Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] God, would you, by your spirit, by your grace, teach us how to say no to ourselves so that we can say yes to the things that you call us to. And the things that you call us to will certainly require that we don't put ourselves first and prioritize our wants, but to prioritize your kingdom, run your home and your dough like a biblical boss.
[00:00:26] Hello, and welcome to Abraham's Wallet. My name is Steve Manual. I'm your host today. I'm alone today.
[00:00:33] I've got a cold today. And I know I'm breaking into your February.
[00:00:38] I hope that you're following us through the series that we're doing right now, which is the Abrahamic Starter Kit. We're trying to give people a general overview to what we're all about and why.
[00:00:52] But I'm interrupting that series to talk to you about something that's become a tradition around the Abraham's Wallet circles for reasons I'll explain.
[00:01:04] And it's called Lo Doefeb.
[00:01:08] And as I'm gonna take the time to explain today, lo do Feb is a season of saying no.
[00:01:18] And we think that there's ramifications everywhere. But as you're going to hear in the Abrahamic Starter Kit series, one of the things that we believe is that it's our job to develop a family culture that trains children who can handle financial responsibility and who can handle just the responsibility that comes with believing that our home is Kingdom of God headquarters and that the decisions that we make under our own roof are going to have repercussions into the church and everywhere else in the world around us. So it would make sense that we have to develop some character traits, we have to develop some healthy habits, we have to learn to control ourselves and control our environments in ways that if you're just a churchgoer and you just kind of go like, we, we. We want to not break any major laws and we want to attend the church house and give a little money here and there and have a Bible, own a Bible somewhere.
[00:02:28] The, the. The th. Those standards aren't real high, but if you're thinking, well, I'm trying to develop a family that's going to last several hundred years, and I need to develop a culture as a patriarch that starts with me and then expands to those that I touch, then a practice like taking time to pray, taking time to fast, something like lodofeb, you can find that there's great value.
[00:02:55] So we're going to talk today about what lofeb is all about. It's not Just saving money. But it's training our hearts to say no to impulses so that we can say yes to better things.
[00:03:07] And I'm going to be challenging you to, to try it.
[00:03:12] And I'm. This is happening in the middle of February, so low doefeb is already happening for a lot of Abraham's wallet families. But I'm going to be challenging you. I'm assuming that you're, you're new to this, you're a first time listener.
[00:03:24] I'm gonna be challenging you to have a little taste just, just to try a little taste of lottofab. Just a small sampling of it. You know, tell you what I'm, what I'm proposing later on.
[00:03:36] I, I just will say in my house, we have done the full low dofeb for years.
[00:03:43] And there are parts of it, I suppose that are tough in that you have to keep telling yourself, oh yeah, I can't even buy a chapstick at the, at the pharmacy because, well, we're, we're saying no to that stuff this month in, in that way. It's tough. But I have to say that for my family it's become one of the most freeing rhythms that we have. I love what it does to the character of my home. I mean I, I mean everybody, I mean me, I mean my wife, I mean my children to see our.
[00:04:18] There's kind of a, a kind of a gumption that is generated which kind of, it just kind of fuels that well, we can do it kind of attitude.
[00:04:27] My, my buddy Scott just took his family on a trip to the Rio Grande way, I mean remotest southwest Texas, an area that I haven't been within hours and hours of, to Big Bend national park, way, way down there. And his family actually walked across the Rio Grande into Mexico. I don't, I don't know how that worked and I don't know that I want to know how, how easy it might be to cross over into Mexico. I don't know. But the point is, after doing family hiking and living in, you know, not maximum pleasure scenario for a while, he just said it just kind of generated this can do attitude among his children and his family that of course all of us want.
[00:05:20] We don't want children that whine when they can't get a vanilla foam on top of their favorite drinks. We, we don't want that in ourselves.
[00:05:33] We don't want that in our spouses or in our children. We just don't want in our family culture. So how do we, how do we generate a Kind of simplicity and gratitude for the small things, etc.
[00:05:47] We think lotofeb is, is. Is. Is a helpful tool in that goal. So we're gonna just break it down. What is lofeb? Why does it matter Biblically or spiritually? And what is the good fruit that it produces? That's it. So I think this will be a short episode today, but I, I, I want to give you this gift.
[00:06:08] Here we are in February. So, number one, what is lotto Feb. And again, I, I, what I'm proposing to you all, proposing a light version to you. So, low doFeb, obviously, that stands for low dough. D O u G h Low money, low do. February, it's our annual family challenge to spend as little as possible all month.
