Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Lot had a relationship with Abraham. He had really good income, and still he lost his wife and his family and his future to dumb decisions. Don't be Lot.
Okay, dad, you've left Hoffney World.
You know where your money's going now. But seeing that isn't directing your money.
Let's assume that you earn well. You earn enough, your bills are paid, but nothing is on purpose. Savings is whatever's left over. Giving is when we feel like it or when our compassion seems overwhelming. And the future is someday.
Now, folks, this is a short series about Stair Steps to Mastery, where we walk you through the biblical archetypes of five financial goofball to financial guru.
And this series is in five stages. It's Hophni who's drowning, Lot who's drifting. Jacob who's grinding, Isaac who's planting, and Abraham, who is multiplying. So today we'll look at the Lot archetype. That's stage two of our five stage ladder.
Now, Lot didn't fall because he was evil. He failed because he pitched his teeth tent toward Sodom. And as we'll see, drift is a decision.
In Genesis 13 and 19, we learn the story of Lot.
And Lot was Abraham's nephew, and he had proximity to Abraham, who's the greatest father in Bible history.
But he had no convictions of his own. He had borrowed faith. And he chose for his own life what looked best. At first glance, he wasn't prayerful about his decisions. He didn't choose what was holy or God approved. He just kind of walked in and saw. Let's see what happens here.
Now, let's put that into a modern context. You let the school, the neighborhood, and the algorithm pick your address and your calendar and your family's culture, and you're spending. If that's the case, your home is simply out of order.
The wife is looking over her shoulder, like Lot's wife famously did. If you know this story, she turned into Salt because she looked back at Sodom when God said, I'm telling you to leave this town. And she kind of.
She kind of had a wistful nostalgia. And your wife, if you're in the Lot archetype, your wife is also looking over her shoulder and at the world around her. And she's kind of going, well, I want to be part of Instagram culture. I just want to have what everybody else has around us. I think our values should be whatever's in pop culture. At the moment, she's looking over her shoulder because there's nothing pulling her forward to where you're going, there's a vacuum where your clearly articulated vision should be that should give your wife something to go toward instead of putting her attention back on what you're presumably going to leave. And the kids, Your kids are absorbing culture by default because dad isn't filtering it, he's not interpreting it, and he's not giving them something better than the default American culture, which is not healthy and is poisonous to a Christian family. So if this is happening around you, you are the Lot archetype. Now, Lot, as I said, he lost his wife and his family to dumb, impulsive compromises.
It wasn't just one big fail for Lot. It was several small drifts that he didn't anticipate and he didn't fight them when they came.
So let me ask you, dad, who decided regarding the last three big money moves that happened in your home?
Was it you, dad? Or if you're being honest, was it your feed or your friends? The culture of your friends or your wife's friends?
Or was it your feelings? That would be a horrible way to make decisions, what your feelings are telling you to do.
Who decided the last three big money moves in your home if it wasn't you? Underneath, a prayerful leadership from God and a hard look at the truth, which was the lesson of Hophni, you might be in this Lot space and it might be time to take a hard look at things. Let's just look at the two sides of Lot. First, the spiritual or family aspect.
Lot had no family compass. We have no indication that Lot ever said, this is who we are, this is where we're going. This is what we believe, so that his wife and his children could follow in it. The Bible says in 1st Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5 and some other places that the man is the head of the home.
That is, he's to be the tip of the spear, the compass. I got a friend that always talks about the knife hand. He should be the knife hand. Say, we're going this way. No, we're not doing that over there. He throws out that knife hand. That's the role of the man in the home.
Passive leadership is somebody who is present for bringing in some income, but he's absent for direction.
And in the absence of direction, your wife, your children, or the culture around you will be happy to pick up the slack. If there is no leader in the father role, which is God's plan financially, the Lot archetype earns well and keeps little because lifestyle creep eats the rest.
Years Ago I had a good boss when I got a big raise and the boss told me, just know this is way before I was a financial planner. He said, just know that your lifestyle will balloon and eat all of this raise if you don't intentionally make decisions about where the money will go. Truer words were never said.
So the lot archetype earns well. He keeps little of it because his lifestyle eats it up and the culture tells him what to do. There's also. And now we're getting somewhere. There's no automation in his life.
There's no definitive decision that's made before the money comes in, what the money will be doing. That's where automation can really serve you in your leadership.
The future gets leftovers instead of first fruits as the Bible describes first fruits. God likes it when we put first fruits toward giving towards our future instead of just eating up what we want in the minute. So Mark, we're going to appeal to Mark here. If a family earns well but feels stuck, what would you say to them?
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Lot families when I run into them almost never have a math problem. What they have is a decision problem. They've never made a plan, much less automated the decision points in that plan.
So every single dollar that comes their way is a decision.
Eventually decision fatigue sets in and they're a mess.
We fix the decision problem, you guessed it. By deciding, we create a plan. And then for every single little decision point in that plan, we do everything we can to automate giving. Automate the debt pay down and the emergency fund build up. Then you live on the rest. The decision problem gets solved. So it's like a family who sets out to lose a few pounds together but leaves all the Twinkies in the pantry. We don't want that decision to even be a possibility. So we automate it away by not buying that junk at the grocery store.
No more hesitation and confusion. Once you've set a plan, then discipline becomes simple when you automate as many of those little decisions as you possibly can.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Right, okay. So here's the one killer move. If you are in the lot archetype and you want to move forward, you want to move up our stair steps towards multi gen Abrahamic financial guru greatness.
Here's our one killer move. Automate your financial direction.
So real simple, automate your next paycheck.
So the paycheck should be split up before you ever touch it, before it ever comes your way. You should put 10% towards either your debt or building your buffer.
So maybe you haven't built up an emergency fund or maybe you're still in debt, whatever. 10% of your money, not even thinking about it, it goes out of your hands towards that world.
10% towards giving.
Now that's a whole conversation itself. Where should that giving. Where should those giving dollars go? I can't tell you that in 15 minutes. But 10% towards giving and the 80% that's left, that's what you live on. That kind of automation shows direction and it shows that you've made a decision again before the money ever hits the account.
So that paycheck split should happen automatically. And you tell the kids, this is where we're going now. You could say it might feel like we don't have as much money, but that's because we're making different money decisions for where our family's going instead of just what we're doing this week.
So drift ends with a declaration, someone making a decision and they. And then making a declaration. And that ends the drift, which is we're headed somewhere. So lot drifted and patriarchs decide and they decide one time and then it's done. And then. And all the money will then serve that purpose. So if you are thinking, I think I already do this.
I feel like I have plans for what happens with my paycheck when the money comes in, but I feel like I'm grinding alone.
It's just me.
That's Jacob. He's the grinder, all alone. We'll talk about him next week.
So subscribe so that you can get the whole ladder in order.
Now you leave lot when your future gets paid every month, before your appetite's due. Automatically Jacob hustles, but he strives alone. Isaac plants on autopilot and Abraham multiplies with a map for great grandkids. That's where we're climbing to. So we'd love for you to comment. Are you in the lot stage right now? You feel like you're earning well, but you're drifting? Is that what you see in your family around you is a lack of direction?
We'd love to hear from you. And just a reminder, next week we're going to talk about Jacob. We why hustle without surrender still keeps you exhausted. We'll see you then.
