 Let's begin in prayer. I'm so excited to talk to you this afternoon and And I hope that what I share with you is going to have some benefit To your life and to your reading scripture and growing in the Lord and walking in the The power of the Holy Spirit as a disciple because I know that you're here for more than head knowledge, right? You're here to be changed. You're here to meet Jesus That's why the defending the faith conference isn't just lecture after lecture It is talks. It is mass. It is confession. It is fellowship. It is adoration it involves the whole person for the next few days and By the time you leave here, hopefully the Lord will have worked in your heart Maybe you came with questions about direction in your life Maybe there's something you left back home that you don't know what to do But when you leave here, hopefully the Lord will give you some direction some wisdom some insight Into whatever you're facing back home because I know that that God will meet us in a big way I'm so excited for you and I'm gonna be here till Sunday as well The name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus. Oh Lord We thank you and we love you And Lord we have come from all over the country and all over the world to gather together Because we want to see Jesus. We want to see you when I want to experience you Lord We come in our brokenness. We come in our needs We lay down our own expectations our own plans and we say Lord feed us direct us correct us and Comfort us To you be all the glory for this Defending the faith conference Thank you Jesus. Amen father son in the Holy Spirit I'm gonna talk to you this afternoon about something that's very very practical and Something that is very very real in my life There was an article written in bar magazine biblical archaeology review a number of years ago and this article studied the relationship between a degree like a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and a PhD with Your relationship with the Lord and whether you believe the Lord or whether you read the Bible as a as a inspired work from God to you And what they found out was that at the bachelor's level there was a pretty good level of I believe I Believe and then as they moved into the master's level that began to shrink and by the time they got to the PhD level they had studied themselves right out of the faith and that was very small and So there is this relationship between learning more and more out there and decreasing in your faith But one of the things that's so beautiful about Franciscan University and all of the great speakers that are lined up for you here is that the more they studied The more they grew in faith the more they grew in their understanding and they were excited about the revelations that they were receiving I did a podcast a couple years ago about scholars in the United States biblical scholars and I came up with some common denominators That separated them from scholars who don't have any faith today And one of them was that they were submitted to the teachings of the church Another one was that they they actually Did what they studied they put it into practice in their life and their faith began to grow and grow and The same as for us you might not have a PhD You might not have a master's degree or a or a bachelor's degree and that's fine but the more we study as Catholics the more we should grow in our faith But we have to do something with it and that's what I want to talk to you about this afternoon is How do we hear from God on a daily basis and put it into practice? And then the next day hear from God again and have this personal relationship with the Lord When I was a pastor for 12 years 50 to 60 percent of our church were former Catholics 50 to 60 percent of our church were former Catholics and One of the easiest ways to take Catholics out of the church was to invite them to what I'm going to share with you today And that is this all we had to say was Could you use a word from God today in your life? Could you use direction in your life today and the looks on people's faces? Well, there was amazing. They were like, oh man, man, I could I could use something I can use I need direction in my life I need it my marriage and and I needed my finances and and at work and my children I need a miracle there, but I Need direction. How many of you would say today? I need direction in my life. I could use a word from God in my life Very good 23 of you So that's there's the problem right there You don't know if you need a word from God My friends you need a word from God. That is for absolute. Sure. I want to start off by telling you just briefly Something that I have fallen in love with and something that helps me in being a disciple of Jesus I see myself as a disciple of the Lord a follower of Jesus one who walks with with him and And that is that two thousand years ago We don't think about this very often, but two thousand years ago. There was actually a way to become a disciple of Jesus to become a disciple of any any rabbi in the first century and And it was pretty simple actually You didn't just go and hear Jesus at the stadium and in Capernaum and say oh, I'm his disciple and go to his book table and start buying his tapes and his books and Yeah, I'm all over that stuff I'm a disciple of Jesus and you bring your bag home and occasionally