[00:06:32] So that means that grocery spending goes way down simply to necessities.
[00:06:39] So we're thinking that you're spending almost nothing. You're on perishables.
[00:06:49] We presume you're probably still buying milk and eggs if you don't have chickens, if you. Gosh, if you have to buy bread, the kids have to have sandwiches, something. I don't know. But the idea is, if I walked into your house, buddy, I'm putting my arm around you now, and I'm just looking at you, just looking at you with an understanding nod as I'm speaking. If I walked into your house and I looked in the freezer and I looked in the pantry, there might be some old stuff there, stuff that isn't paid a lot of attention to. But do you think I would find things in there? I bet I would. You think I'd find an old bag of beans, dried beans, maybe. You think I'd find some canned corn somewhere?
[00:07:36] I think I would. What if I went into your freezer? Do you think I'd find an old package of frozen corn dogs in there somewhere? Maybe if you're like most Americans, we. We kind of fill up the corners of our pantry, and then we kind of operate with whatever's on the front, and then the stuff in the back kind of goes away in our mind. Lottofeb is one of the good things about it, is that we intend to eat our way all the way through the pantry and. And hopefully all the way through the freezer and whatever is in the refrigerator.
[00:08:12] And can that mean that there's some strange meals that are had? Yes, certainly towards the end of the month, there's some. There's some strange stuff going on. Well, we had. This is our third meal of pinto beans because that's what we seem to Be crazy about buying cans of. And well, we've got stewed tomatoes. We're gonna have to figure out a soup that used stewed tomatoes.
[00:08:36] Yeah, that. That happens. And that's part of the discipline. Again, one of the chief things that we're doing is grocery budget goes to an absolute bare minimum. And if you think you can get away with no milk for one week, do it, et cetera. The other thing is zero optional spending. So no eating out.
[00:08:58] We make. We make little caveats for that.
[00:09:03] One thing that we've said over the years is I didn't happen this past year, but sometimes in my stocking or somebody in the family might give me a, A gift card to get a burrito or something, and that'd be a Christmas gift. Well, I always squirrel that away, thinking that's for lo fb. I don't have any of those this year.
[00:09:26] So it's. This is going to be true for me. No eating out.
[00:09:31] No treats, you know, no. No running in for, oh, just one dip of ice cream. It's a, it's a. Seems like a great Tuesday night out with my. Got my son with me and let's go to get some ice cream.
[00:09:46] No stopping into the coffee shop and going, you know, it feels like a latte day. That's not happening during lodofeb. There's no treats happening.
[00:09:56] There's no new clothes happening. Well, that just looked cute and it just looked like something I just. I don't know. I need a new sweater.
[00:10:04] Speaking of this, this classic, this old classic I'm wearing right now, no new clothes, zero entertainment budget, zero gadgets budget. So could that give you a couple of weeks of discomfort? Yes, it could, but that's low doFeb. It's a, it's a fast from consumerism to recalibrate our hearts and our wallets. There's. There's good that comes from it financially, but it's mostly about the willingness to say no, which I'll talk about in a second.
[00:10:37] FYI, if you're. If this piques your interest, you're like, huh, this is a short episode, I hope.
[00:10:44] Maybe I'd like to know more about it. I just want you to know. You can go to abrahamswallet.com There are articles about Lodofeb. You could also search our podcast archives. We do Lodofeb about once a year, so you're gonna find other articles and other podcast episodes about LotoFeb.
[00:11:05] But today, since this is dropping right in the middle of the month, I just want to make it doable to you. And so what I'm asking for is I want you to commit to.
[00:11:16] I know you're gonna. You're gonna want to stop the episode real quick before we get to this, but I want to invite you, biblical Christian family leader. I would like to challenge you to commit to one week of lodo.
[00:11:31] And I don't know what day of the week you're listening to this. We drop our episodes on Wednesday mornings, but I'm inviting you that in. Looking forward to whenever. The first day of the week for you. Let's say it's. You're like us. So Saturday, starting this Saturday, I want to invite you to do one week of lo do.
[00:11:52] And then a week from Saturday, I want you to get the family together and talk about it. I'll talk about that more in a second. But that's. That's my ask. It's about focusing on needs versus wants. Obviously, if somebody gets sick and we need to buy some medicine. Okay, going to do that.
