Peace in Troubled Hearts | Vol I, Week 11 -- Held Catholic Devotional

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So in John 14:27, Jesus tells us, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give it to you.

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I do not give to you as the world gives."

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So that is our first reading of the week from week 11 of Held, which is where, um, the podcast Lectio Divina is gonna be focused on this week.

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And that message of, of Jesus giving us his peace, it, it's not a worldly peace, and it's something that's, that's very tough to grip or understand.

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And I know for me, I, I have an extremely difficult time doing it.

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I'm gonna...

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kind of flipping through the pages here in the book, so I wanna actually get some of the wording, verbatim of what I have in here.

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and so week 11 is really focused on, on peace and troubled hearts, which sounds a bit like an oxymoron, right? having, you our troubled hearts and then being able to find peace in that, and just really understanding that that particular peace that, that he's giving us, again, it's not a worldly peace.

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We're not gonna find that, that peace that we're looking for, those of us who, struggle with different fears and anxieties.

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and I'm, I'm just gonna use a absolutely a personal example.

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It just, it's, it's actually happened, today, and it's, it's a perfect example of, of what the theme of this week is all about.

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So I, I've been pretty open through these podcasts.

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If those of you who, have purchased the books, the, the introduction, the forewords in most of the books kinda tell a, a little bit about my story.

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but one of the things, um, that I've always struggled with is a fear of heights, and, and more specifically a fear of, of bridges.

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So I have a very difficult time, myself personally, uh, cannot physically get behind the wheel of a car and drive it over, over a bridge.

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I mean, you know, just something small going over like a highway or something, no problem, but, the, the larger bridges that go over water, um, extremely, extremely difficult, even to such an extent where it, it gives me high levels of anxiety, being a passenger in a car going over them, and it's mind-numbing, and actually it occurred today.

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So, my family and I, we went on vacation up in Maine.

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those of you in the northeast, you know, that the, you know, taking, you know, Route 95, up through New Hampshire into Maine, you, you have to ca- you know, cross over this bridge.

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And it's not like this huge, gigantic bridge, but it's definitely, uh, a- anxiety invoking for me.

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So we were driving home from Maine, and knowing I had to kinda go over the bridge, my wife's driving, and it's just like, uh, I just hit this- this point, this, this level of, of just this fear, this, this troubled anxiety that I, I, I wish I could control.

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And, and as we're approaching and we get there, it just, it just crescendos and it just kinda snowballs.

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And I'm like, like I said, it, it's, it's mind-numbing because as we are getting onto the bridge, all of a sudden that, that, that fear, that, that...

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It dissipates.

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And I just remember looking at my wife and just telling her, like, I, I've been experiencing this my whole life, as far as I can remember.

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As a matter of fact, my first real memory of, of, being afraid of driving over a bridge was exactly going over that bridge, in Maine, on a family trip to, to northern Maine with, with my mother, and, uh, a family friend of ours who had, a sister who was living up there.

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like I said, having that, that peace with a troubled heart.

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My heart was troubled.

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I was, I was anxious, I was...

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It was m- you know, more than just a simple anxiety.

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And I had a very, very tough time, you know, finding that peace.

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So I know that kinda going through these readings and, and kind of, you know, this week's gonna be important because it, it's gonna talk about scriptures that, that really go into that and h- and, and how, how Jesus tells us to have peace.

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And sometimes we know that.

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That's...

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I, I know I like to, to kinda bring that up when, when we're having these, um, these videos and these podcasts because I, I'm not pretending that, that this is n- you know, kind of the end all, be all, the magic bullet, that when you read these scriptures, all of a sudden, um, you're gonna be free of fear and anxiety.

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That's just not the case.

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That's not my case.

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I don't...

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That's not my lived experience.

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what it is doing for me is allowing me to find peace even though I know I'm going to experience those situations, So as mind-numbing and as frustrating as it was, I would say probably f- you know, 10 years ago or even, you know, shorter than that, maybe three, even three years ago, that experience would've just carried with me.

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It would've carried with me for, for a week, and it w- it would've been, a little, you know, depressing to some extent, and I would continue to feel like a failure and a loser.

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and, you know, again, I looked at my wife as I was...

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We were going over that bridge, and I just told her, I said, "This is, this is one of the things that I just hate about myself."

