Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I mean, money is the stated cause of, like, over half of divorces. Okay? So if that's true, we should not just be training in general on money. We should say, well, here's our risk. It can ruin your marriage someday, which would have a big impact on my children's children.
So let's talk about that.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Run your home and your dough like a biblical boss.
Welcome back to Abraham's Wallet and the Abrahamic Starter Kit series.
I'm Steve Manuel, your host, and I'm accompanied today by Mark Parrott, who is a certified financial planner. And our heart is to share the secrets of the Bible and the lessons from Abraham's life with Jesus lovers like yourself.
So in this series, which we've called the Abrahamic Starter Kit series, which is just for new folks who are poking around and going, what is different about the Abraham's Wallet mindset? Here in episode four, we want to zoom in on money.
Money is at least half of what we talk about on this podcast. And the Abrahamic leader sees cash, assets and stewardship totally differently from the average churchgoer.
We're talking about the Abrahamic money mentality regarding. We're going to cover these areas, specifically income, spending, marriage.
We'll show what that means giving and training.
Maybe these are not new concepts, but they might be new and how we apply these ideas. And if you've been around Abe's Wallet for a while, these might not be new, but we might have some helpful tips for you in. In how you're pursuing these things.
So without further ado, let's go into the Abrahamic Money mentality.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: You know, the last eight episodes and these. Yeah, the. The episode that played this week as we record this, I think we recorded it in maybe four months prior. Yeah, we have. We've had a backlog. It was a. It was a banger, though.
But the last few that we've recorded, Steven, you've said I'm your host, Stephen, and today I have Mark with me. Yeah, I'm going to start saying, like, I'm your host, Mark, and my very temporary guest co host this week is Stephen, if you're not careful.
I mean, have I been ousted? Am I demoted to occasional guest at this point?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: No, but, you know, I was thinking of the fall specifically.
There were just several episodes that didn't involve you. And I don't want the. I don't want the. I don't want the listener to feel that they're getting gypped when you're. When you're not around. So I'd Rather say with our very special guest, Mark Parrott. And then it feels like a delight, the fact that you're here 80% of the time. I don't know.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: So what's happening in your life? We're recording this in January.
Do you dial in on physical capital at this time of the year? Like most of America?
[00:03:13] Speaker A: We're going to do an episode soon. We've already outlined it on travel and I took a big trip right before Christmas and I've told you this, but I injured myself prior to this trip. So I've been trying some new things. Physical capital wise, I'm a little bit more focused.
So I guess the answer is yes, Steven. I, I initially I thought no, no changes because I still just go to the gym every day. But I have been making a concerted effort to eat less food and I am down 6lbs since the start of the year. Which, you know, that seems to be a good thing. My jeans are not quite as tight as they were on Christmas morning when I tried them on.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Well, I'm disappointed by that.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: But so, yeah, a little bit different. Same, same rhythms, different practices.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Okay, I want to, I just want to talk about these five areas. And again, the idea is we've had a dude wandering off the street of, of mainstream Christian practice and he's poking his head over here and go, well, what do you, what's different about you guys?
So we're trying to describe to him how the Abrahamic man thinks differently regarding his money specifically.
So I was trying to think of some categories where there's real differences.
And the first one that came to mind might, might not seem obvious is to maximize your income.
So I think that most church going guys think I got a job, we're paying the bills and I'm putting a little aside. So when right, we're done.
And we have talked before about the production of wealth. The production of income is one of the superpowers that God gives to the Father. Specifically, it's an assignment that he gives to him. And I've had this specific conversation with a couple of guys in the last few months.
Deuteronomy 8:18 says, it is he who gives you the power to get wealth that he might confirm his covenant with you. That's kind of a cool, mysterious verse that makes it sound like, makes it sound like God confirms his covenant with you by letting you get wealth, by letting you work for profit. And that takes me to Proverbs 14:23, which says that for a godly man, all hard work brings A profit.
And I have to just explode the word profit a little bit.
That doesn't mean that if you work a day, you get that day's food and a shirt on your back for that day. It means that you have some left over. That's what profit is.
So all hard work brings profit means that there's extra money being created by you for your work. I just want to describe the Abrahamic mindset, which is we want to maximize our income and of course we have to balance that with the, the eschewing of greed, the opposing of greed actively in our lives and yet at the same time going, the number one gift that God Almighty has given to my family for securing protection and provision financially is me.
And so I gotta be responsible with that, that power.
So I'll just make two points and then get your input on this. Mark 1. The Abrahamic man works diligently.
He innovates with his time, and he seeks God's blessing on his efforts.