[00:12:12] Are we going to restock the band aids and gauze in the. In the first aid drawer this month? No, that's not something we're going to do this month.
[00:12:22] We're. We're focusing on needs versus wants, and we're breaking the cycle of impulse buys that nearly every American participates in. We want to cut down on that consumeristic impulse thing.
[00:12:36] So I want you to. As I said with groceries, let's say that you're. I'm gonna. I'm gonna assume that you're entertaining this idea for a second.
[00:12:47] I want you to stick what's already in the pantry fridge, freezer. I want you to do minimum essentials only. I want you to do optional spending to zero.
[00:12:56] I am actually inviting and encouraging you to turn off your Amazon for the month.
[00:13:04] Your. Your monthly subscriptions, turn them off, Save one month worth.
[00:13:10] No coffee runs, no streaming upgrades.
[00:13:14] We're not doing any of this. No little treats or anything. So if you're also considering this one more thing, I just think it's tremendously wonderful to get the kids involved and to turn it into a kind of a game, which is, let's look at what's in the pantry, guys. What can we do here? What. Here's the ingredients. We have. We've got some sugar. We've got some flour.
[00:13:43] I don't know. We've got chocolate chips. And we're thinking, what, What. What could we make with that, guys? Oh, we got a little butter left. Yeah, we can do this. So kids will get really into this. If you. If you say, we've got these two random things. What can we make out of this?
[00:14:02] If your kids are in that sweet spot of really wanting to help in the kitchen, that kind of 7 to 12 area, it's really fun to do Low Doe fab and to challenge everybody that, okay, we're going to do this together. This is a team thing. This might be kind of tough, but you know what? We're the manual family. We can do this.
[00:14:22] Totally. You want to engage the kids now, I'd like to get to why do we champion Lo Doe fabric?
[00:14:28] The core reason is that self control is a fruit of the spirit. So says Galatians, chapter five, and it's a mark of maturity.
[00:14:39] If you don't have self control, every area of your life is going to turn to mud soon. Your marriage is going to turn to mud. Your parenting is going to turn to mud. Your finances are going to turn to mud. Your career will turn to mud.
[00:14:58] Self control is the thing that gets you up when the alarm goes off and you're like, well, I sure would love another two hours. Yeah, I bet you would. But you should have thought of that last night. It's time to get up. Self control is the thing that says, I don't. I'm not feeling like Mr. Athletic right now. Do I really have to work out? Self control says, yes. Self control is the thing that goes. I said that I would discipline the kids if I heard him pop off at mom one more time. I just heard it. I can't lie to myself even though this is going to ruin the next hour. I'm about to deal with kids.
[00:15:31] Self control is that thing that just keeps us focused on the good that is to come versus the pleasure that we feel right now. Self control is the thing that moves us into maturity and choosing the better good later instead of the the pleasure of the moment.
[00:15:50] So self control is a fruit of the spirit. How do you exercise self control? How do you gain more self control? Well, you got to do things like this. You got to say no.
[00:16:00] Titus 2.
[00:16:02] There's a fabulous passage on this topic, starting with verse 11. It says, the grace of God has appeared.
[00:16:11] It trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives.
[00:16:21] My translation of that passage, Titus 2, 11 and 12, says, it teaches us to say no.
[00:16:29] And then I'm just going to connect the dots to what's here. It teaches us to say no to worldly passions.
[00:16:37] Well, worldly passion is. Means that I have a green light to buy myself whatever I want at all times.
[00:16:45] So I'm in REI and I go, this is kind of a neat new technology of running tops.
[00:16:53] I don't have that. I kind of like. I would like that. I'm going to say yes to that. Just buy it. I'll worry about the budget later.
[00:17:00] I. I'm. I'm famously bad at a grocery store because I find it all fascinating and delicious and I love food. And wow, this looks so exciting. There's a new flavor. Oh, it's mango. Oh, you get the mango.
[00:17:14] That's worldly passion, seeing stuff and. Oh, that's going to be fascinating. Oh, delicious. To just buy that without. Without checking in, assuming I have a green light at all times. The grace of God has appeared, says Titus 2, to teach us how to say no to our worldly passions. Our just the wanter. Our wanter, that's a really strong muscle in America. Our wanter. And we've got massive, massive marketing companies, corporations, budgets and billboards and everything that are generated to make our wanter stronger.
[00:17:55] According to this passage, God's grace appears to make your wanter turn down.
