The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - The Shape of Your Day (Episode 100!)

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

The morning is a pivotal moment that forms the shape of your day. Unfortunately for many of us, we wake up and find ourselves in the same loop we have been in for so many years. You desire more, but how is this possible in the midst of a busy life? Today Jeff explains how a true disciple not only believes, but listens, reflects, and acts on the Word of God. If you want to change the shape of your day, change the shape of your morning...that’s where it all begins. Also, in honor of The Jeff Cavins Show’s 100th episode, we are giving away signed copies of Jeff’s books. Listen to the show to find out if you won! (Winners will be contacted within the next week)

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 100, The Shape of Your Day. 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. Well, here we are. Episode 100.

It seems like just yesterday that we started with episode 9. number one, but you keep doing it every week, and before you know it, you're there, 100, 100 shows. Of course, the 100 show really isn't any different than any other show, and that I want to share with you things that are related to being a disciple of Jesus and crafting a life that is going to be fruitful and is going to get you to your intended goal, which is union with God in heaven forever and ever. And it has been a delight to spend this time with you. over the last 100 shows, and I look forward to the next 100 as I really enjoy meeting with you every week. In fact, we might end up adding some shows to the lineup, some shows about

introducing you to some of my friends and having some discussions about topics, as well as the show that we're doing that we're doing right now. I've got to tell you that over the last 100 shows, previous 99, I should say, a lot of the success I think of the show is thanks to you. I mean, You went to iTunes, you went to Google Play, and you ranked the show, gave your comments, and we're overwhelmed and very blessed and humbled by your response, and we want to thank you so much for that. And I think that the topics that we pick for the show on a week-to-week basis are topics that are, I guess, I could say, delicious.

You know, there are topics that people are wrestling with and people want to know about, and oftentimes the topics come from the questions. that you send in on email, which is the Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com if you just join the show. So, you know, the things that we talk about from a week to week basis are oftentimes I find topics that people will write me and say, I can't believe it. I was driving home from work and I always listen to your show and I, you know, on Friday when I'm coming home from work and you nailed it. That's what I'm going through. And that's what I needed to hear right then. And we hear from other people as well. They'll say, you know, I was searching on Google

and I was looking for depression. I wasn't looking for it. I was looking how to deal with it. And your show came up. I've never heard of you before, Jeff. And I've never listened to your podcast, but I listened to that one and something happened. And life began to change and how I'm listening to many shows, many of your shows. And so the way that people come into the show is from every angle that you can imagine. But it's a treat for me to share this with you coming from deep in the woods in Minnesota in the cabin here and talking about pertinent issues. Hey, by the way, we have our drawing results.

Last week, I told you that we're going to give away three books on this 100 show. I've got those names, and I'm going to give those away in just a little bit. I'm calling today the shape of your day. calling the show, rather, the shape of your day. And the reason that I'm doing that is that this has really been on my heart for a while. And I thought that it would be a topic that I should review. I haven't really had a show called The Shape of Your Day, but I have talked about it a little bit on a couple of the previous shows. And this is something that has really challenge me. In my life, as a Christian, as a Catholic, you know, you get up in the morning,

and so often people are hit by what we could call the tyranny of the urgent. And the tyranny of the urgent is where the urgent things crowd out the important, crucial things, you know, in our life. So, so for example, if you are a father or a mother, there is a certain expectation on your vocation to be a mother and to be a father and being a husband or a wife or a generous single person. And as you go about your life trying to be that father, the mother, whatever vocation you happen to find yourself in, things will crowd that out. And the thing that always gets pushed out seems to be the thing that we previously said was the most important thing in my life, which is to be a father or to be a husband. And we find ourselves serving other people or getting

involved in things that don't pay spiritual dividends, doesn't yield much fruit. And that can be frustrating. Very, very frustrating. In fact, it can be, as one person said, disintegration. We want to be integrated. You know, we want our life to match our calling, but to be disintegrated means that we're not tending to that. And that leads to frustration and some discouragement in our lives. I really think that if you look at the disciples in the New Testament, and you follow the call on their life, which began in Copernum, just got back last week from Israel, this call to come follow me, as Jesus said, Lech Achari, come follow me. That had some expectations upon it, and that was that the shape of your day, fellas, is going to change. You have been studying to be fishermen. You've been studying to be you know, builders or to make shoes or doctors, whatever it might be. But now that you have said yes to following me, the shape of your day is going to change. And I think that's a challenge to us. And I know it's a challenge to me, and I hope it is for you as well, that to say yes to Jesus, yes, I'm Catholic,