He doesn't fall into either one of these ditches, the ditch of laziness, nor the ditch of a get rich quick kind of I got to have it. So he's pursuing financial plenty, but he isn't out to, if I can use this term, he's not out to get rich. The idea isn't I got to get rich.
The idea is I'm, I'm going to put my hand to the plow. I want the best plow I can. I want it to produce the most return I can. But I'm also not thinking, oh, I'll have, I'll be wealthy by the end of this row. No, no, no, no. I have hundreds and thousands of rows to plow.
And I, I just, my intention is to be faithful for the long haul, but I also want that to get us, get us the maximum return for my efforts.
So even starting down the road, that's just my very first point. I have to say that if you have either apathy or greed in your heart, just repent of it. Just ask God to slap it out of your head if you have apathy or greed when it comes to earning income so that you can get on with the actual job.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: I mean, you, you kind of said this, but you and I were both raised in a strange culture of Christianity that sort of, it's, it's suggested without explicitly saying so that you know, pursuing, maximizing your income, pursuing earnings, not the most holy thing a person could do. And yet I think this is true for you. I know it was true for me. We both Went to these gargantuous Baptist churches where they were full of Mercedes Benzes on a Sunday morning. And we thought, yep, for a bunch of people who kind of say that money is a little bit dirty, these people are really got a lot of it. So all, all I think we're saying here is if you're the type of guy that, you know, maybe you're a little drawn towards the YouTube videos on how to hustle and generate your first million by the time you're 25 or something like that.
We do think that extraordinary wealth is the almost inevitable product of faithfulness over long periods of time. And we can say that and also tell you it's not something that captures our hearts and it's not even, it's not even something that we expect to see by the time we're 30 year old guys like we're gonna, we're gonna be rich.
We do hope, barring extraordinary circumstances, some of which could happen tomorrow, we could have a civil war in this country and all our businesses go away and blah, blah, blah, it won't change anything for us. But you know, barring extraordinary circumstances, we do hope to steward increasing assets and for our grandchildren to have wealth that makes ours look silly.
But yeah, I think that's a good place to start, is that it's not our goal. Wealth is not the goal, even though it is kind of inevitable over very long periods of time.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Great point. So, so to maximize one's income shouldn't be a greed move. It should be simply, again, well, I'm, I'm God's plan to provide for my family. So I, I, if I'm the hold up on the, on the provision, well, shame on me. I got to change my attitude. But it's funny you mentioned kind of our, our, our church upbringing.
You know, I remember like telling people when I'm in high school and I'm in college, what do you, what do you do? What do you want to do? And it was always kind of a vague kind of, I want to write and I'm kind of interested in creative arts and I'm kind of interested in music.
And I never, and there were plenty of like a well established men who would kind of give me an understanding smile and they're thinking, well good luck with that, son. That's, that's going to be a long road to hoe. But nobody ever pulled me aside, put their arm around me and said, Stephen, you could be a dentist. Do you ever think about being a dentist? And that would earn you really good money. And you could write music on the side, but do something practical. You know, I never heard anybody say, yeah, but why you're going to go to Texas A M, maybe you could be an engineer. That would be a really good career option. You know, that was, that was never vocalized as making more money would be better for you. No, nobody ever said that.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: I don't know if you remember it, but we were in like a disciple now group that you were leading at Prestonwood Baptist Church. There was a bunch of probably 16 year olds in the room. And this was your hardcore Rich Mullins phase of life where you were thinking like, I want to be a modern day monk.
And so this is why I think it was actually from the Lord, because you wouldn't have naturally said this to someone, but you looked at me and said, I've been praying. And I think God's saying, mark, don't be afraid of a suburban, like normal, working American life.
Because I wanted to be like you. I was like, man, I'm game. If you want to send me, Lord, to Africa, I'm game. I'll do it.
And so I think that that was at the time a little disappointing to me. But in hindsight it's like, oh, faithfulness over time is actually probably even less common than crazy high motivation, top speed discipleship for a short amount of time and then flame out, which is what we see a lot of times.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: That's right, man. I just had a long conversation with a guy last night, like a two hour conversation on this subject of like, if you are listening to this and you are living suburban life and you think that what God really wants is for you to make extravagant sacrifices to do something that is explosively amazing and would make a great Instagram reel to show people that you went to give your life to the orphans of Zimbabwe. What do you think, guys? Slow claps we just, I just had this big conversation to go like, man, we were sold such a bill of goods around religious circles that that's what the goal in life was.
And, and what? Isn't it going to be fascinating to get to heaven and see the rewards that are given to the faithful housewife who. She had an automatic dishwasher and she had a 70 inch plasma TV and she gave herself on behalf of her husband and her children and she was just faithful. And they did the dishes every day and they read books by their. In their very comfortable chairs at night. You know, it's just there, there's a, there's a. I don't know my. So Many of my suppositions growing up, I think were wrong and they weren't based on the idea that what God wants are these awesome families.