read one of the one of the 73 books he has And listen to it that'll sink in at your Catholic that should sink in really right there. I Saw a couple you're going. I thought it was 66 No, you're in the wrong wrong place So and you listen to his tapes and so forth is I'm a disciple of Jesus No, that's not how you became a disciple of Jesus but you would become a disciple of Jesus by Growing up and from the ages of seven to ten you would learn Torah you would learn scripture You would memorize scripture from ten to 13 you would learn more scripture and you would learn the tradition of your faith the tradition of the fathers there and And then from ten to 13 you would also spend about half your day learning your father's trade Because when you became 13 14 years old you pretty much were making your mind up What are you gonna do with your life and most of these young boys would end up becoming? Carpenters or fishermen or make shoes or Teach or something like that But right around that time of 13 to 14 years of age the great rabbis would come through the towns regularly and The average number of disciples that a rabbi had was five Five disciples that was the average number back then with with gum liel and gum liels great-grandson his grandson great-grandson was was was was a hillel or He he gum liel was the grandson of Hillel It had 70 disciples you had Shamai you had all these great disciples or all these great rabbis out there But the average number of disciples was five. So how did you become one of those disciples? It was actually very formulaic Now I don't know if you think of yourself as a disciple or you just say well I'm just I'm a believer but there's a difference between being just a believer and being a disciple of Jesus being a disciples 24-7 it changes your whole life. It is dynamic. It is it is very interesting. It's an adventure It's the great adventure as I like to say in following him So the way you became a disciple is that the rabbi would come through your town and he would meet and Over the last seven eight years. He's got to know you a little bit through the local teachers Maybe your parents maybe he's heard about you. He's asked questions before and He would say one of two things to you number one. He may say go ply your father's trade In other words go do what your father taught you to do The second thing that he could say is this Lech ahra'i in Hebrew Lech ahra'i Come after me come follow me My friend's discipleship Was an invitation to become a disciple You had to hear the formulaic phrase come after me come follow me That's when you were invited to become a disciple of a great rabbi and that meant that you were going to leave everything behind Follow the rabbi and your goal was going to be to become like that rabbi to think and to act like that rabbi You traveled you stayed in the same hotels you listen to him. They they had hotels Just trust me on that They they they would listen to how he teaches how he thinks how he deals with this situation with that situation Jesus said what? He says to you he says in the Word of God. He says listen You didn't choose me. I chose you To be my disciple. I chose you my friends every one of you Here at the defending the faith conference every one of you is chosen You are chosen to become Jesus rabbi Jesus disciple. You become his rabbi. You got big problems you Getting ahead of myself there To become his disciple That's what you are chosen for Women god loves you God thinks you're beautiful. He has chosen you Today he chooses you men same thing. God loves you. He chooses you. He loves you so much Now what what did Jesus say? He said you didn't choose me, but I chose you And then he said in Matthew 11 28 and 29 he says in Matthew 11 28 come to me All who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest And then he says in verse 29 take my yoke upon you And learn from me. I am gentle humble of heart My yoke is easy So he says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest take my yoke upon you What does it mean? What is a yoke when rabbi says Take my yoke what they are saying is Take on my worldview Take on my worldview See the world the way I do see marriage the way I see marriage everything that Mike Aquilina talked about See marriage see raising children See finance and see forgiveness See suffering see everything the way I do through my eyes And so when Jesus says to you take my yoke upon you In in Matthew 11 29 my friends you've got to respond to that You have to respond to that today You have to say yes or no That I will take on your yoke Jesus. I will become your disciple. I will walk with you And I will go out into the world and I will share the good news with you With others you know my my workshop tomorrow is is about the charisma and witnessing and I'm going to talk to you about How to share Christ anywhere anytime to anyone And how you go about sharing from a complete stranger To talking about Jesus. How do you do it and you can do it? And this is what God has called us to do to go out and to share the gospel with others but If we're going to say yes to Jesus as disciples And we're going to take on his worldview the end of all of that is not just taking it on and say now I understand Okay, I get it. I understand about marriage. I understand about forgiveness. I get it next topic But the idea is that you