yes, I'm a member of the church, yes, I'm a disciple, doesn't mean that we just simply believe these things. And I can't help but revisit this because, you know, I hear constantly from people that, well, I want to read this book. I want to go to that conference. Yay, they're great. That's wonderful. But we've got to get around to being a disciple. You know what I mean? We've got to get around to listening to his voice, carrying out his will, reflecting on our day to see if we truly are the disciples that he's called us to be. And I know what happens so often is that we get in ruts. And, for example, our intentions are good.

We want to increase our prayer life. We want to begin to do Lexio-Devina to read scripture. We want to go to Holy Hour more often, perhaps Mass, on a more regular basis, even daily mass. But we get up in the morning, and we find ourselves in the same loop that we've been in for so many years. We get up early, we walk down, you know, stairs. We put the pot of coffee on. That doesn't, kind of dates me, doesn't it? You put your curag machine in action, I should say, and you put the cup in there and whatever you want, the chai skinny, skinny chai latte or whatever. And then you turn on television, look at the news a little bit, and you kind of go through

yesterday's mail and so forth. Oh, it's time to shower. Got to go to work. So you run up and take your shower and you get your cup of coffee and you go out the door and you go to work. Well, that's been the same for years. But deep down inside, you desire more. You know, and you come home in the evening and you get into that rut. You know, you come home and you look at the mail or you turn on the news, sit down and get something to drink. And before you know it, you're into your cycle of seven o'clock shows, eight o'clock shows, nine o'clock shows. Oh, there's the news at getting a little bit tired, but I do need to answer some emails. So into bed at 11 o'clock, there's that day, same as yesterday and the day before, and tomorrow morning will probably be

like this morning, and life goes on. And sandwiched in between that morning routine and that evening routine is what? It's living your life, and it's the constant gnawing at your heart that I want more. I want to be different. I want to grow spiritually. I want to be effective in evangelization and reaching out to other people. But I'm not even working on myself. And that's the rut that we get into. Now, as you look at, as I mentioned, you look at the early disciples and Jesus calling them, as he's called you, you really get a sense that their day changed. They got up in the morning, and they immediately interacted with Jesus. And I'll talk about that interaction after our break in a moment or so, a couple minutes.

But then during the day, their mind was on the work of the Lord. And by the way, it still can be even if you are a doctor, even if you are a teacher, even if you are an engineer, a stay-home mom, stay-home dad, you know, politics, lawyer, whatever it might be. You know, you run a gas station. Your day can be focused on the Lord and continue to do your work. and so there was a change in the early disciples' lives. The middle of their day changed. And in the evening, no doubt there were discussions with the Lord about how the day went and

maybe their attitude or their interaction with someone or opportunities lost, opportunities gain. And I imagine that every day was a little bit different, but there was sort of a pattern to their day, as I would say, the shape of your day. And I talk about this in my recent book, The Activated Disciple, where I talk about the shape of your day. And the bottom line is, you're responsible for it. If you really want to grow spiritually, you're going to have to do something in the morning. You know, you're going to have to be aware during the day, and you're going to have to do something in the evening, and wishing to be different, hoping your life will be different, praying that it'll be different, will never end in a different life unless we put it

in gear and start to do it. And so as we're still at the beginning of this year, if you're listening on the back catalog, it's 2019, you got an opportunity to start this year an new again. And so I want to share with you just a few things that I would recommend on how to change the shape of your day so that you can begin to grow spiritually and really focus on being that disciple of the Lord that's deep within your heart. I'll tell you something, I truly believe, and I mean this for you, and I mean it for me, I truly believe that the Lord has called us to something beyond a rut. He has called us to something that is challenging to us. He's called us to something that is challenging to us. He's called us to something that is perhaps even challenging our giftedness, where we could become

afraid of what he's going to ask us to do. And if we trust him, we will find out that he will not disappoint when he says, be not afraid. Do not be discouraged. Do not be afraid. And he wants to take you on that adventure. Hey, for the first book today, the 100 show, we gave away a copy of My Life on the Rock, which is my autobiography of growing up Catholic, leaving the Catholic Church, becoming a Protestant

pastor for 12 years, and then coming back to the Catholic Church. Why did I come back to the Catholic Church? I mentioned it, you know, in there, there's four major things that really brought me back to the Catholic Church. We're going to give that book to a lucky winner. His name is Michael Merceogliano. I'm going to butcher the name. I apologize. Mercosigliano. You get the book. You won that book, My Life on the Rock. We're going to give away two more books during this show, the activated disciple book, and the book that Dr. Tim Gray wrote with me, and that's called Walking with God. And it takes you all the way through the Bible. Take a break. We're going to be back in just a moment. We're going to give you some ideas.

