The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - The Power Of Isolating Spiritual Disciplines

Episode Date: July 13, 2017

Every expert athlete knows the value of isolating one muscle, technique, or practice and focusing all one's energy on perfecting it. Jeff explains how the same thing is true when it comes to our spiritual life--sometimes we need to choose just one spiritual practice and exercise it over and over in order to grow.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show, Episode 24, The Power of Isolating Spiritual Disciplines. Hey, good to have you with me once again to talk about all things that relate to becoming a more effective and fruitful modern-day disciple of Jesus Christ. In the end, that's what really matters, huh? All throughout life, that's the only thing that's really going to matter is our relationship with the Lord here. which is going to go on into eternity. And so everything that we can do here on earth, we wanna focus on giving glory to God. Right now it's in the summer,

and I hope that you are having a great summer and a relaxing summer and also a refreshing summer. Summer's a good time for families to get together, get a lot of exercise, get that vitamin D from the sun, and I think people generally feel a little bit better in the summer. But you know, the time to start dealing for the winter months, The time to start dealing for the harsh times and the difficult times is not in the harsh and difficult times.

It's really in the good times. That's when you want to carry on your discipline with the Lord so that when winter comes and the winds blow and the ice is on the ground, you're prepared. You know, you're prepared. I'm speaking spiritually, of course. Hey, thanks for all of the email that you've been sending and going on iTunes and giving comments on the show. Actually very helpful for me to know the topics that you're interested in. and, you know, some of the things that you're struggling with in your life. It gives me ideas for the shows.

In fact, today's show, which is the power of isolating spiritual disciplines in your life came from a comment that one of you gave me about, you know, really wanting to get into the nitty-gritty of your spiritual life, not the big picture, but getting down into the disciplines of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord. and so that's what we're going to focus on today. I have discovered something in my own life that is making a difference, and I want to share that with you. I've been walking with Jesus as an adult for 40 years now,

and I'm always, I guess I'm not surprised, but I'm amazed at how many times I run into something new that's going to make a difference in my spiritual life, and I look forward to sharing it with you. Today is one of those shows, and I believe that if you will listen to today's show and you will put into practice what I'm going to share with you,

your spiritual life is going to grow. It is. You're going to be more fruitful. You're going to be more in-tuned with the Lord. You're going to have a sense of growing in Christ. And that's one of the things that I hear from people that they really struggle with is they'll say something like, Dear Jeff, I have been walking with the Lord now for 10 years. I made a decision to follow the Lord 10 years ago, and I started reading my Bible and praying,

but I'm not noticing a lot of real growth in my spiritual life. That's a very common comment that I get from people, and I think that there's a solution to that, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. It's the power of isolating spiritual disciplines in your life. In other words, focusing in on particular disciplines, of what it means to be a disciple, and giving adequate time for that so that you perfect it, and then it fits into the whole of your life. By the way, before we get into that, my email is The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com.

That's the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Give me your emails. Give me your ideas. I like to read what you have to say. As always, the show notes are going to be prepared for you. all the scriptures I'm going to be giving you and some of the other things we're sharing will be available in the show notes. Okay, let's get into the topic today because this is one that I'm particularly excited about. If you are like me and you go to, say, a conference,

let's say you go to a Steubenville conference or you go to a conference in L.A. or somewhere else, you probably have taken in, I don't know, six or seven different workshops, a couple keynote addresses. Like this year, we went to the Catholic Convocation in Orlando, where there were a total of 66 different panel discussions, I think four keynotes, and there was messages in the masses from the bishops and cardinals. So there was a lot of information that was given, and somebody that goes to a conference like that, they can leave a little overwhelmed. You know, wow, I've I got a lot of work to do, you know, and they look at their own life and they see, you know, a few areas that are kind of messed up and think to themselves, I don't know where to begin. This is, it's overwhelming at times.

And the problem that we run into is that we see our life as this gigantic whole with all of the various areas. We've got our home life where you are a husband or wife or a father, mother, living a generous single life. You've got work, and you're dealing with all kinds of relationships there, some good, some bad, some difficult, and then you're also dealing with your finances, enough said about that. You're dealing with your emotions, you're dealing with physical fitness, lots of areas of your life. And then you have this canopy that comes down upon all these areas called, I'm a Christian. I'm a disciple of the Lord. and you feel a little bit overwhelmed.