need to put it into practice in daily living To put it into practice in daily living And when Jesus chose the disciples He never said to them I choose you Be here on thursday at seven o'clock Every week Jesus every week on thursday every week holidays, too Except christmas I'll give you christmas off Jesus called him 24 seven didn't he because If you're going to be changed and you're going to be transformed and your thinking is going to change And the way you love your husband or your or your wife or your friend Or the way you raise your children or the way you forgive that that co that colleague at work that's hurt you so much that boss Who really really hurt you? If you're going to be able to respond to all these situations Then jesus must be close to you to help you and guide you and give you wisdom and power and strength We cannot report on thursday at seven o'clock and spend the rest of the week out there Walking by ourselves trying to remember some principles But we've got to get up in the morning And all throughout the day We are aware of the presence of the lord in our life We are aware of his word that is teaching me and speaking to my heart constantly Throughout the day when I meet someone what am I going to tell them when they say my husband just left me last night? I'm broken I don't even want to live Do you just say to him i'll offer up a rosary Or do you sit down and do you engage with them and love them and talk to them As though jesus is talking through you Is sharing life with them I say all that to say this if we Are going to live as disciples We have To have a shape to our day The shape of your day reflects the love of your life If you are single there is a certain shape to your day that reflects the love of your life If you are married then the shape of your day changes that reflects the love of your life If you have children The shape of your day really changes Because of who you love You see what i'm saying there the shape of our day changes according to uh the love of our life And so if we're in love with jesus then the shape of our day changes It changes And i want to talk to you about that change in just a moment, but let me just take a break right there and and say this We are living in very difficult times right now We are living in times right now where Politics social upheaval Gender identification all of it is in the news every moment of the day None of us seem to be able to escape the news That's going on right now in the presidential race and and and everything that's going on And yet in the midst of the the biggest shake-up of modern history that's going on right now What are the faithful disciples of jesus doing? Well, they're doing what the other faithful disciples of jesus are doing they're watching tucker carlson They're watching hanity and laura And they're staying away from don lemming And you can hear this talk all over and people the next day they come did you hear what laura said last night? No, I did not Why did you hear what tucker carlson said last night? You would almost think that these are the The newborn saints of the modern era That there are political champions And they fought the covet fight for us and they're fighting for trump right now and you know and all of that And I listen to people talking and I think to myself You're totally on the wrong playing field here Totally on the wrong playing field here. Jeff. Are you saying politics and all that's not important? No I'm not saying it's not important, but I'm saying there's something more important Than that to give our time to which is jesus christ For the the power of the gospel is what's going to turn our country around and turn hearts around That's what's going to turn it around I believe that I believe it and I see a day I see a day I see a day where Catholics are going to lead the christian charge in our country not only in bible study But they're going to lead the charge in the christian community in america on evangelization and sharing christ with others Bringing them in seeing them transformed and growing up I see that right. I do see that right now I read an article this last week and it was called evangelicals in freefall evangelicals in freefall Dr. Charles stanley was one of the first television evangelists out of atlanta georgia He was so conservative and so so staunch on scripture His young son grew up and became a minister andy stanley And he started leading the whole evangelical movement with cell groups and satellite churches and everything that evangelicals were doing But over the last five years andy stanley Has made a big announcement He's made a big announcement and that is that This one man by the name of harris Who left his faith and became an atheist Said to him that if you can take apart the bible anything in the bible you can take it all apart And it was making announcements about how christianity is not based on scripture, but in event the resurrection And people were starting to follow this And which doesn't make sense because we know about the resurrection through what? scripture We know about that So the evangelical world is wrestling with all of these things right now Among among their their churches and other groups as well and at that and at the time when everyone's struggling so much Catholics are growing in scripture study Growing in their understanding