That's. That's his design. That's what he. That's how he wants things to work. So anyways, on the subject of maximizing your income, I just want to give guys a couple of practical starters. If you think I don't, I've never really thought down that path before.
Here's, here's something. Audit your skills and audit your time and ask, where could I add value and earn more? What's possible for me regarding earning more?
What again, what's the goal of that? So that you can brag when you're around a bunch of guys? No, it's so that you can maximize what it is that you're giving to your family.
If you represent the earning, the earning muscle of your family, well, then it would be insulting to do less than what you can do.
I could apply that to any number of things. If you have a strong gift of evangelism and you hide it under a bushel.
No good, that's no good. So if you have the ability to go earn much and you don't use it, that's no good.
Secondly, pray for God to open doors for increase for you. I think I could prove pretty easily scripturally that that's God's intention is an increase for you and your generations. Why not now? And why not start with your income? I'm thinking of a young man I know, a couple of guys I'm spending time with. They're very young, married, they're within their first two years of marriage and they're just starting careers. One guy's in sales, one guy is starting down a design pathway. And what are they doing? They're taking their first job they can. Well, yeah, of course.
So the question would be, how could you add value and possibly earn more and track your income monthly and maximize it as stewardship, not greed?
Just track it. Where's the money coming from? If you take some side hustle jobs, this guy that's in design, he does some side hustle graphic design work. Okay, we'll start tracking it. I was with a dad this morning who's he's trying to add to his income and he's trying to ask himself, what do I do? And he's taking an online course right now because he's trying to add to his skills and he should just start tracking where is my income coming from and how can I maximize that for my Family. So we also. There. There's room in here for a big conversation on the subject of following your passions.
And that. That is often a dead end. Following your passions. I can't find that verse in the Bible anywhere, but I can find that someone who doesn't provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever.
So, guys, provide for your families and maximize your income. Do you have any other, like, first blush tips for guys, Mark, who are thinking. I've never thought this way.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: I'm just thinking when you talk about. Because I. I talk to people all the time who are like, you know, I. My passion is fill in the blank. Maybe young Stephen would have said songwriting. I want to be a songwriter just like Stephen Curtis Chapman.
But I only have two names.
I don't know. It. It. It made me think immediately of James 1:14, which says each one of us is tempted when he's dragged away, enticed and baited to commit sin by his own worldly desires, lusts, and passions.
So it's like we have it. It's. You said the Bible never says anything about following your heart. Well, it kind of says there's worldly passion and the world will be like, hey, amen, go for that.
Some of those things are outright obvious sin.
You know, the world celebrates every type of sin as something we should be encouraged. And if you feel shame, we should work through that. But. But there's also things that the most people wouldn't call sinful. It's not sinful to get an art history degree. It's not. However, it might be very unwise. And just because your heart is pulling you somewhere does not mean it's the Lord and it does not mean it's a good thing. So.
Yeah, the only other thing I wanted to say about. About maximizing income is sometimes this is as simple as asking. You would be shocked how few people ask for more money regularly if they're in a W2 job.
So.
Or if you're a business owner. When's the last time you raised your prices? Because I don't know if you've been to the grocery store lately, but they're raising their prices.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: They're raising their prices. Yeah.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: The car store has raised prices in the last 10 years.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: The.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: The house. If you go shopping for a house, they've raised prices on those. So you should be doing the same. You should. Sometimes it's just as simple as if you're in a job and you're just starting out and you've been doing a great job. You got a four out of five on your performance review and you're thinking, well, I guess I should be happy with the 2% Christmas bonus they gave me. Ask for a raise. Just say, hey, I intend to make you more money next year than I did this year. I would like some of it.
And you'd be surprised how often the answer is, oh, we could, we could work with you on that.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: That's a great tip.
Okay. Second area that an Abrahamic man thinks differently regarding money is this isn't going to sound like a huge brainwave, but let's talk about it. Balance spending now with long term goals and be thinking of dynasty all along the way.
So there are some things that you need to spend money on right now for the sake of, of family culture and dynasty. There are some things that you shouldn't be spending money on now because of what you want done in the long term.
So this sounds obvious enough. Let me throw some passages at you. Proverbs 21:20 says the wise store up chapter choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.
Storing up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.
Proverbs 13:22 says, A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
You could, you could write a book on that verse that there is a God ordained value to, to leaving money and other stuff to your children's children and thinking about that.
Proverbs isn't a book written just to grandfathers, it's written to humans. So a 20 year old needs to be thinking about that, that a godly man, a righteous man, leaves inheritance for his children's children.