Well, I want to share with you a key here about isolating spiritual disciplines to begin to chip away at the areas of your life that you need to work on to become that man of God, that woman of God, that you really want to become. And there's going to be two things I want to focus on right at the top here. Number one, and this is something that I have seen for many, many years, and I have been, I guess I've been part of it myself, particularly when I was younger, and that is this, anything that you are into in life, whether it's athletics or it's cooking or writing or hunting, bowling, you name it, anything that you're into, beer making, you know,

whatever it might be, motorcycle writing. The temptation for us is to focus on the equipment rather than the action, rather than doing it. I'll give you an example. I ran into a lady one time who was really into the culinary skills, really into cooking, and I get that. That can be an awful lot of fun. But she spent an inordinate amount of time looking up on the web, Putlery, pans, all kinds of different equipment to make her kitchen complete.

And after she bought all of this equipment, she found herself continually going back to the web and seeing if there was new equipment out there or updated equipment and so forth. In the meantime, she never really quite got around to cooking very much. And it was cooking that really grabbed her attention to begin with. I've done this in the area of photography. You've ever heard one of my talks where I go into this. It's actually kind of humorous. But I think we can do it in every area of our life, including the spiritual life.

Here's what I mean. And don't get me wrong. This is part of growing up in Christ, is the equipment. So I get that. I do. We want a Bible, you know? We want a really good Bible. We want a Bible.

It feels right. I get that. Yay. So we want the Bible. we want a rosary. We want our catechism. We want some metals. We want, you know, holy water, you know, in our home, whatever it might be. We've got all of this in Catholicism, and it's beautiful. It's beautiful. But one of the traps that we can get into is that we put more emphasis on the equipment, thinking that if we get the equipment, that we're pretty much

there, you know, in terms of being that disciple. If I can just get the right by, If I can just get the right feeling rosary, or I can get the right scapular, or prayer book, or leather Bible cup, whatever it is, that's a trap. And the modern-day disciple, if they're going to grow and be mature, they're going to have to get beyond that, okay? They're going to have to get beyond that, and they're going to have to start using the equipment. Because in the long run, it's not the equipment and the quality of the equipment that really matters. Although there's a part of that, and I get that. We're incarnational. But the emphasis really needs to be on the disciplines,

on the spiritual disciplines, the acting, the doing of it, over and over as a discipline that becomes just the part of the fiber and the fabric of our life. And if we just stop at getting the right equipment. And that goes for even, you know, some of the prayers that we have is that if I can just say these things, you know, every day for a week, things are going to happen rather than getting deep into the prayer and getting our heart really

involved in it. Okay, so that's number one. It's not the equipment. It's the practice that really matters. I heard a guy talk about this not too long ago. He was giving a lecture. He was actually a competition pistol shooter, okay? And he even, I think, competed at the Olympic level in rifle and pistol shooting. And he said that's what he noticed in that discipline as well is that people think that if they can go out and buy a rifle for competition, if they can trick it out, right trigger, right, you know, the right butt, the right barrel, the right sites and everything. They buy a $700,800 rifle and they trick it out. They've got $3,000 into it now. He said the same thing. He said, that's not where it's at. He said, where it's at is stick with that stock rifle.

and then get yourself $2,300 worth of ammo and practice, in practice, and practice. And those are the guys and those are the girls that end up in the Olympics, and they're really, really good. Same thing with our spiritual life when it comes to all of the equipment, if you will. Number two, and I want to suggest this, is that the key, I think, to growing spiritually is not looking at the whole thing at once and being overwhelmed. It's okay to see the whole thing. Just like I teach the Great Adventure Bible series,

we start with the whole thing, okay? But it's a simple overview, and then we quickly begin to isolate. What do I mean by that? Well, the Great Adventure will take you through the Bible. It'll take you through the entire Bible in either eight sessions, which is unlocking the mystery of the Bible.