of the bible and and you take that and you bring it to the the liturgy and the the blood of jesus Wow You talk about we're set to have an impact on our culture But this is what i was trying to say we've got to keep our mind and our eyes On jesus i don't have the time to get into all these conversations I don't have the time every night from seven to ten to watch all of this I have a life to live I'm on a mission From god and if i'm going to watch seven to ten o'clock at night political television then jesus is going to have to watch it with me Imagine saying to the rabbi let's just sit down and watch some political news For three hours For a year He said jeff listen to me so If we're disciples of the lord and he's called us To be his disciples What was the one criteria that a rabbi would use in the first century? To determine who they're gonna pick If they were gonna pick someone to be their disciple They had criteria in picking so i've only got five places and i'm looking out and i i have to have some criteria Now the criteria wasn't how much money do you have? What kind of influence do you have? Where'd you go to college? Where do you live? What about your parents are they on boards or something? That was not the criteria the one criteria that a rabbi used in the first century was this It was Do i think you have what it takes To become like me That was it Do i believe you have what it takes to become like like me Now if i don't believe you can become like me and i'm a rabbi and i'm gonna take care of everything for the next five years And you're gonna travel with me And i don't believe that you can become like me. I'm not going to ask you to follow me But if i believe that you can become like me i will issue the invitation Come follow me Now that tells me something and listen to this The men that jesus chose peter andrew The rest They were fishermen A tax collector matthew They weren't chosen by a great rabbi The idea there is is that jesus chooses the unchosen to change the world And that's you and me Jesus chooses the unchosen to change the world But here's the deal if we're going to become like jesus if we're going to think like jesus speak like jesus vote like jesus Raise children like jesus love our spouse like like jesus if we're going to be like jesus then my friends We have to be by him close every day And so getting back to what i was saying the shape of your day reflects the love of your life What does the shape of your day Look like What does it look like? Do you meet with jesus every day? Do you talk to him every day? Do you get together in the word of god every single day and talk to jesus? Every day or is it hidden miss If it's hidden miss then it might look like your marriage Because in marriage we run into the same thing, don't we? When you're engaged, you're like all over each other. You know just I cannot get enough of being with each other And back in the day back when I was younger, which were every day earlier. I was younger, but I don't know why we say that when I was younger. Well, yeah, that was all when I was younger We had we didn't have cell phones But we had these we had these phones and then when you turn about 13 14 years old You ask your parents if you could get one of those 20 foot cords And you'd go underneath the stairs Shut the door and talk to your girlfriend underneath the stairs And I remember when emily and I had first got together and we were we were friends And then uh, then we ended up getting engaged shape of my day changed got married the shape of my day changed And before we got married. We were with each other 24 not 24 7. I was a christian. I we were together Out we were together 18 seven, okay We were we were together 18 seven And and and we would we would read the bible talk about jesus we'd pray together We were in bible college in dallas texas and it was just so great that we got married that we had jobs We weren't with each other as much Then we had children and we weren't with each other as much And so after about 10 years you're looking at each other like it just doesn't feel the way it was when we've met you know and So we came up with this amazing invention date night Thursdays Whatever we have to do we'll sacrifice. We'll get a babysitter. We'll put out the extra four bucks Listen mcdonald's is really getting expensive And and we will go out and we'll have a date night and we will do what we did at the beginning Right The shape of your day reflects the love of your life Where in jesus Where in your life where jesus will jesus be Where will jesus show up in your life on a on a regular basis as i said with marriage You can start to hit and miss and your marriage will suffer it will It really will I just counseled a couple just the other day. They said do you have any advice for us before we get married? And i said yes start now a regular time of getting together and praying Pray together as husbands and wives husbands Lead pray and you know, I know it's uncomfortable at first. I know it is for men ladies for men. This is not the easiest thing to do But get together and just say let's just pray the our father and the hail mary Let's just get used to praying together. I don't have to go into fanciful prayers You know I can do the our father. I don't need to start praying You know very eloquently and pray with a british accent. You