I want to give you some ideas on how to change the shape of your day. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. And 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, Liadero, 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. Welcome back. It's the 100th show of the Jeff Kaven show, and it's not my show. show, it's our show. It's you, me, and spending time together for the last 99 shows. And I imagine we've spent time together in the car quite a bit or, you know, sitting at the cabin or wherever, you know,

taking walks or jogging. But it has been a delight to be with you and a privilege to say that you're my brother. You're my sister. And we can walk with the Lord together. Talking about changing the shape of your day on this 100th show. Now let me, let me, let me, tell you what I have done in my own life to change the shape of my day. And I got to tell you that it yields fruit. Now, I'm married 41 years to my lovely wife, Emily, and I can say that changing the shape of my day has really changed into changing the shape of our day, because we're married. And the morning time is very, very important. You see that a disciple of the Lord needs to find out, what is the will of the Lord for my life? What is the Lord trying to say to me today?

Now, that assumes that the Lord can talk to you, and it assumes that the Lord has made you in such a way that you can hear him, and you can talk to him. And the church teaches us that that's true, that you're made in such a way that you can hear the Lord in your life, and you can talk to the Lord in your life. Now, one of the greatest ways I have found to hear the Lord on a daily basis is morning prayer. And within morning prayer, lexio divina. Lexio divina is divine reading. And the source of this reading is scripture. Now, we've had some shows in the past on this as well. But the focus of Lexio divina in the morning is really twofold. Number one, it's to find out what is the Lord, what is the Lord saying to you personally? And you choose that portion of scripture and you read it, you meditate on it, you pray, and then you spend some time in contemplation, just loving what the Lord

has said to you that day. And it takes a little practice at the beginning, but you get to the point where you start to hear the Lord on a regular basis. Now, if the Lord is giving you a word for that day, he's giving you direction for that day, I have found, at least in my own life, and I think I speak for Emily as well, and that throughout the day, that word, has something to say to me, and it affects my day. It affects my day. It changes my day. And sometimes I find that what the Lord is sharing with me through Lexio Divina in the morning is also for somebody else that I end up talking to, and they might be struggling with some issue in their life, and I'm there, and I can give them. I can give them a word, you know, from

scripture to help them, to encourage them. But if you want to change the shape of your day, you've got to start to change the shape of your morning. You know, see what I'm saying? If you want to change, let me say it again. If you want to change the shape of your day, you've got to change the shape of your morning. That's where it all begins. And you might say, well, man, Jeff, I get up at, I get up at 5.30 to go to work. Okay, get up at 5.10.

Get up at 5.10 and give Jesus 15, 20 minutes in the morning, where you can spend some time with your cup of coffee and your scriptures, and you you can have this relationship and begin to pray and come to know the voice of the Lord. And so I've said this on other shows before, that the key to growing spiritually is not to take it all in at once and be overwhelmed by all that has to change in your life, but isolate the disciplines and perfect them. Isolate the various disciplines of your spiritual life and begin to perfect them. If it means that all you can do right now to change is to change the shape of your morning, start doing that. At least get up, even if it's five minutes, get up and change the

shape of your morning and meet with Jesus. That's kind of my challenge to you this week, this month, this year, is to do that. But Jeff, haven't you missed mornings? Never. Yeah, I'm kidding you. Yes, of course I have. Of course, I got up. I got up late. I had to run out the door. Have I ever been lazy? Yeah, once back in 1979. No, of course. There's been. days where I've been lazy. And the Lord has sort of brought me back in of, hey, this isn't about theology and dogma just as an end goal. This is, this is about relationship. And so that relationship, like a marriage, goes up and down, and it has an ebb and flow to it. So don't be so hard on yourself, you know, but begin to change the shape of your morning. And then after that,

throughout the day, you can change the shape of your work day by reminding yourself throughout the day that you're a disciple and you're looking for opportunities to witness to other people, opportunities to get your act together spiritually when you are offended by somebody or you're hurt by somebody or you have a chance to talk to someone. So you begin to change by doing things differently and you're basically doing the work of the Lord. I can't tell you how exciting it is for me to have this perspective because, well, first of all, it's great for me as a married man to spend the time with my wife in the morning in prayer.