[00:18:01] So that we might be, and I'm going to quote Apostle Paul here, that we might be content in any situation. Content with less. Not just content, but grateful to God. If you sit down to a meal of beans and rice, something that we eat very often in low dofeb, and we realize what's sitting in front of us cost about less than a dollar each, and we say to ourselves, and you will hear me say this at the dinner table during lofeb. You know, most of the world eats on less than a dollar a day.
[00:18:38] And here we are having this simple meal of beans and rice. And what is our attitude to God for the beans and rice in front of us? Is it, I sure would like for there to be some protein here.
[00:18:52] Sure. To prefer rib eyes.
[00:18:55] Or is our attitude. And by the way, you could just decide that this is going to be your attitude.
[00:19:01] Thank you, God, for this food you're providing for my sustenance. Thank you for salt, which dramatically changes its flavor. Thank you for Louisiana hot sauce, which is going to. Whoo, it's going to bring my beans and rice to life, et cetera. Are you going to choose gratitude to God? Are you going to choose complaining or despair or blaming or any. Any number of dark places you can go to say, why aren't I getting more? Why aren't I getting what I really want?
[00:19:34] Instead just saying, no, I'm grateful to God for what I have.
[00:19:38] I want to throw another passage out. Ephesians 4 says, don't live.
[00:19:44] We believers don't live like the world anymore. They live by every desire and appetite.
[00:19:53] Paul says elsewhere about, about people that don't know God. Their God is their stomach.
[00:20:01] It's quite a phrase there. Their God is their stomach.
[00:20:05] So I insist on having my delicious nothing bundt cakes little single size thing that I get to treat myself Tuesdays when I leave work. I don't know what you're pattern is. No, again, Titus 2. No, we're not doing that. We're not going to live like the world does, being led around by every desire.
[00:20:30] Our God is not our stomach.
[00:20:33] And it's really helpful for me to say to myself over and over all of these times that I'm going to say no. I'm going to be content with what I've got. Whatever it is. I'm going to be thankful to God. Thank you for my health.
[00:20:47] I'm just so grateful to you. I was talking to a guy this morning about the power of gratitude and he was saying, well, number one, the devil doesn't know what to do with gratitude. He has no handles on you, saying thank you to God for your life. There's nothing to get into and there's no room for pride when we simply say to God, I'm so grateful to you, God, you give me so much.
[00:21:10] I'm thankful for the clothes that I'm wearing. I'm thankful that I'm in a warm room right now. Thank you, God. You're so kind to me. I didn't even have to think about breathing in the last hour because you just made it happen. How kind you are, Lord. So focusing on gratitude during lodofeb is a wonderful thing.
[00:21:31] The one other thing I want to say about lodofeb is that it thrusts stewardship, puts it right to the forest.
[00:21:40] And in Matthew 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about not letting money master us.
[00:21:46] And one one verse that we love around here is Luke 12:15 where Jesus says, watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. For the man's life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions. Let me say that one more time. Luke 12:15. It's an absolute barn burner. I mean, if you want to write a memory verse in, in lipstick on your on your bathroom mirror. Here you go.
[00:22:15] It's terrific.
[00:22:16] Watch out, says Jesus. He's like, ding, ding, ding. Time out. Everybody stop, stop. Listen, listen. Watch out. Watch out, watch out.
[00:22:24] Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.
[00:22:30] Because a man's life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions.
[00:22:36] So when I think of how your family is going to engage in low doefeb, even if it's for a week.
[00:22:43] Well, we're not going out to the movies or whatever else you do for entertainment. We're going to stay at home as a family. So what have we got to do? Well, we could do a puzzle and the kids like, oh, a puzzle. And you go looking through the, the game closet. All these. Again, all of these games that you've got that nobody ever plays or haven't played with them in years. And you go finding puzzles and games. Well, one thing that naturally happens around my house and we go digging through stuff is we find stuff that we don't use and we're not going to use.
[00:23:14] So we kind of go, why did we ever have this puzzle in the first place? It's a great load of EB is a great time to divest yourself of stuff. Just clutter.
[00:23:25] Stuff that you don't use, you don't wear, get rid of it. It's a, this is a great time to do that also.
[00:23:33] You'll go, we haven't played this game a long time. We, we enjoyed this game at one point. Why don't we, why don't we play this game again?
[00:23:39] And you feel this connection because it's just something you already have. It's free, it costs you $0 and you feel great about the night. Well, there's some value in that learning. I want my children to learn that. We could play the same game a hundred times.