know Oh lord Oh lord, I ask you to bless my family today Your wife said stop it. Stop it buddy. You know Hand me the ketchup So so you you don't have to do the the british accent thing although that does sound good But but start praying together now. Let me tell you what my wife and I do that's what I wanted to get to Let me open up my own life to you and show you what emily and I do Every single day. We have made a pact with one another when we got married 45 years ago Well this last june 3rd was our 45th anniversary and thank you And uh when we when we got married june 3rd 1970 Something we Eight yes, and when we got married, we know what we looked at each other the day we got engaged and said When we get married we will marry to serve christ together That's what we said we'll serve the lord together with our lives. I only have one life I want to spend it with you And I want to serve god with you and I want to grow old with you It wasn't you're so beautiful and man, you're just you are so good looking, you know, and I mean she said those things but But but but we we said we're going to get together to serve christ together And so we have that's been our life for 45 years and it was a year and a half before that that we were engaged And what we do in our life every single day in our life We do the same thing and I have the same breakfast every morning I know it's boring, but it is good Every single morning we have a time of prayer together And we want to know god we don't just want to pray together and say hey look we prayed together. Wasn't that cool? We're such a holy couple Look, we prayed together, you know no when we pray together We it's a husband and wife if you're not married It's you and you are going to the lord because you're a disciple a disciple meets with jesus every single day I want to know the mind of god. I want to know the heart of god I want my heart to be refreshed so that as I live out my day today I may encounter situations where I need to know What i'm going to get out of the bible this morning Whether it's my own life or for somebody else or for my children my grandchildren Whatever it might be And so we get together And I get up at about five thirty or six something right around there And I go downstairs and I make a cup of tea for my wife We drink green tea From japan It's one of the best in the world I can drink four days of the best tea in the world for the price of one star buck coffee That's all I wanted to say thank you Yeah We can we drink tea in the morning. So I make tea I make tea for emily and I get her a cup of tea I get my tea ready and uh, I sit down In about two about five minutes later. She comes walking down the stairs I get up and I go over and I grab my bible and her bible and my notebook And my pens and my colored pencils and I bring them over and set them down on the table And we just sit there quietly for about five minutes kind of like Just sleep good Yeah, how about you? I don't remember and then For about an hour every morning We open up god's word And we do lexiodivina And we pray And that time with my wife every single morning Is the foundation of my day I cannot imagine spending one day without her while i'm living there Which I plan on living there And not doing this to get together with her every single morning and to open up the word of god Is so powerful. So I want to share with you briefly what we do every day and how you can hear God's word for you in your life every day like fresh bread every day Because you can do it now number one the question is Does a church teach that we can hear god? Yes, it does the church teaches that not only can god speak to us But we can speak to god and we can understand god in his word We can hear him, but we can also hear him speak in our hearts True It's good to know the scriptures It's good to know The catechism It's good to know the teachings of the church to begin to listen to the lord So when we begin we use lexiodivina now. Let me share with you how easy this is typically it takes about 20 minutes or so And uh, we stretch ours out quite a bit And there are some days that we're just having so much fun in the word of god that it just goes on and on I say I got to go My wife's a biblical archaeologist She likes to play in the dirt. I like to play in the bible That we come together and uh, and and we can have a wonderful time there. What is lexiodivina lexiodivina is Uh, something that was developed by uh, st. Gregory of nisa in uh, 330 to about 350 And it is a four step exercise to hear god's word in your life And so what we do is number one you need a bible Get a bible if you don't have a bible get a bible that you can live in that you can highlight you can write in If you cannot write in the bible you have Then put that on the shelf and go buy a copy and write in that one But get a bible that you can live in right so get a bible Get a get a notebook and get a pen And then you're set Then what are you going to read? Well, we read the gospel of every day I like reading the gospel for every day because I also have a responsibility I have a a daily reflection on howl with jonathan roomy. How many of you have heard that? It's a it's I do I do a Five to seven minute reflection every day on the gospel And oftentimes what i'm giving you on that came out of my time with my wife in prayer If you