I'll put that in the show notes. Or the 24-week series, which is a long walk through the entire story. That's good, and you need it. it. But then we begin to isolate. We look at the Gospel of Matthew. We look at Ephesians. We look at James. We look at wisdom. We look at disciplines in light of the whole. And that's how we become more proficient in Scripture. We don't just kind of hit and miss or just sit back and be overwhelmed by the enormity of the Bible. We start to, you know, take it apart and go after the

individual parts. And so number one is the equipment is not the issue. It's practice. in prayer life and everything else. Number two is that we need to isolate each act from the whole and really perfect it. You know that old saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So isolation is one of the most important principles when it comes to training.

The way to build proficiency is to isolate each action, every virtue, every practice, and separate it from the whole and begin to focus on it and make it perfect. Now, I'm going to give you some ideas on different areas of your life that you might be thinking about this, but let's look at a couple of practical areas that you might be familiar with. For example, a quarterback in the NFL. A quarterback in the NFL does not go out there and just practice taking the hike and setback, moving back, throwing all at once.

he doesn't do that. What he does is he isolates each action and perfects it. So the quarterback will spend many, many, many hours with the center taking and receiving the hike. And he'll call it out, you know, 23 green, and he'll take it. And he'll do it again, and do it again, hike, and do it again, hike. And he gets it down to the point where there's a muscle memory there. He's perfecting the one act. Now, if that's all he did, he wouldn't be in the NFL. But the quarterback does that automatically because he's practiced that isolated discipline so often. What does the quarterback do? He goes up, he reads the defense. He's good at that. He reads the defense. He might call an audible. He might go with the play that's already been determined. He

receives the ball from the center. He's practiced this thousands of times. He moves back into the pocket sets thousands of times. His peripheral vision is sharp. He's used to this. He looks slightly to the left and right. He knows how to read. And what does he do? He throws. Now, there's a lot that goes on with a quarterback as far as isolating disciplines. The good quarterbacks don't have any problem at all, spending an entire day taking hikes and practicing and practicing. And that's what we want to do in the spiritual life. You're going to be overcome if you try to do everything at once. Isolate. Isolate.

For example, being kind to your spouse when you come home from work. Isolate that task day after day until you perfect it. This is very similar also with musicians. Musicians do not just practice the whole composition. They typically will isolate parts and they will go over them and over them and over them, and then they will take the various parts and put them together, and they have a complete composition that is absolutely beautiful. But they perfected the individual parts, and many times it's the most difficult parts that they will focus on at a time. Okay?

Now, I call this, in a sense, muscle memory. If you will focus on the disciplines of your spiritual life, which I'm going to get to after the break, I'm going to come back and give you ideas for spiritual disciplines in your life. But if you will start to do that and you will do it in a repetitious way, I promise you it will become a part of your daily life. And it will become a part of the fabric of your heart, that you will do these things automatically. We know what we call that? Muscle memory. Muscle memory. Let me give you an example. When I was in high school, when I was in high school, I was actually dared by a friend to go out. for hockey. I had never really played hockey growing up, except with the kids in the neighborhood,

but not in a formal team, you know, like a league. But I had one thing good going for me, and that was that I had really quick reflexes in my hands, my feet, very fast, but no skill, to be honest with you, and being a goaltender in hockey. Well, I took him up on the dare, and I ended up sharing the starting position on our hockey team in Minnesota and went on and did, you know, fairly well, I guess, in hockey. But what we would do in the hallways, before we even got to the ice, is we would take tennis balls, and people would shoot shots at me, and I would practice hundreds and thousands of shots of kickouts, glove saves, taking it on the chest, going down to my knees.

And it was over and over. And then we would go to our friend's house, and we would use the garage. door, which the parents didn't really appreciate, and we would tape off a goal on their garage door, you know, one of our friends, and then people would shoot these tennis balls at me. Well, I probably have 10,000 shots at me, you know, over the years, and there's a muscle memory, so much so that all these years later, my grandkids, in fact, this happened just yesterday outside the old log cabin here in the woods, and they were kicking a soccer ball at me. And my leg immediately, not even thinking, just went out and saw that ball coming at me. There's a muscle

memory there after all of these years. And this muscle memory is the, it is the synapsis in the brain. And it's literally creating new pathways as you do it over and over. Your brain begins to learn that and it becomes easier and easier. And it's like second nature. If you were to throw anything at me, my first inclination is to kick it out. It's actually not to catch it. It's to kick it, as a goaltender often does. Now, you might find this in riding a bike, a motorcycle, whatever it might be. So this is the key, is what we want to do is we want to take the whole spiritual life.