[00:23:57] And, and we do that. I mean, Monopoly. I don't know if your family likes Monopoly or not. We still play Monopoly. We like it.
[00:24:06] It's fun. It takes time.
[00:24:09] It's, it's something we can come back to again and again. The more you play it, the better you play it. You learn lessons. You're learning math, you're learning how money works, and even some simple ideas about real estate, etc.
[00:24:22] These are great things that you want your family to learn. And so the stewardship aspect of a child learning the value of a dollar. We don't have unlimited money. We don't just get to say yes to ourselves all the time. These are great lessons.
[00:24:38] It also for my family, it helps expose how much want masquerades as need oftentimes.
[00:24:48] And we realized, no, we don't actually need this to treat ourselves late at night with fast food.
[00:24:55] We actually have food at home. We'll be all right without this special thing. And I want to knock down the idea of what do my children need?
[00:25:07] I really want to knock that idea down. I want that to be as small a subset of life as possible. When they think of what do we need?
[00:25:16] I don't want them to think I have to be cushioned in. In pleasure and comfort all the time. That's not a good way to live life. It certainly doesn't set them up for marriage and the future in a good situation. I want their needs. I want them to understand that their needs are quite small against their wants. So as I've already said, it can build resilience, gratitude, and more time for prayer and spiritual thought than.
[00:25:46] Than being wanters.
[00:25:48] So the good fruit from it. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna run to the end of this episode. But the good fruit of it is that the immediate wins is that money is saved. Your mind has probably already gone there when I've been talking. Wait, if we didn't do all this stuff, there'd be, like, money left over? Yes, there would often hundreds left over at the end of the month. Now, this isn't.
[00:26:11] The primary goal of LodoFeb isn't to have hundreds left over at the end of the month, but if there is hundreds left over at the end of the month, I would have a little conversation towards the end of the month with my family. What do we. What are we doing with this money? We. We have some money left over because our budget is this much, but this. We're only spending this much this month.
[00:26:33] And the answer could be, well, we're in debt.
[00:26:36] So we've been praying about how to deal with mom's.
[00:26:41] Mom's education debt, her college loans. Well, we could put this toward that. Or is there a need around us that we're aware of? We could. Wow, what a blessing to think of this month or week of saying no to ourselves. There's. There's a little pile of money left over. We can actually bless someone else with that. We could give that to a ministry we believe in or just a family in need. I mean, walking over to somebody's house and hand them a stack of cash and saying, we were thinking about your oven that went out and we just want to help with it. The end. I mean, that would be. That'd be so cool, would it not? Okay, so the immediate wins are money saved. There's less clutter because we. We're eating through stuff that. That's Been sitting around, we might get rid of some stuff during this month. There's more family time. As I've already said, we're. We're not spending money out and about.
[00:27:33] There's more family time where we are at home. We're eating at home, certainly eating at home all month. And our entertainment is all at home. I think there's deeper fruit here. That starts with the first thing I said at the head of this episode, self control.
[00:27:46] And I think that spills into other areas, whether it's anger, managing your emotions, it could be screen time. That where we've got to have some self control.
[00:27:58] There's renewed contentment. I think there's stronger marriage and family bonds because we've gone through a challenge together like, like Scott's family down there in Big Bend. We did something together. We. And I also think when the, when the month or the week is over, there's a time for celebrating there. Many abe's wallet families over the years have reported feeling freer, more aligned and, and yes, even closer to God after this short stint. It's basically a kind of fast from consumerism. We don't want consumerism as part of our family culture. We're going to say no to it. We're like, we ended. I think we feel like a little bit less consumers at the end of this month. What a wonderful thing. It's not always fun. I know there are cranky moments when, when you're sort of like, I just want what I want.
[00:28:52] Yes, that happens. But the payoff is so worth it because it puts things into your family culture that are not easy to import. How do you get these things? You've got to get them by saying no and by doing some hard things. So I think one week is a pretty low risk way to taste the goodness of the thing. And if you've never done lofeb, I'm inviting you to start this, this, this coming weekend and start this week. So it's not about being cheap. It's about being controlled by the spirit and not our impulses.
[00:29:26] What it is is intentional low spending and it's for self control and freedom. I want you to start your one week of low do this weekend.
[00:29:36] I want you to talk to your spouse tonight, talk to your family tonight and say, I've got this idea. I want us to try this thing. And I don't want you to be like, it's going to be hard, guys, but I think it'll be really good for us.