want to get a free sample that you can go to hallow hello www.hello.com forward slash jeff cavens, and they'll give you three months free. You just want to try it out I'll be with you every morning or evening So what we do then is we we take the gospel reading of the day And we open up our bibles and then she reads the old testament reading and then I read the gospel Now here's what you do in lexio divina the number one thing you do is called lexio lexio means to read to read So the first thing that we're going to do is take take maybe five minutes or so three four minutes Not a long time and we're going to go to that portion of scripture And what are we going to do? We are going to read now you we read out loud We read out loud And so if I took for example solemn 23 and I said The lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me lie down in green pastures He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake and then I read on As I am reading that or my wife is reading that what are we doing? We are listening for what pops out at us We're listening for what is basically saying I'm for you today Now I don't want to know why at this point. I'm just doing reading. I'm just listening to what Seems to me to be interesting and pop out at me I'm not trying to interpret. I'm not going into the church fathers or anything else I'm just a man a disciple listening to the lord So if I read that whole thing of Psalm 23 to you, I would say Uh, what's what stood out for the people over here? You would give me seven or eight different things people over here seven or eight different things Over here the same thing is that you would you would say well What really stood out to me was he leads me in the paths of righteousness Another person would say the lord is my shepherd another person would say he makes me lie down in green pastures So everybody would have received something a little bit different But the point is is to Knab that and write it down We use a little notebook. It's like an it's like a a moleskin notebook And uh, we can write the year on the front and after years of doing this You can look back decades to see what the lord was sharing with you on that particular date Because on that notebook you write the date the scripture And then as you read it you're listening And you write down what it is That popped out at you That's the first step step number two Step number two is called first one's lexio. The second one is called meditatio meditating on that scripture So in meditatio what you're going to do is you're going to go and you're going to use your imagination You're going to enter the text and see yourself with Jesus or in the biblical drama there And you're going to meditate on this And it's in the meditating on it that it's amazing how your mind can go into that scripture Now remember you're asking lord. What is your word for me today? What are you saying to me today because I don't know what today is going to bring But I do know that if you if you feed me now, I may know at four o'clock why you told me that But I didn't see four o'clock coming and I didn't see six o'clock coming Had I seen six o'clock coming? Oh my oh my But I got in there and now I'm meditating on it Meditating in Hebrew Is very similar to a cow chewing the cud I know that's a nice thought But it is this chewing on it This meditating on it And you're going to do that for about five minutes or so You might write down a few of the questions that you have the third The third step is called or ratio or r i t i o or ratio or ratio is prayer it means prayer and so now Like if I if like if I took Psalm 23 and I told you that what popped out at me was He makes me lie down in green pastures And I'm meditating on that green pastures thinking about it Jesus my schedule busyness of life Texting social media how busy everything is and I'm and and I think God is telling me today to lie down in green pastures Or ratio is the conversation lord What area of my life do you think I need to lie down in green pastures? And if you want me to take a break and lie down in green pastures when Now I could say when in prayer And I might immediately think today Now sooner or later you have to start believing that God is speaking to you and leading you by the spirit that is within you that you received and so When you receive that Lie down in green pastures. I may say in my prayer during a ratio Where is a green pasture? Where can I lay down? And the next thought may come to the adoration chapel at our parish And I think you know what? I think I'm gonna go On the way home from work. I'm going to go and I'm just gonna lay down so to speak in the presence of the lord The lord is telling me. I need a break. I need rest. I need to I need to rest in him today Okay, now the fourth stage of this Is contemplatio contemplatio Is not something you do as much as a place that you arrive You arrive at a place where you're just Enjoying the presence of the lord. I've got to tell you This is the highlight of my time with emily in the morning When both of us have kind of gone through this And I'm looking out the window And she starts to look out the window And we just it's quiet for like 10 minutes Just savoring what the lord is saying to me today in that reading or gospel reading Contemplatio Is is something a lot of men do a lot of men do contemplatio