So the average standard Christian dude spends money on today.
He saves minimally, usually with whatever is left over from him getting everything he wants right now.
He saves minimally for his retirement and he does very little, very little giving.
I'm speaking statistically. We know that is the case.
The Abrahamic man lives below his means, whatever that is, whatever the income is, he lives below that.
Well, how are whatever it takes to do that. He prioritizes assets that compound over time for his family. So he's thinking in terms of things like home ownership. He thinks of family land or property and he thinks in terms of like income generating investments, assets for the family. That's what he's thinking about. He's thinking long term, all the way spend. And what I want to say about that is that there is a dance that if you are, if you're thinking about your children's children, there's a dance that you do about some things that you spend now be. Spend on now because you're thinking of the long term.
Well, I could be saving every penny. And you and I, Mark, would tell people, hold on a second. There are some things that you should be spending your money on now that are, that are more valuable because of the window of life that you're in now than putting money off and putting, you know, putting everything toward the future.
Whereas we, we, we know people. This might sound like a fever dream to you, but there are people who put off even enjoying their children and their grandchildren now because there's some specter of I've got to have 10 million in the bank the day that I die.
And so there's a. It would be too simplistic to just say, obviously there are people who just spend all of their money now and they don't think of the future. That, that'll always be the case. That's true. But an Abrahamic man is doing this balancing act between the value now and the value I'm going to experience later. But I'm family building all along the way, so I can't think of a more pithy way to talk about that than that value balancing act. Mark, thoughts on spending now with long term goals in mind.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: I, I want to just underline what you said before that, which was the Abrahamic man lives below his means 100% true. It's really easy to get fired up by motivational podcasts and you found Abraham's wallet six weeks ago and you've just been devouring all the episodes. Man, I want to build family assets. But then when the rubber meets the road, I'm like, well, what do you bring in and what do you spend a month? And you're like, I don't know. Or I do know. And it's, it's. Those numbers are not in the right order.
So everything's pretend. You can't talk about multi generational assets and family teams on mission. If you're spending away the money that you've been entrusted to steward and it's gradually dwindling to less and less. Like, don't do that.
I always tell people who tell me their grand visions, I'm like, yes, I want to be excited with you for this.
And that's going to require real pain in the short term because we've had so many people on the show that are like dudes who have set out to do something totally new and different and the ones that have these crazy success stories a lot of times had a wife at home who went, I don't care what you bring home. I'm going to run this household on that. And I just want to pour that into the veins of everybody who's listening is go. Just resolve yourself to, like, even if we have a season where it's lo dofeb for six months, that's our little month where we spend as little as possible. That's okay. And I actually would. Would posit to you, it won't be unpleasant if you feel like you're actually moving towards and making progress towards a vision that the Lord has given you, that's something you're excited, excited about, then that. That type of austerity becomes not as painful.
But don't be a faker. Don't just talk about it and then go, it's. It's. We were talking about eating less, trying to lose a few pounds. I. I have definitely been guilty of being like, well, I'm gonna lose a few pounds. And then dinner just feels so good, and I want to have another plate. And in the moment, I get to. To bedtime, and I go, oh, I'm really full. I did not eat like a man who actually wants to lose a few pounds tonight, so don't be that.
And it starts with tracking what you spend and tracking what you bring in. That's really. It's really simple in terms of the other side of the coin becoming a hoarder.
You know, I got to tell you, Steven, that text you sent me yesterday, it.
I was laying in bed last night going, I'm a little bit.
I don't like this. It made me unhappy because you said something like, I'm sure glad you and Amelia are taking all those big trips because.
Because, you know, your heart doesn't work very well.
And it was like.
I mean, I had a little bit of funniness with my. My heartbeat, but the doctor cleared me. He said, you're good to go. Carry on with your life. And I'm sitting there at 10, 10pm at night going, stephen kind of told me he thinks I'm probably not long for this world, I think.
But your point was that I do think sometimes you are 10 years ahead of me, and I'm already feeling this a little bit, which is like, okay, Lord, we have been really diligent.
Are we supposed to ever take some of this money that we've got in different places and these investments, Are we supposed to ever take it and start using it for, like, something like just enjoyment, pleasure?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Are we supposed to buy a boat? Are we supposed to Go on a big Europe trip as a family. And I don't think there's an easy, like, well, this is the point at which you get to do that. But what I will say is everyone right now who, if you're listening to this and you're 35 or younger and you're not just a very unique butterfly, I am telling you, everyone who's like in their 20s today expects to have what their parents had when they were in their 60s. That's just table stakes. And we see it in housing. For example, your grandparents grew up in a 1100 square foot home and raised four kids in it. Today, starter homes are like 3, 500 square feet in a lot of places in the country. Um, and so, yes, they are really expensive. Well, they're also three times the size plus of the house that you're, you know, World War II veteran grandpa bought when he came back from Germany. So I think that some of it is like you, you do get to use your money and you have to earn that right.