We want to start to isolate particular disciplines, and then we want to go after those. Now, I have a Bible study, and I'll put this in the show notes, that is very much set up like this. It's called Walking Toward Eternity. And we've got two of them, where we isolated disciplines use Lexio-Devina, which is a four-part way to pray scripture and to become a part of Scripture and make it personal. We use Lexio-Devina to focus in on these individual disciplines. For example, the One Walking Toward Eternity series that I have is called Daring to Walk the Walk. We talk about love, forgiveness, humility, prayerfulness, faithfulness, faithfulness, sacrifice, and Thanksgiving.

All of those are individual disciplines that we want to isolate and we want to perfect. And the best way to do is take one at a time and focus on it until you start to perfect it. The second study that we have had in the past, which will be in the show notes, is engaging the struggles of the heart. These are the things that we really kind of struggle with. For example, appetites and shame and envy, anger, fear, loneliness, and hopelessness. And so those are things that we isolate and we focus on in those two studies. Now, I'm going to take a break.

When I come back, I want to talk about real practical things that you might do on a daily basis to isolate the disciplines that you desperately need in. your life. Once again, the focus of this show is it's not the equipment that matters. It's you doing it. It's you exercising these disciplines. It's you focusing on the things that God wants you to get better at. The second thing is the power of isolating spiritual disciplines. There's a power in it when you begin to focus on one thing that you need to improve on your life with the Lord and you do it day after day after day. Some people say that 30 days is a good time to to do this as 30 kind of builds this into your synopsis and your brains, you know,

and it becomes yours. It becomes a habit. While you're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show, we're going to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to give you some practical things in regards to this, and hopefully it will be a benefit in your life. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We're talking about the power of isolating spiritual disciplines in your life. This is not some pie in the sky thing I'm talking about, or just, you know, some idea.

This is something I try to do in my own life that I find that I'm not really good, to be honest with you, at doing it all at once. It's a little overpowering, a little bit too much for me. And my wife might tell you I have a little ADD, you know, a little attention deficit, whatever it is. I'd never been diagnosed, but she says, sometimes she says, well, you get distracted, you know,

so easily, and I do. And so I have to focus on one thing at a time to perfect that in my life. Now, Scripture has something to say about this. There's a lot of scriptures that talk about this idea of focusing. Let me give you just a few of them here, and then we'll look into some of these practical things. Okay. Philippians chapter 3 in verse 13, Paul says, brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I like that. Isn't that beautiful? Philippians 313 and 14, he says, one thing I do. One thing I do. He's looking at that focus, okay? Now, if you're

struggling with, let's say, a particular sin, there's going to be one thing that you can do that will help you become free. If you struggle with pornography, there's one thing that you can do, that you can curb that. If you struggle with alcohol, there's one thing you can do. It might be driving home another way. It might be making a phone call on the way home, where you normally would get involved with alcohol or pornography or spending. You say you have a problem with spending. There's one thing that you can do to start to work on that. In Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 1, the writer of Hebrew says,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight in sin, which clings so closely. And let us run with perseverance and race. Let me start that over. Hebrews chapter 12 in verse 1, therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and the perfector of our faith.

You see, that scripture right there talks about the fact that there is one who's the pioneer and the perfector of your faith, that is Jesus. and if you will focus on Jesus and bring this one discipline to Him and do it unto the Lord, you're going to have success. The psalmist once said in Psalm 27 of verse 4, One thing I have asked, I love it. One thing I have asked the Lord, that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. There was that one thing. that he asked, he wanted to be with the Lord. We see that reflected in Luke chapter 10 in verse 41. When we have the story of Mary and Martha, remember that? Martha is very anxious about everything. Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening.