But they don't do contemplatio in prayer They do contemplatio with their truck They go out and they work through the first three steps They look over the car, you know, and they see what needs to be washed and everything and They go get all their stuff and they wash it all up and they do all the work and everything and they Then they sit back. They get grab their beer, you know, and they sit back and they just look at the car That's contemplatio is this And then they see if the neighbors are watching That's contemplatio contemplatio is at the end of the day when you when you've entertained all kinds of people at your house They've left all the dishes are in the dishwasher. Everything is cleaned up and you sit down for a cup of chamomile tea and just go That's contemplatio So we do this every day in our life and we write down in our little journal The things that the lord is showing us And then we talk to each other for quite a while about that and we talk about our kids and our grandkids We talk about our relationship with each other. You see Getting together is so valuable every day to pray. If you're not married, you do this. You can do this You can even do it with a friend. I'm just saying in my situation as being married. It's very very valuable. And in fact, we Cherish it so much that we don't weaponize it By weaponizing it, I mean you could say that we got into an argument the night before we did that once back in 1991 We got into an argument And the next morning, you know what? I'm going to teach her a lesson I'm going to act like a disciple. I'm going to not come downstairs I'll show her you don't mess with me About that thing last night Well, that's just so mature, isn't it? What would jesus do? And and so you don't weaponize it no matter what happened no matter if there's silence you get together Even if it's just silent you read first I read Lexio meditatio oratio contemplatio. I'm out of here. Okay, you don't do that You don't weaponize it at all. You see to get together every single day. It is amazing It's amazing. This is the one time during the day where the lord can straighten her out I am not giving that up There's no way i'm giving that up, okay So we end up doing this together and you know what we say to each other oftentimes throughout the day We say things like I just have to tell you I just really love getting together with you every day. I love it I just love it. I love getting together with you Every day And we've even said things like if something happened to one of us I don't know what I'd do in the morning, you know But that's come from just years of building and and and loving the lord together But then throughout the day, you know what happens the lord speaks throughout the day with that word And that word might be from someone that comes up to me and says i'm burned out. I'm toast I'm out of here. Can I talk to you about something? Can I show you what the lord showed me in prayer this morning? Yeah, and I talked to them I'm finding that throughout the day. I have so many opportunities to share the lord with other people And the lord's word feeds me throughout the day. And so if you do this every single day Think of the wealth Studying the bible is one thing praying scripture is another thing My good friend tim gray has a wonderful book Called praying scripture for a change It's really a good book And uh, and that's why we're we're doing it. But here's what I want to share with you I know what a conference is like and I was a pastor for 12 years You know every week and every wednesday teaching and teaching and and I know what it is to hear something where you're thinking to yourself Man, I want to do that But then in four hours from now forgetting And this is what the gospel parable of the sower says is that they receive the word joyfully and then The cares of this world The desire for riches tribulation and persecution It robs us of the word that was planted. You know, that's a word from god You know that that's god speaking to you saying i'm waiting for you every day I'm waiting for you. I want to talk to you every single day You know, that's him And we have to protect that Now what my wife and I do and I just want to share this with you and I'll be I'll be done with my introduction I is Is that what we do is that uh, father mike schmitz and I came up with an idea We both like journaling we were talking one day and uh, we're talking about developing a journal Not for the lexio divina so much but a journal That you could keep track of the insights and the gold in your life And so father mike and I just developed it's I don't have any here. I'm so sorry. That was so dumb, but um Greek is that's dumb for stupid, but It's an ascension press, but it's called the insight journal And what we developed there was we wanted a place Where when we hear something Whether it's lexio divina a lecture um A song whatever it is and it's an insight about marriage or about about Money or about decision-making or life for whatever it is That you have a place where you can write down in that one journal What you discovered the insight you had and you think yourself i'm never going to forget that I'll never forget what scott haunt said 11 years ago at the defending the faith Yes, you did You did I'll never forget it So you write it down there That's the gold so we put anyway