Am I Truly Embracing My Lifelong Financial Journey?

Speaker A00:00:00

I usually start every show with a teaser, but today I'm going to just simply ask a question and that's what we're going to embrace on today's show. And here's the question for today. Am I truly embracing my lifelong financial journey?I just want you to think about that for just a minute that we're going to launch in this show. But today this is what I'm going to talk about. Ask yourself this very difficult question. Am I truly embracing my lifelong financial journey?Well, join me on the show today and I'm going to tell you how you can do just that.This is Financially Confident, your daily dose of gospel, grounded insight and faith driven tips to help you break the cycle of financial shame with confidence. Hey there. Welcome to the show. I'm Ralph. I just want to thank you again for joining me.If you've been with me on the last 30 days, we have really gotten into a great series and tomorrow we're going to be launching a new series. But this is the show called Financially Confident Christian where we answer that question, how can I become a financially confident Christian?Now, if you missed yesterday's show, we started thinking about year end finances. You're thinking, ralph, it's August, what are you doing?Yes, but we talked about planting seeds so that by the time we get to the end of the year those things have blossomed. We are really rooting ourselves strong in our faith. So if you missed it, I'm going to encourage you to check it out.You can catch all of our episodes atfinanciallyconfidentchristian.com but today's sort of a journey ending point. We're wrapping up a 30 day episode journey by asking that deep question I started with. And I'm going to go a little deeper even right now.Ask yourself, this is financial Peace a finish line? So many people think, hey, Ralph, I'll listen to your show for a couple days. I'll listen to a week.I'll solve all my financial problems and I'll move on. But I'm going to encourage you, I'm going to even challenge you a little bit today.Ask yourself, is financial peace a finish line or is it a lifelong path of stewardship and growth? Well, you probably guessed that. I already have an answer that probably answers that question a little bit clearer.So here's something bold I'm going to say right now. Financial peace isn't a destination. Yeah, maybe you're disappointed by that. Maybe you're listening right now.Like Ralph, I've been really working hard at this and I want to encourage you. That's fantastic. I'm sure you're seeing benefits. I'm sure you're feeling some peace in that. But financial peace isn't a destination, it's a journey.I talk about a journey on the show and I'm going to encourage you today to really embrace this as a discipleship journey. See, when you treat money like a task to complete, like, oh, I'm going to check the boxes. My concern with that, two things can happen.You either grow complacent when things go well. Oh, things are going great. Let me check the box. Ralph, I've got this figured out. I figured out how to do it.I've solved all the financial problems for me, I'm doing fantastic. And the problem with that is it leads us complacency. And then something happens. Those unexpecteds happen in your life. So that's one ought to outcome.But if you treat money like a task to complete, it might also make you just give up when you hit that setback. And let me just tell you something right now.You could do great for months and years and all those sort of things, but we're all going to find ourselves in financial setbacks from time to time. So I just want to encourage you right now, that mindset of money being a task will kill your progress.Because here's a truth, and you might want to write this down because I feel like the Lord has spoken to me today and said, ralph, really stress this in your show today. So I really want you to embrace this. Financial stewardship is never done. It's just not. You don't put it in the oven, it's baked. Hey, it's done.Let's take it out and eat. It doesn't work that way. Financial stewardship is never done. It's a lifelong walk of wisdom. It's a lifelong walk of grace. And here's the best part.It's a lifelong walk of growth. Well, let's get right into the scripture that reinforces exactly what I'm talking about here. Let's look at the book of Philippians.This is from chapter one, verse six. And it says this again, Philippians 1:6. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. Think about that for a second.Began a good work, will carry it on to completion. Now I'm going to challenge scripture a little bit now. Don't get the wrong idea. We're going to take it a little deeper today.I just want to focus on begin a good work. There will be a completion point when you get to the end of your life and you're standing there before Christ himself.Just think about how wonderful it's going to be when he says to you, well done, good and faithful servant. You've run the race. Well, let's look at the Book of Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 18 says this.The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter. So I just want you to be encouraged that I want you to have hope. God's not finished with your finances and your job. This is your job.This is where the rubber meets the road. Your job is to stay faithful in every season. Listen, I've been where you are. Sometimes it's hard. We have setbacks in life.It's difficult to be faithful in every season.So I just want to give you some ideas today, some action steps to help you stay there and stay committed and not fall into that giving up or fall into that complacency. I just want you to take 10 minutes today.I want you to do it today, right when you're done listening to this show, just take 10 minutes or find 10 minutes later today. And I want you to reflect and, and I want you to recommit because that's really what it takes.It's a daily decision to reflect on things and then recommit. Just. I want you to think about and celebrate just one specific win from the past month.If you haven't