And Jesus points out, that's the one thing. That's the one thing right there. Luke 10, verse 41. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. one thing is needful, Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her. You see, she was focusing on that one thing, and that's to listen to the Lord that particular day, and she chose the right thing. There's another scripture, see, that was Luke 1041. Mark 1021, Jesus looking upon him, loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing.

Go sell what you have and give to the poor, you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. So Jesus is even speaking to someone saying, there's one thing I want you to do here. Okay? And I love Ephesians 515. We covered this a little bit in our Ephesian study, the Great Adventure Ephesians study,

where Paul says to the Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 15, he says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Do you know what steals our days oftentimes is the enormity of the big picture of our lives and what we need to do in our own spiritual life?

Make the most of the time focus on that one thing that you can perfect in your life. Very, very important. Just a few scriptures there. So the spiritual life and making progress in the spiritual life is kind of like learning a language. You know, if you isolate a few words and start working on memorizing them, you'll do fine. But if you have to make them part of your daily life as a whole, you're probably going to fail at the beginning because you don't have enough skill.

You have to take the few words that you have learned and a little bit about vocabulary and begin to use it in your daily life. and as you learn more words and more words, you're going to have a vocabulary that will get you around and you'll have a complete language. Now, let's look at some of the areas of your life, and I'm going to encourage you to maybe write this down after you get home or if you have a moment, it'll be in the show notes. But I'm going to give you some of my ideas,

and I'm going to encourage you to come up with your own ideas on what are some of the areas that you could isolate in your own life. and begin to perfect. I'm thinking about this. What if you have a problem of adjusting from work to home? And when you come back home from work, you have a tendency to be grumpy. I would suggest that you isolate that

and that for a couple of weeks, you focus on that ride home. The minute you get in the car after work, you're going to focus on going home, you're going to be that father. You're going to be that husband. You're going to be that mother, you're going to be that wife, you're going to be that great roommate. You're going to focus on your attitude as you go home and you're going to rehearse what you're going to say when you get home.

And you're going to be a loving person, a kind and gentle and patient person rather than a grump when you get home. And you know you are. Just kidding. But you know where you're at right now. If you want to change that, you have to focus on. It's not going to happen by accident. you're not going to get an email or a text that's going to make you do it. You're going to have to work on that.

Here's another one. Avoiding sin traps. Some people get into sin. I mentioned them earlier. Alcohol, pornography, buying, whatever it might be. When you're driving, you need to discipline yourself. You need to develop that godly discipline of taking responsibility for where you're at and where you're going. and focus on it.

Don't go home that same way. Don't put that cash in your wallet that you have a tendency to spend. You focus on it for a few weeks. What about prayer after waking up in the morning? A lot of people say, you know, when you ask them, how's your prayer life? And they say, well, it could be better, you know.

Yeah, it could be. But it's not going to get better unless you isolate your prayer life and begin to focus on it. So, for example, when you get up in the morning is your typical morning you get up, you turn the radio on, you go into the bathroom, you get ready, you go downstairs, you make your coffee, maybe have a little breakfast, get dressed, grab the briefcase, you're out, and all of a sudden you realize, I did it again.

I don't spend time with the Lord. That might be an isolation point where you say, when I get up in the morning, I'm going to isolate that half hour, and I'm going to work on it, and I'm going to work on it for 20 days, 30 days. I'm going to work on that. If you do that for 30 days, trust me, you're going to be really pleased with your progress. But if you don't do it, you're probably going to be about like you are now in 10 years. Not much is going to change. That's just the nature of life, isn't it?

Not much is going to change unless you isolate and practice and perfect those spiritual disciplines. You might think, well, that's only one thing. You know, it's just prayer after I get up. Yeah, but it's more than you're doing now. So why not do it? If you did that for a month and then you times that, times 12 months a year, we're talking about 12 disciplines that you could perfect in a year.

That is cool. Cool is Greek for fantastic. But in all seriousness, that's 12 things. that you will be different in a year as a result of isolating these basic spiritual disciplines. What about reading the Word, the Word of God before going to bed or at lunch? Isolate, focus, start to make that a habit. What about resisting eating junk food? Make a list.