we put together this journal the insight journal and and it's a way for you to Categorize all of these insights That you're gaining over the years and when times get tough you can go and look at the word worry Fear and see all the things that god has said to you over the last two or three years that dealt with fear That quote that scripture verse that advice and confession whatever it might be You keep track of the gold you keep track of the insights Don't let the insights that god gives you and the words that he gives you on a daily basis Don't let them just fly away Don't just enjoy them for like 20 minutes and then move on capture it Write it down go back to it build on it and so I have an insight journal And I have created three other insight journals One of them is for dominic my grandson Another one is francesco my grandson another one is for fiona my granddaughter And I keep an insight journal for each and every one of them so that when I come up with something where I think Dominic and francesco need to know that And I might not be here when they're 25 years old. I might not be here the day they're married I might not be here when they have kids And I want to speak into their life I thought of you today And there's this bit of information about how to treat your wife and I write it down Three weeks from now something else And when he turns 18 years of age I'm going to come to him and to each of my grandkids. I'm going to say dominic francesco fiona Grandpa's been thinking about you You've been on my heart all these years This is what I have gathered for you for wisdom An insight for living This is what has changed my life And I would have never remembered it had I not written it down It's yours This is from my heart to yours That's what I plan on doing and so when we When we pray with our bible in our notebook, we have our pen the bible to knees And we hear from god for daily living And we want to live that Live it every day tomorrow's bread will be fresh Every single day it will be fresh and Tomorrow will be a new opportunity And I'll just end with this Before the soviet union Collapsed I was a part of a team that smuggled bibles into the soviet union And we had a master plan of how we were going to smuggle bibles Into the underground church and get them to the pastors out in the countryside And uh, there's a team of about 12 of us and I was the only one that got caught at the border And uh, they brought me to a different place They began to question me and ask me all kinds of questions They took a lot of what I had But they did not get most of the bibles that were down into a compartment My buddies got through the rules were if any of us get caught the rest just go You don't hang around so there I was and I ended up eventually finding them at a hotel Day later and our mission was to go to red square And we went to red square. We were to stand in a certain place We were to stand in a certain place and wait for someone to come up to ask us Do you have bread from the baker? And the answer was yes And it's fresh Follow me And that happened on that day and we got into a car with all these suitcases and went on a two two hour drive out into the country And I said to the guy I said, how long have you looked in the rear view mirror and he went like this? No talking So we just drove for about two hours thinking I hope I'm in the right car And we got to this uh, this this uh train station got out. He pointed to a big building He just pointed to it got in his car took his bags out got in the car and left and we like And we took all of our stuff and we went into this abandoned building. There was no cars or anything We started walking down the stairs and we started hearing singing We got down to the bottom And there were 500 Believers in the basement of this abandoned building in the winter Worshiping and praising god And they didn't have bibles And they would take place one after take take take turns one after another They would take turns with a man or a woman standing up and reciting a chapter of one of the gospels And then it was the next person's turn they stood up and they would be psalm 119 and they would say it And I thought to myself how hungry they are for fresh bread Every day to travel for days just to hear the word of god in their life And how rich we are there's an embarrassment of riches isn't there in our lives And we have the bible and we have access to it every single day And so I just want to encourage you at the beginning of this conference that god wants to speak to you And I know this isn't a highfalutin theological talk This is just life And and god wants to meet with you every day and he wants to lead you and and guide you And that's what discipleship is and that's what he's called you to Name of the father son and the holy spirit Amen lord jesus I thank you so much for the life you have given us. I thank you lord jesus For the gift of scripture, and I thank you for Speaking to us every single day. You are so Good You are so good Lead us and guide us. I pray in your name Amen Amen So I want you now to for the rest of the conference to just dig in and get as much as you can And when you get home go after it fight for it Fight for your family fight for the country fight for your relationship with the lord fight like you're the third Monkey on the ramp to Noah's ark