So I hope that's actually motivating. And I hope that once you get to a point where I've said it before, we were going through at the end of the year, this last year, our own financial plan. And I said, you know, what's so fun about this plan is we can actually, we had, we had said, what if we could give each of our kids like $40,000 as a kind of a life starter gift when they got married, just in our financial plan. What if that didn't wreck our retirement goals? We have three kids. That's. That's not a small chunk of money.
And we, we worked and that. I think we started thinking that way when we were in our early 30s. Well, we're in our early 40s now. And it's like, hey, we've been diligent. We could just say we checked that box. But we also get to have the conversation, what if we put a down payment on a house for our kids instead of just a $40,000 gift? Like, who knows? But Lord willing, it looks possible.
Uh, and so you get the right to actually think bigger about how to use your money.
Uh, you know, if you, if you find yourself falling into the opposite trap, which is just the Bible talks about it a lot. Just building bigger barns so you can stare at your source of security.
That's a, that's a loser of an idea. And you'll just die staring at your, at your pile of proverbial grain in your big barn. And the scripture says, actually you Know tomorrow might be your last day even though you said I'm going to build a bigger barn so I can have more money.
So we're not supposed to take security in money. And I think that's often what leads people to just never deploy it either to long term goals or even to say, hey, actually it would be really good for our family to add a, another bedroom and bathroom to the house or take a big vacation or whatever.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Yes.
Yeah. Mark, you're not promised tomorrow. So that's why you can take that trip to Thailand that you took last year.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Because I'm sure glad I did since
[00:30:54] Speaker B: heart might not work, I mean. Oh, I don't know. Okay. Anyways, practical starters for, for this, for this area. Mark already said putting some effort toward budgeting. If your answer is I don't know how, I don't know exactly how much we spend or I don't know how much I make exactly, start budgeting today. And we always say that the beginning of budgeting is tracking.
So just track what it is that you spend in a given month and you should probably have a couple of months so that you know what's normal and just start tracking and then you can start budgeting after you, after you know what you actually spend. Here's another idea. Cut one non essential expense. Think subscriptions and redirect that, that amount of money toward debt payoff or savings every month. Here's another idea. Create a little dynasty fund.
So maybe that's, you know, that you need a new minivan or you know, you need an addition to the house or you have a dream of buying a piece of land that you can improve over the next 25 years.
Create a little fund and start moving money into it monthly.
We find that when you think vision with regards to money, you're thinking of the future.
It certainly will help the way that you think about the trip to Starbucks, which can sometimes be a thoughtless. There's money there, so I'm going to spend it. But when you think, wait a second, all of my month's worth of money is either going to be, you know, dissolve in front of my eyes this month or I can actually send that money toward the future. It'll help you, it'll help you think differently and think into the future with your money. Okay, area three.
I want to speak specifically about investing your money using money. I think the Abrahamic mind thinks about using money for the sake of your marriage, specifically your marriage. And I think I didn't get this idea in, in church world either. And I, I want to be a little crass with the way I talk about this because of stories happening around my life right now. And that is divorce proofing your marriage, like actually using your money now to divorce proof your marriage.
Malachi 2:15 says that God seeks godly offspring from marriages that stay together.
Ephesians 5 is the passage about marriage where Paul says, husbands, lay down your lives because you are to love your wife as Christ loved the church in sacrifice.
So divorce destroys worlds.
It is violence to God's covenant. That's language straight out of Malachi. It's violence to covenant. It scatters your arrows, your, your, your Psalm 127 arrows. The, the kids are fractured because of divorce. It kills multi generational vision. And so an Abrahamic leader sees marriage as non negotiable. Like it is so much more important than your local church, your relationship with your local church.
It's so much more important than what we've been talking about. You pursuing your passion in your career.
Well, I always wanted to do this career, but it demands so much travel. But I've got to do it because this was always my dream for my career. So I'll just, my wife will just have to deal with it because I have to do this thing. No, you don't. You don't have to do that. You could be a local plumber and you could be right at home all the time.
And making sure that you're making marriage is strong is of such importance that the, that the Abrahamic leader knows that he's willing to put money to work now to make sure that his marriage is vibrant. And yes, I do mean something as simple and the cliche or non creative sounding as make sure the date nights happen.
Make sure that you're pursuing your wife and she knows that she's more to you than the. Than good. I don't have to worry about the dishes because that's you good. I don't have to worry about sheets on the bed because that's your thing.