And we both will meditate on the same scripture, and almost every day we come up with something different. The Lord speaks to her in a different way. He speaks to me in a different way, and we share that with each other, and we write it down in our little mull. skiing notebooks, and then throughout the day, we take notice of why the Lord shared that with me this morning, and so that's how the afternoon changes. That's the shape of my afternoon and my work day, and it's based on what the Lord was saying in the morning. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

Hey, before I tell you the shape of the evening, let me tell you who just won the activated disciple book. This book, give me a moment here. This book is, is flying off the shelf right now because we're talking about just these things. We're talking about the shape of your day. We're talking about being chosen by Christ to be disciples. We're talking about how to share the corigma, the basic message of the gospel with other people. We're talking about growing in virtue, fighting vice in our life. It's all about being an activated disciple, not just a believer, but an activated disciple. And Colette Bosley, Colette Bosley won the activated disciple, we're going to get that out to you. And by the way, Michael, earlier,

like my life on the rock, we're going to get that out to you as well. And don't you worry about that. We got one more book to give away today. It's Walking with God, and I'll tell you who's going to get that in just a moment. So what about the end of the day? Are you in a rut? I think the marketing machine and the media of the United States would love to have you do the same thing every night. and that is to pop up a bowl of popcorn, get on the couch, and just stare at two or three shows every single night. I can to be honest with you. Man, I'm called more than that.

You know what I mean? Do you feel that way? I mean, do you feel called to more than that? Or are you happy with that being the shape of your evening? You got your sitcom, you got your CI, whatever, and you got your game show or, I don't know. I mean, if you, if watching Ellen, you know, DeGeneres, watching her, watch people crawl around on the ground with blindfolds on, if anything, that's the deal for you. I mean, okay, but that's not the shape of my evening.

That isn't the shape of my evening. We ran across that the other night, my wife and myself, and I looked over here and said, man, I can't believe people spend their life watching this. But, I mean, some people that might, you know, might improve their life, I don't know. but I want my evening to look a certain way. And so in the evening, it's a time of reflecting. It's a time of looking back at your day. And we do what's called the Examine Prayer, and that is where you, you can Google it, the Examine Prayer.

And I got a past show on it. I'm going to ask my wonderful producer to put that in the notes, what episode that was. I don't have it at the top of my head at the moment. But a whole episode, in fact, I got a whole episode on Lexio de Vina in the morning, a whole episode on the examined prayer in the evening. We'll put those in the notes for you. But basically what you do is you get a copy of your day, your YouTube recording of your day, and you go through it with the Lord.

You look at your day and you see how you did, good, bad, ugly. And then you make adjustments in your life and you prepare for the next day. But if you want to change the shape of your day, you've got to change the shape of your evening as well. That's part of your day. And the evening is a good time for that devotional reading. Now, you say, well, I thought that's what Lexio was in the morning. No, Lexio is deep relationship in listening to his voice. When I say devotional reading, I'm talking about reading that good book. Activated disciple. There's one for you. Or reading the life of a saint, or reading about sacraments, or the writings of John Paul II, or or reading something interesting about science, astronomy, and relating it to your walk with

Christ, with your call as a disciple. But I'm afraid that we waste our evenings so often. Do you know what I mean? With mindless television, YouTube videos, and games, and things like that. And what's unfortunate about is that so often we who say, we who engage in these things will come back when asked, how's your walk with the Lord? We'll say, man, I just don't have enough time to read the Bible. I don't have enough time to go through the whole Bible or the great adventure, Bible study, whatever it might be, any other good study. And yet we've, we kind of blow our time by, you know, getting involved with so many trivial things. So that's a challenge to you going on this year is to change the shape of your day by, first of all, changing the shape of your morning,

the shape of your workday, and then changing the shape of your evening. Now, again, I'm not saying radically change all this. I'm just saying, start to ease into this by changing the shape. It's like bodybuilding, something that I don't do. But it's like someone wanting to go into bodybuilding. They don't become Mr. Olympia overnight. but they begin to change some things. You know, and they start small, 5, 10 pounds. They get up to 30 pounds of lifting, 50, 100, whatever it might be. And before you know it, that routine, which is increased on a daily, weekly,