listened to the past 30 days, I'm going to encourage you. You can go binge, listen to those. I have many clients and many listeners that come to me. They say, ralph Van, you know what I do? I get your podcast.They're too long, so I just binge them. I might listen to all 30 of them in the series in one weekend.Well, go and do that and then find one specific win from the past month and just write it down. Say, you know what? That's a really good point, Ralph. I didn't think about. Because what you might find. We talk about an action step every day.You might see, Ralph, you know what? I did four or five of those things. That's fantastic. Celebrate that. And even if it's just one, celebrate that one specific win.And I also want to encourage you, set a reminder for that financial Sabbath we talked about. This is what I'm talking about today. Once a month, review your finances and pray about it. Say to the Lord, hey, Lord, I'm struggling here.You know, you can see what. Listen, the Lord knows what you're going through. I know what you're going through. I've been through those same things.I just want to encourage you today, but to do that once a month, sit down and just go over where you are, review your finances, and most importantly, pray about it, and really commit yourself to lifelong learning. It's the time to choose one book, choose a podcast, or maybe find a workshop to grow this year.Because if we're going to stay in this journey, we've got to make a commitment to lifelong learning. Because it's so easy to find that level of complacency.We got to really work to reorient our mindsets from that checklist to calling so many people get stuck on. Ralph. Okay, just give me the tools. Give me the. Give me the checklist. Ralph. If you gimme the checklist, I can make it work.I kind of feel that way when I record this show every day. I put these notes up in my prompter and I say, well, here's the things I want to cover. But lately I've been embracing a feeling.Just what is my calling? What do people need to hear? I think you need to do the same thing as you commit yourself to your finances every day.And we're going to start a new series. I'll talk about that in a couple minutes.But I want you to really reorient that mindset to your calling, because that calling is going to help you be resilient through those setbacks. And let me just tell you something right now. If you're a human being, you're going to go through setbacks. All of us have those.You might be saying, ralph, I just got ahead, got this great emergency fund saving, and then the washing machine died or the heater needs a repair or the car needs a repair. So easy to get stuck in those setbacks. But when you live by a calling, you can find resilience through those things.It's also going to encourage you to stay on track, encourage you to stay on that journey, because where are your roots planted? They're granted, they're planted in grace, and they're anchored in God's plan, not your performance. And that is how you build lasting peace.So I want to encourage it today. Let's all pray together. Father God, thank you for starting a good work in us. That's what the scripture tells us. You started a good work in us.But bigger than that, Lord, thank you for promising to complete it in each one of us. And we confess that we often want a quick fix. Lord, it's. We just want that checklist. We don't want to put in the hard work.We don't want to walk faithfully with you each day. It's just so easy to have that checklist. So help us to embrace this journey, Lord.Help us to embrace it with grace for ourselves, knowing that we will stumble, that we will fall. But help us to always trust in your provision, Lord. And we ask that you would strengthen us to keep us growing, to help us keep learning.And bigger than all that, Lord, help us to keep trusting in you as our provider and our guide in this journey of life. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen. Listen, you haven't finished your financial journey, but what you've done is you've begun it in faith.So I just want to encourage you today. Keep walking, keep learning and keep growing in grace. And I want to encourage you to do one other thing.If this series has helped you, if this series has impacted your life in a positive way, if it's given you some things that have improved your finances, if it made you feel some hope, if it made you feel stronger in your faith or in your direction, I just want to encourage you today. Think about somebody in your life. Just take a second right now and think about someone who's struggling.Think about, think about someone who needs hope, Think about someone who needs some direction or maybe somebody who needs a fresh start and just send them our website, just send them to financiallyconfidentchristian.com because listen, we've all been where they were and let's just help them, give them a tool that might be a little bit of a quick everyday, little boost to their morale, a boost to their faith, a boost to that, becoming that financially confident Christian. Now tomorrow we're going to start a brand new chapter. No, I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep trudging forward.Tomorrow we're going to talk about breaking financial change. You know, I haven't really embraced this for a few months, but I'm going to give you 30 days of the way to overcome your toughest money struggles.This is going to be a 30 day series that is going to help you and help those of us who are struggling every day financially. It's going to help us break those financial chains and overcome the toughest money struggles.So I want to encourage you, make sure you join me today, tomorrow and let everybody else know, hey, Ralph's starting a new series. You don't want to miss out on the toughest money struggles because he's going to show you how to break free of those.So today I want to encourage you again go out there and be financially confident Christians. I have confidence in you. Have confidence in yourself. Stay financially savvy. God bless you. And you have a great day today.