Like okay, great, there's. I'm all for partnership and teamwork, et cetera. That's all wonderful. And your relationship with your wife is, must be so paramount to your life. So you're putting money towards books, reading about what now what does God say about marriage?
If you've never heard this, then I'll be the first to tell you. I really believe that the hobby of newly married people. Your hobby. If you're newlywed within your, within your first five years of marriage, you should have an ongoing hobby which is how do I be a great husband?
So if that's your hobby, then that's what you're watching videos about and that's what you're reading books about and that's what you're talking to other guys about is you're trying to gather tips and tricks on great husbanding.
So whatever the, I mean there's 10 things that, that might mean and you're pursuing that thing. You're putting money towards a getaway. You know, if you're, if your wife is wasting away and gosh, she's got to get her head out somewhere and you hear her talking wistfully about, if I could just have a beach, beach and wine weekend with my friends.
Okay.
I don't know every, I don't know everything that's going on there. But, but you could say, yeah, me and you are going to do that. We're gonna get away to the beach or to a lake house or something.
And I just know a bunch of guys that just don't think in those terms because they think, you know, my wife's there, she's good. Okay, what's the next thing that I'm after? And they're, and they're thinking in terms of getting new stuff. And I'm telling you that that relationship with a woman doesn't work that way. And you have to be continually pursuing her or, or it'll devolve. It's, it's got to be, it's got to be a well watered garden that you're putting energy and you're putting money towards that thing. So I have to throw that in, Mark, that, that I think an Abrahamic man sees a marriage as the linchpin of everything he wants in life. So he, there's no, there's no amount of time and energy and money that he won't put towards safeguarding that most important relationship.
What do you think?
[00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah. The only thing I'm chipping in here, okay. I, I, when I've hung around our people, our Abrahamic guys who are really passionate about this stuff and they're sometimes, and I'm gonna lump myself in here sometimes we can get a little bit, a little bit masculine in our leadership, which is not a bad thing.
But I, you know, I came back from this weekend with a bunch of fathers who were sort of like minded, trying to lead their families. And I had learned about, one of these guys did a whole presentation on the, the weekly meeting he runs with his wife and he had a slide deck and all this presentation. And I thought this. This is great. I mean, this is. Must be what a guy who's really bought in does. And I think I got four minutes into it, and my wife looked at me and said, this is awful. Whatever you're doing right now, please stop.
Oh, you.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: You tried what he recommended?
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, I guess this is what we do. We. We run it. We. We put our kids on a little timer, and they, you know, pick up the baton when they're ready to speak in the meeting, and we have our keywords and whatever. I don't actually remember at all what the meeting structure was, but I think I had to be sensitive to, okay, there's my vision, my callings, the way I want to lead, and we're going to resource those things as a family. We started a business, and we made sacrifices as a family. I earned about $0 for a while trying to get a business cranking, and. And sometimes guys kind of lose the wife in that process. So my only chip into this is make sure that as much as you're resourcing your own kind of calling and vision, and even when it comes to money, the ways that you plan to provide for your family, Think about not just how to care for your wife, but how to resource her to be maximally effective in her calling. We've talked about stuff like this in the show before, but sometimes it's like, oh, oh, my wife is a gifted decorator. She makes places beautiful. Well, make sure she has some budget. I don't care if it's $50 a month. If that's all you can do right now, come up with a way to make sure she feels like our family is resourcing my giftings. You know, if it's, you know, fill in the blank with her skills and giftings, like, don't.
Don't scrimp and scrape if you're a homeschooler. And you can, like, say, actually, she would be able to do things so much better and more effectively if she had a wonderful space or if she had the right curriculum and materials. But, like, we really kind of don't want to spend that money because we're trying to get our vending machine business going or something. I don't know.
Make sure that both you and your wife see that the family is putting five financial oomph behind the callings and. And. And vision. And not just saying that. We're really excited about both partners callings and vision. There should be dollars associated with that, just like there's dollars associated with your physical capital and your, your financial savings and all those other things.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Great.
So my practical tip for you would be put a line item in your budget, at least for regular date nights.
If you think that your marriage is at a place where we need some counseling or we need a third party and put money toward it.
Buy books that you can read together, studies. I'll buy you the woman version, I'll buy me the man version. We'll read chapters, we'll get together and talk about it, or go to conferences together where you get to talk about marriage. All of those things are great fodder. And any dollar spent preventing drift is worth more than gold for your marriage. Okay? Area four Giving.
When I was talking to a guy about this series and I was like, I'm, I, I'm bringing a guy by Abe's wallet and I'm excited for him to kind of dip his toe into these waters, but I, I want him to kind of understand the Abrahamic mindset. He said giving in general is not part of his entire worldview. Does it? It's not part of his life.