What are the junk foods that you typically get into that make you feel hyped or worn out or guilty, you know, and you just, you hate it? write them down. Start focusing on that. I'm not going to have junk food today. On the way home from work, I'm not going to stop at McDonald's on the way home. Sorry, McDonald's, but I'm not going to have fries, you know, or whatever it might be. Focus on that. When I say fast foods, a lot of people just swing in and get something just to tide them over that they don't really need. Focus on that. Go through your pantries. Do you have junk food there? Clean it out. 30 days. I'm not going to buy that stuff. I'm going to focus on this one discipline. What about reducing TV habits? A lot of people say, I watch too much TV. Well, is there a show or two that you could cut out in the evening,

perhaps? Focus, isolate. That's the area that I'm going to perfect in my life. Going to mass more than once a week. Maybe you have friends and they say, yeah, I go to daily mass and you're thinking, oh, I could never do that. I can never do that. Yeah, but you could go one more time. If you go on Sunday, which you should, otherwise we, that's a whole other show we need to talk about. Why not go on Wednesday, Thursday, maybe Tuesday morning. Just pick one more day, isolate. Isolate for a month. And you'll find yourself getting into a habit.

What about praying with your children before they go to bed? Is that a hit and miss thing? Is it maybe just every once in a while? Do you just give that to your wife and say, well, she does that? Why don't you isolate that area? and become that mom, that dad, that uncle, that aunt, whoever, and pray with those children. Grandma, grandpa, pray with them before they go to bed. What about at work, practicing humility at work instead of envy?

You know, envy is when we become sad, when somebody else is blessed. Is that happening to you at work? Focus, isolate. Let's deal with that. Let's work on it for the next month, shall we? What about practicing kindness? or here's one get to mass on time now these are seem to be small things but when you add up 12 of them 24 of them over a two three year period we're talking about making some serious spiritual progress

but i am a firm believer it's not going to happen as a whole it's just not you have to make it a habit. You've got to get that synapsis, that trail in your brain well-worn in those areas to where it becomes second nature, muscle memory, spiritual muscle memory. And that's where you're going to experience a joy and a peace like you've never known before. So if you right now are feeling scattered and you are feeling overwhelmed, I want you to do this this week. I want you to just put together a list. Maybe it's 5, 10, 15 things that you would really like to see change in your life. Not just in a self-improvement way. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm talking about with Christ as a disciple, with his power, with his help, not the look in the mirror, slap your

face and say, go get him, tiger. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you and Jesus walking and you changing as a result of isolating the spiritual disciplines with the Holy Spirit's help with the accompaniment of Jesus and seeing that change in your life. Make a list, 5, 10, 15 things. And this week, I want you to pray. After you make that list, I want you to pray and I want you to ask the Lord, which one should I do first, Lord? Which one should I do first? And then I want you to isolate that spiritual discipline and make it a point for the next couple of things. weeks, three weeks or so, ideally a month. But make it your goal to do that. And don't let anything get in the way. You're going to be surprised at how this becomes a part of your life. This is the

rolling up of the sleeves in the spiritual life, my friend. This is what made saints. This is what it means to be a modern day disciple, disciplined follower of Jesus. I really want to to hear your comments. I really want to hear the areas that you're going to start isolating. Will you write me? It's the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And I really want to hear this. I'm really excited to hear what you're going to do and to see the results in your life. For me, I've been working, I'll just give you a full disclosure here. What I'm working on is I am working on my attitude towards my family after a business trip. When I come home, so often I'm tired. But I'm working on, Jeff, you are a father and a husband. You are the representative of Jesus

Christ. Walk into that home with that in mind. That's what I'm working on right now. I hope you have a great week. And I hope this has been helpful to you. Once again, go on iTunes and subscribe and leave your comments, rate the show, if you will. It really does help as Catholics come together and social media. It helps to support one another in this way. And again, if you have ideas for future shows, let me know. It's The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Let me close out in prayer.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friends who have been listening. And I know, Lord, they have a heart like I do. It's a hungry heart. It wants more of you. And so often we feel overwhelmed. Help them, Lord, this week to isolate the areas that they need to grow in, and Lord, speak to them in a clear way as to what they need to do

to start to turn this ship around in their life. We ask for the intercession of our lady as well. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Amen. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Go forward, my friend, in the power of isolating spiritual disciplines.