monthly basis has now changed the way they look or the shape of their body. In the same way, spiritually, if we want to see a change in our life, we've got to start to change the shape of our day. And what that does is it gives us something solid to look forward to so that we can engage to the Lord and engage our heart, and we can see that change in our life. Well, that's what I wanted to share with you today. And I know based on our other shows, I'm going to get an email from you, which I really welcome. And you're going to say, you know what, I needed that. I needed it in my life. Hey, before I give away the Walking with God book, I do want to answer one question today. I got a great question that came in and says, my 20-year-old daughter is not going to church at all.

She will not give me a reason, and I feel like I have failed her. I know a lot of people feel that way. I'm at a loss as to what to do. She is a feminist, and I know that the abuse in the church is an issue for. she was assaulted by another student in eighth grade while in Catholic school. I pray for her every day. I also have a 16-year-old son who is sporadically going to church because of his job. What do I do? It's a great question. And that's an anonymous question, that particular one. And here's what I would say, is that you're not alone. There's a lot of people in the same boat. They have children who are leaving high school, going to college, and they don't seem to be embracing their faith. It's not that. that unusual, actually. About 50% or more of our high school students when they go to college will

fall away, whether it's permanently or temporarily, they'll fall away from the faith. This is what I've always shared with people. If you want to win your children back to the church, which I have a whole episode on that earlier show, perhaps we can put that in the show notes as well. You need to, first of all, begin to pray. Because prayer is not. simply giving God your wish list. Prayer is participating in the will of God and praying in his name for your children. And prayer is powerful. Jesus would not have given us the task and the privilege of praying if it wasn't effective. That would be a useless routine. But he asks us to pray and the apostles asked us to pray because prayer is powerful. It's effective. And so begin to

pray that your kids, a couple of things. One, that their hearts would become sensitive to the Lord in wanting the Lord, and that the things of this world would be realized as empty compared to knowing Christ. Number two is that when we pray for them, we pray that God would bring people into their life, that they respect, that they admire, that have the words for the right time in their life. There's a great proverb that says, As apples of gold in a setting of silver, so are the right words in the right circumstance. Pray for the right apples in the right setting. Pray for the right apples.

As apples of gold, you know, as apples in the right setting, just pray for that. Pray that God would give people the right words to share in the right setting. As apples of gold in a setting of silver, so are the right words in the right. circumstance. Pray that that becomes a reality in their life. So the prayer is very important. Number two is you begin to become conversant in the Word of God's scripture and the catechism, the plan of God, this sheer plan of goodness, you know, or plan of sheer sheer goodness, as it says, in the very first paragraph, become conversant, start to learn how to talk this. But the third is, you start living the way you want your children to end up. You start living your faith the way you want

them to end up and pray that they see it, that they're affected by it. You see, your actions at this stage in their life, your actions are going to speak louder than words by far. Words are important. They're going to be wrong, but the way we live and the way we treat them and our patience and our love and tenderness and gentleness and mercy is going to speak volumes to them. So I just wanted to share that with you this week. Well, guess what, Mary Pat Walsh, you just won the Walking with God book. And that was written by Dr. Tim Gray and myself, Mary Pat Walsh, we're going to get that book out to you.

Thank you for entering the contest, or I guess the drawing we would say for this 100th show. looking forward to the next 100, and again, when you go to iTunes or Google Play and you rank the show and leave remarks, you're helping other people find it when they're looking for topics related to this show. So once again, a big thank you for partnering in this endeavor and being co-workers in the Kingdom of God, and I look forward to sharing many, many more hours with you as we walk through life as activated disciples. And remember to tell your friends about the show, those that might need it. It's easy to go and to share it on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook, whatever social media vehicle you use, you can share it with other people. Allow me

to pray for you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friends right now. And I thank you, Lord, that you have called us to work together. and to be modern-day disciples, activated disciples, I lift up my friend's family to you right now and pray that you would bless them and continue to protect them and lead them. And in our own lives, Lord, we pray that we'd become sensitive to your voice so that you will be glorified in everything we say and do and that your kingdom would expand. We pray this in your wonderful name, the name of Jesus. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Listen. I love you, and I'm praying for you.

You have a great week.