So 2 Corinthians 9 says, Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. And God loves a cheerful giver.
So the reason that the, the man of God is a giver in his life and it could be giving his time, his skills. Giving a listening ear certainly means money is because one of the basic things about our God is that he is generous.
He is others centric.
He reaches outside himself. He has given you everything that you have, including all of the stuff that you never acknowledge, you take for granted. You've never said thank you for. He just gives it all. And he gives freely. The Bible says he gives to the righteous and the unrighteous alike. He's just giving all the time. It's not possible to be godly and not share this character trait of God's, which is to be a giver. So as we always say about money, it's the capital that's the easiest to measure.
Are you giving? Are you giving enough? Where it comes to thoughts and prayers, I don't, not only do I not know that, I wouldn't know how to measure that.
Are you giving enough when it comes to dollars? Well, I can measure that. We can have a conversation about that, about dollars.
So we, we want to be giving every way in our lives, not to the detriment of our families, but we are to be givers. And, and even one of the greatest ways that you can give is to invite people into your home. Hospitality is one of the most powerful forms of giving and putting people around your table and experiencing the love and peace and joy and bounty of your home is a powerful gift.
So I just have to contrast this to the kind of Christian idea which is I was kind of communicated, you know, if you will tithe to, to us, if you will give some of your money to us, we'll take care of giving to the poor. We take care of evangelism, sharing the gospel with others. We take care of, of Bibles. If you believe in buying Bibles, we take care of all that. You just give us some money and you're set.
And I now understand that a godly family leader would never lazily write a check to the local church house and go, I think we're good.
Again, statistically, we know that less than 1% of churchgoers tithe and most people that attend church give less than 1% of their money.
Mostly they give spontaneously if they have cash in their pockets when a plate is passed. Otherwise they're not giving.
So that can't be the case. We just can't be the average churchgoer and be a man of God. So we have to participate in God's heart of generosity. And I would specifically say we want to give where it advances family vision.
I think that giving is to be connected with family vision so that you understand this is the calling of our family. And we want to give towards that calling.
We want to empower it in our home and outside of our home. So if you are an evangelistic family, we just love getting lost people that don't know Jesus around our table and around our lives. And we want to facilitate that.
It would stand to reason that you would also be giving to evangelistic organizations where the Jesus film is showing around the world. And that's a way of reaching Call of Love reaches reaches Muslim nations with the gospel. So we give to Call of Love. Why? Because we're evangelists. So we love the connection of family vision to giving. But there, there has to be giving if you're going to be an Abrahamic man.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I.
Let me just be a broken record on this one and say you must track it too.
It's easy ish with 501c3 organizations because they'll send you a report at the end of the year and probably on your tax return it'll say this is how much you gave to charities.
But like you just said, we don't really think that's the only way that almost.
I mean, man, I, I don't Think it's sin. If all you're giving dollars happens to go to 501 C3s, that's fine. But for the vast majority of people, there will be some dollars outside of that that also are part of your family's generosity and how you, you put money into the world to, to benefit the kingdom.
I was doing a budget audit this week for a family, and they were exactly like you said, Stephen, hey, we love to bring people in. Hospitality hosting, that's where we do a lot of our generosity. And I said, okay, how much? Like, how much?
And I was like, well, we can't know because it's, you know, it's a lot of groceries and things like that. And I said, okay, no, no problem. There's nothing. You haven't, you haven't offended me. But I want you to set up a separate budget category.
Our friend James Linhoff calls it his abundance fund. You can call it whatever you want. Just have a category that's like, this is dollars that is out. This is giving and generosity for our family. And it could go to the church house, it could go to a nonprofit. It could go to an individual, but whenever.
And what that does is it helps you just kind of cut through some of the BS because I promise you, you will be tempted to go, well, we had our friends over for dinner.
Does that count? Do we get to count our whole grocery budget this week as giving? Because most of the stuff we bought had something to do with dinner. But if we're honest, there was a lot of other stuff in that shopping cart too. I'll just tell you, like, be a weirdo that says, these are two separate checks at the grocery checkout line. And if you're doing a dinner for a friend, put that on one bill and categorize that into your generosity fund.
Just take a little bit of effort so that at the end of the year, you can sit down and go, well, we gave X dollars to charities, and we gave this much directly to people in need or to people who we wanted to bless. I want you to be able to track it. Otherwise, I promise you, you will not do as much generosity as you intend.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
So practical steps you can take, be a giver. I, I, I always think when I am at, when I see a cash register, I want to ask myself the question, could, is there an opportunity for me to buy, buy somebody else's stuff here? Not yet. Maybe because they need it. Maybe there's a little old lady that's counting her pennies at the Woolworths. Before she buys, I don't know, a prescription medication. Go. Ma', am, it would be my pleasure to buy that for you. Okay, maybe buying for people in need is great, but you know what? We just give because we're givers.