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But I left it there.

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I, I left it there.

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We crossed, got to the bottom.

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in my mind, I, I, I said a quick, praise, a quick prayer of thanksgiving to, to, you know, our Lord.

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and I was fine.

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I left it there.

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Again, prior to going through these practices, prior to, um, diving into scripture the way I have in the last two or three years, I think, um, I would have carried that with me.

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It would have been, um...

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Like I said, it would have been something that I, I would have been ashamed of for the whole week.

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I would have, you know, beat myself up about it.

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And it, it potentially would have led to other, um other emotions and other feelings.

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I, I think when we allow ourselves to open that, that, that gateway, the, with fear, I think the, the evil one can use that, that fear and, and just kinda generate the, the just a litany of, of negativity within you that can drag you down.

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what these scriptures are doing for me now is, is really helping me, um, to avoid that negativity, to, to take that weapon away from the, the devil, if that makes sense to you guys.

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where, like I s- just not giving him the authority over, over my feelings, right? I'm okay with it.

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You know, I had that experience today.

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I walk away from it.

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Uh, I'm grateful, and I got home fine.

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my, my wife, you know, is, is a beautiful, wonderful, cautious driver.

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We had no issues, and I'm not going to let that carry me through the week.

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we're gonna move past it.

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We're gonna read our scriptures, and we'll be fine.

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so that said, kinda introduce you a little bit to the readings for, for this week.

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Again, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we'll have the, Lectio Divina podcast episodes.

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and on the Monday episode, we're gonna be talking about Psalm 27.

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it's gonna be familiar to a lot of you guys.

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It's, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? it, it's just a great one to kinda go back to, and then go over that refri- reflection.

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Um, and then on Wednesday, we're gonna break open, Oh, wrong page, 'cause it's another Psalm.

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I know we're doing two Psalms this week.

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Yeah, so it's gonna be Psalm 94:18-19.

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again, another one that just, you know, reminding us of, of, just God being there when we need him.

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And then we're gonna go ahead and close out Friday, which is our reading from, uh, Colossians, 3:15.

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a short one, but a very powerful one, so, make sure you kinda tune into those episodes, whether you're, listening to on whatever, wherever you hear podcasts, or we're also doing those on YouTube as well.

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check out either, either way, whichever, whichever way you consume podcast materials.

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and the other thing is, so the, the, the daily practice for this week, so as you're going through, for those of you that, that are following along in the book, again, you don't need to follow along in the book to, to participate with the, with the podcasts.

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But if you are reading the books, there are, there is the daily practice for this week.

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And so for this week, um, we're just asking that, uh, once each day, just stop and just Put both hands down on your lap and just breathe slowly and just pray, "Jesus, speak your peace into my heart."

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Just sit quietly for a minute or so afterwards.

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Really, this is, one of those options really to just, just slow things down and to be as contemplative as possible.

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Just really allow the Lord to work within you.

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So again, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and just, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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This really...

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It really helps other folks, to find our channel, really is what it comes down to.

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my goal here is to, to help out as many people as possible, is to, to really just get this, um, information out.

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I, I really do feel strongly that, mental health, m- more, specifically, uh, anxiety and, and, and fear, we're, we're talking about is really a major problem, within the church and, and within society as a whole.

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And I do really feel that teaching folks and showing folks how scripture can be utilized, to not necessarily...

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Like I said, it's not, not, not to m- make it all disappear.

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I, I don't make those promises at all.

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and I think you can all see that, by my real-life experiences is that, that the process of, of going through this devotional and the process of doing the practices and the process of maybe listening to some of these videos or the podcasts, it's not a, a cure-all.

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it's really just showing you where to go when things are tough, giving you an avenue through scripture, to, again, take that weapon away from the evil one.

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Because if you let it go unchecked like I did for years, the evil one's gonna grab hold of it and, and he's, he's going to make his will be done, right? So we wanna take that away from the evil one.

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again, so like the video, subscribe to it.

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It really does help it get out to more people so we can be helping more people.

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and if you haven't done so and you are interested in purchasing the, the series, it is a four-volume series, the link is gonna be in the description of this video.

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again, thank you guys all so very much.

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I, I hope that you can find some peace in these words.

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and God bless, and thank you again.