[00:29:48] I don't want to. I don't Want to say no to my coffees, but I don't do that. Say, I'm really excited because I. I want us to be a tough family. I want us to be able to do things that are hard. And I've. I was listening to this podcast episode. I got excited about something that we can do. It's manageable. I'm excited about what. What. What we could do as a family. I just think this is really cool and. And lead your family into it.
[00:30:16] At the end of the week, sit down with the family and. And let's talk honestly. I mean, we have this conversation around my house during lodofeb. What's hard about this? Let's just be honest. What's hard about it? What's good about it? And what do you think God has shown you through this process?
[00:30:35] If it goes great, you could extend it. I mean, you don't answer to me. You could do it for a week and go, this is really good. I think we could easily do this for another week. Great. Do it.
[00:30:48] My point is that God's grace wants to train you and your family to say no. We're trying to give you a tool. And I think that doing everything in community helps that, to kind of think, wow, there's hundreds of Abraham's wallet families that do this same thing at the same time.
[00:31:07] I think that's really cool. There might be thousands.
[00:31:10] I just don't know how many people that listen to this actually do it. But I just want to say this about Abraham's wallet in general. There are a group of families.
[00:31:20] They are our support team.
[00:31:23] They're kind of our donors and our financial and prayer supporters. They are pulling in this direction, these families, and they want other families to go in the same direction.
[00:31:34] And they're handing us $10 and $20 and $100 and $1,000. And people are handing us money and saying, would you push this forward? Would you figure out a way to help other families?
[00:31:50] Now, flip, on the other side, there's thousands of families who go, we need encouragement, instruction, equipping, and inspiration on how to live this Abrahamic design that God came up with.
[00:32:07] So, on the one hand, there's all of these families that say, we believe in this concept, this Abrahamic concept. Would you do something about it? And these other. From the other hand, there's a whole thousands of families saying, please give us this stuff. And I feel like I sit right here, Mark, and I feel that we're right here between these two parties and. And we have to be faithful to Them to say, you know, you're the one keeping the lights on. All of this equipment around me costs money. And this. Making this thing costs money. And these people are saying, we want it to happen. And all these people are saying we're asking for it. And I have a different kind of loyalty to these people because they're asking for, would you give us God's instruction on these things and would you give us some practical help, et cetera?
[00:32:56] And I just, I'm so grateful to both of you people. I just want to say I'm very grateful to all of our supporters, everybody that's on our team, everybody that's at ur.
[00:33:07] Thank you.
[00:33:09] You put wind in our sails to go, like, please tell them about lodofeb. It's actually helpful. And I'm very grateful for everybody that listens and watches and goes. We.
[00:33:20] What they're saying, what I hear is we're asking you for the good stuff regarding leading our families in an Abrahamic way. And I'm grateful for both groups. And I feel the, I think, godly responsibility and pressure of both of those people. And if you're watching this or listening to this, you're. You're in at least one of those groups. So I'm grateful for you. I know Mark feels the same way. So I got to throw that out. This is my final word. You got this? God's grace is, is leading you down this road and is training you to say, we believe in celebration around here. We believe in huge, extravagant, wonderful times of celebration. We also believe that there are times when you say no and that our flesh really needs that.
[00:34:09] If you slip up or fail, get back up. I'm. I'm begging you to keep going. As a leader of your home, please don't give up. Don't do that.
[00:34:21] I want you to decide. No. We're going to follow hard after God. And me as the family leader, I'm going to take responsibility to figure out and construct what do we need to do in a year's time to encourage the kind of character that, that I know God wants in our family.
[00:34:38] It's about the direction that you're headed. It's not about perfection. It's about direction.
[00:34:42] So I bless you to keep going. And I just want to pray this along along with you. At the end of this episode, God would. Would you, by your spirit, by your grace, teach us how to say no to ourselves so that we can say yes to the things that you call us to? And the things that you call us to will certainly require that we don't put ourselves first and prioritize our wants, but to prioritize your kingdom. May our homes and our wallets be in submission to you, God, and may we know how to lead well. So I bless you in those things this week.
[00:35:17] I've gone on a little longer than I hoped, but we're very passionate about LoFeb. We think it's super helpful. So whatever version of that you attempt this week or this month, bless you in it. It matters. It's worth the pain. Go get them, tiger Run your home and your doe like a biblical boss.