So if you're at the, if you're at the Chipotle or the Panera and there's three people ahead of you, you could easily just tell the cashier, I'm just covering these people. Just put it all on one, on one bill that, you know, just be a giver. That would be my invitation.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: You love the Chipotle line?
[00:49:27] Speaker B: I love the Chipotle line. It's such an easy, such an easy thing.
Or as I said, there's a connection between family vision and giving.
Put some effort towards your family vision. And, and if, if that's not something that you have talk to your wife about, what are we about?
Like, if we, if we felt that God gave us unlimited resources and he said, you can make a change in the world, what's the change you would like to make?
So my, I can tell you, my reflex answer to that is I want to make disciples.
So I want there to be more and more and more disciple makers in the world. So how can I make there be more disciple makers? I don't know. Let's get creative about that. Let's figure that out for you. It might be we just have a passion for God's word. We love God's word. Well, then you should be giving to the Bible League and you should be giving to translator organizations, and you should be giving to organizations that give the word of God out by the scads.
So that's a great, that's a great practical thing to do on this topic is talk with your wife about what is our family vision. And then you can start giving according to that family vision. Last area very quickly is, is that the Abrahamic man thinks long term about his money. That being the case, he engages in militant training for the next generation. Remember when I was talking about an inheritance for your children's children?
Guess who's going to be parenting your children's children?
Your children are. That's who's going to be parenting your children's children. How can I ensure that my children's children aren't going to get run over by the love of money?
By training my children to be on their guard regarding the love of money. So training your children with regards to money is so important.
Deuteronomy 6 says that we have to teach diligently the ways of God to our. To our children.
Abraham's wallet exists because the amount of material in God's word about money is limitless. There is so much in God's word about money.
And we have to. If we're going to train up people, specifically our children, in the full counsel of God's word, we're going to be training our children with regards to money. Abrahamic money is dynasty fuel.
So we, we're investing in payoffs that take decades, and we're going to train our kids early so that they can manage and steward and multiply money. A very practical thing here would be to teach a money lesson at dinner.
Just, just bring up budgeting.
To bring up budgeting your. Their allowance or budget. Budgeting the babysitting money. That's where we're at right now in my family.
Talk about kids tithing their own money or saving. Tell them what you do with regards to saving. Teach them the principle of compound interest. You could get through that lesson in about three minutes. But are you teaching your children these things?
You could write a vision letter for your descendants, which would at least get your mind starting down that road. You think, I've never spent any amount of time thinking about my children's children. Why don't you write them a letter and make sure that it is heavy in financial wisdom, that those will all be great starting points for you when it comes to militant training for the next generation.
Mark?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think that this is probably the undersold piece of what we talk about here. And I was listening to that episode that we just released this week and I talked about, oh, man, had to make some corrections with my daughter. So it's as important as teaching them the fundamentals of investment or how to not get into credit card debt is teaching them how to handle wealth, how to do generosity, how to not let money. I mean, money is the stated cause of like over half of divorces.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Okay. So if that's true, we should not just be training in general on money. We should say, well, here's our risk. It can ruin your marriage someday.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: We.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Which would have a big impact on my children's children.
So let's talk about that. And so I think, man, if you're just making a list of the pitfalls and saying, could we even just talk about it and identify them for my kids? I don't want you to feel like you have to be some financial planner or pastor, you know, pastor with a little trademark symbol. Not the role that every father listening to this already has. I'm talking about the professional one, you don't have to be that to, to have a humongous impact on your kids. So just by intending in this direction and opening your mouth and talking about stuff, you're going to make so much progress. And so I hope this is encouraging to you that you're the guy for the job. You don't have to have it figured out, just start bringing it into the, into the culture of your home that we talk about. All of the ways money can go well and all the ways it can go poorly.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Amen.
In conclusion, Abrahamic money serves the dominion mandate that we talked about in episode two.
So maximizing your income, balancing your spending with now and the future, protecting your marriage and your family with money, giving strategically and thinking centuries ahead, both in the way that you invest and the way that you train your kids, helps us as Abrahamic leaders to not be thinking about short term comfort. That's what everybody around you is mostly thinking about, but to think about dynastic dominion.
So I invite you to pick one or two things that we've listed and do them this week.
Income. Do an income audit, do a dynasty fund, deposit something and track those for a few days. I gotta tease our next and final episode in this series of the Abrahamic Starter Kit. It's going to be the Good Life.
What's the good Life? What is the vision that we keep talking about? Can't wait to do that with you. Until then, run your home and your dough like a biblical boss. See ya.
