows how to help you. And if you pray and ask her, she will help you. Let me give you a great website. There's a website that my wife

and I have been using recently that actually has a lot of novenas for different situations. It's called pray more novenas.com. Pray more novenas.com. I believe it's dot com. And get a hold of that and begin to pray, begin to meet with Jesus every day over Scripture, and this is the first step to uncomplicating your life. Once again, my friends, I want to thank you for, I want to pray in a moment, but I want to thank you for joining me and remind you that you can find all the show notes for this show at ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts. And by the way, you'll see another great podcast there, which is Father Mike Schmidt's good friend of mine. Give it a listen. He's got a lot of good things to say about living the faith as well. And if you have any suggestions on topics that

you would like me to talk about, you can send me an email personally at the Jeff Kavan Show at ascensionpress.com. And no, my friend, I pray for you. I really do. All throughout the day, there's many times during the day where I think about a listening audience to this show, you, and shoot up a prayer for you. But let me close. prayer today and ask the Lord to bless your life as we take one step towards simplifying our lives a bit, shall we? In name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Lord, I lift up to you my friends who are listening. Maybe they're in the car right now on the way home from work. Maybe they're going to work and their lives just seem out of control. Lord, I know that there is no accidents and that

you have them listening for a reason to try to gain their attention. and to undo the knots in their life, Lord, help us to establish a time every day where we can meet with you. Rather than focusing on the tasty, beautiful, and the things that make us wise in our own eyes and our own lives, may we focus on you. For Lord, you have said,

taste and see that the Lord is good, and you are altogether beautiful, and you are wisdom incarnate. You are the three things that we so often go off the rails and we look at in this world. But, Lord, you give us that which tastes good to our soul, the Eucharist. You give us what is beautiful and wise. And it's nothing short of you. And so we thank you for doing this in our lives.

Thank you for satisfying our souls and getting us off this hamster wheel in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. My friend, have a great day.