Welcome back to the building. And in today's episode, we are continuing on in our series on idols and entrepreneurship and business. And today we're diving into the idol of money. Quick recap: an idol is an object or a concept that we give a higher priority than God. It's anything we rely on for blessing, help, or guidance instead of God. Anything that consumes our heart, thoughts, devotion more than God. It's any good thing or bad thing that we elevate to a position of prominence, power, influence in our life higher than God. So anything can be an idol. And in this case, money is often an idol. I think it's talked about in the Bible a lot. And especially for entrepreneurs, making money is a focus. It's part of running the business. It's part of making things successful. But the question is: where are we putting our hope? Are we putting it in God or are we putting it in money and in what money can do for us? So, as always, these are just my own stories of how I've wrestled with these idols, how they've shown up in my life as an entrepreneur, and not to say that I have it figured out because I don't. These are just the things that God has been teaching me through my life, through experiences, about idols, about my own heart, about myself, and more than anything, about him and where he should be in my life and what that actually looks like. So when it comes to money, this is probably my least favorite topic to talk about. Something that I have always struggled with. And I think I've struggled with money in a lot of different ways, and we're not gonna dive into all of them today. There's there's not enough time for that. So there is there's just one specific focus I kind of want to share today, and it's more of what's what God is teaching me right now through this season, and the journey that it's taken me to even get here to be able to share this. So when we first started out as a business, obviously I've shared about this before. We didn't know what we were doing, we had no connections, no brands, no processes, nothing, and therefore did not make any money. We were so broke and we struggled so hard. And that set in us, or set in me, a scarcity mindset, a fear of never having enough because there was a time when we didn't have enough, where there was no breathing room, there was no margin, and it wasn't even that we were managing money poorly, it's that there just was not enough money coming in to even cover the bills or food or what we were trying to do. And so we dug ourselves into this big hole, and that kind of became my foundation for money at the beginning, and it planted in me some very negative mindsets, some very unhealthy mindsets that again I did not have any awareness of this at the time. It's taken me years to unpack these things and understand where these things were first planted, how they created roots in my life. And so we went through this season of not having enough and learning, learning to build our business, learning to generate income, learning to get clients and recurring income, and building in those processes for business and understanding our expenses and even how to manage money and even how to steward money well, which again, not something that I was good at. I struggled with that a lot, and that's something that God's had to teach me over the years as well. But I grew this scarcity mindset of there not being enough, and it planted in me a fear, a fear of just like at any given moment, everything is gonna collapse. Like this is all built on a house of cards. Because I was putting my hope in the wrong thing, I wasn't putting it in the source of hope, I was putting it in money and in what my business could generate and produce and putting it in myself and putting it in all the wrong areas. And then because of that, I did not have a heart of giving. I did not have a heart of generosity. And I justified it to myself by saying that when I make enough money, when I get out of debt, when this happened, when this condition is met, then I will be generous, then I will give back, then I will pour out. Years went by and I kind of just continued on in this mindset of, you know, when when things are better, when, you know, when we make enough, when when when. And that's taken me a long time to wrap my head around that and to come to a place where I've finally humbled my heart and finally changed my mindset to really understand what that means, this idea of being in a position to pour out, to pour out, to be an open vessel, to live with my hands open so that God can pour in and through, instead of it just stopping at me, which is kind of where I had been for so long. And this idea of learning to be content and to recognize what enough is, because it's easy to get in this mindset, especially in business where you're like always moving, always growing, always setting these goals of I want to get to this point, I want to get to this point, I want to get to this point. Only that point keeps changing. And it's always this more, more, more. And if you're not growing, then you're dying. And all of these, these very real sayings and mindsets and cliches that we buy into about business. Instead of realizing that as I'm having this mindset, life is going by. My the weeks are passing and the months are passing, and the opportunities to impact, to give, to be generous are passing me by. And I just keep walking by. I just keep just waiting and waiting and waiting until there's a better time or a better circumstance. And here my heart is wanting to be someone who's generous. My heart is wanting to be someone who gives of herself and her time and her resources, but I'm not actually living that out. I'm not actually following through because I'm waiting for the perfect time and circumstance. And I finally had this realization that my life is happening right now. Whatever my business looks like right now, whatever my resources look like right now, whatever my schedule looks like right now, I need to live in the now. I need to live for today. I need to be present in this moment to do the best that I can today. Then that meant not waiting. That meant looking at, okay, what do I have to give? And even if it's everything that I have, I would rather be the type of person who gives the rest of what she has to somebody else rather than hoarding it and holding on to what I can, you know, save for myself and just having that selfish self-preservation mindset. And I think about the story in 1 Kings 17 about Elisha and the widow. And so Elisha, there's a there's a drought and there's a famine in the land, and there's there's not enough food, and there's not enough water. And Elisha goes to Seraph and he is told to go and find a widow, and he finds her and she's gathering sticks, and he calls to her and says, Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I can have a drink? And as she's going to get it, he calls and bring me, please, a piece of bread. And she responds to him and she says, As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don't have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar, and a little olive oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. So here's this widow that God tells Elisha to go and find. And he tells Elisha to go and find someone who basically has nothing left. Like she's literally preparing to die. And she's and a lot says, go to her, not go to the person who's super wealthy, not go to the person who has all of these things, or who's comfortable, or who has excess, or who has margin. God says, go to the woman who has nothing, who's on her getting ready for her last meal, and ask her for bread and for water. And so she responds and she's like, I have nothing left. And then his response to her is don't be afraid, go home and do as you have said, but first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. So his response is okay, like I get that, but but before you make something for you and your son, bring me some bread. So this lady who has nothing, Elisha says, Serve me first. So which is just requires a huge leap of faith. But then he continues on and he says, For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says the jar of flour will not be used up, and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land. So here does this promise, and this is the way it works is like God asks us for what we have, for the whether it's a lot or it's a little, but in this case, it's it's a little. He uses the story of someone who doesn't have a lot, and God says, Give me what you have, give it, give it to somebody else, serve it to somebody else first. Like take this step of faith, be generous with whatever you have, even if it's a little bit. And when you follow through on that, he says, the jar of flour will not be used up and the oil will not run dry. And I think about how I want to live my life of like, okay, here is this switch between instead of waiting until I have enough, here God is saying, I recognize that you don't have enough, or you think that you don't have enough, but you have me, which is more than enough. I'm the one who pours out, I'm the one who pours through. So when you're willing to be generous, when you're willing to step out and and give to somebody first, when you're willing to trust me that I'm gonna come through and that I'm gonna take care of you, I'm gonna ask you for obedience first because here is this woman being a blessing to Elijah because Elijah is hungry, Elijah is or Elisha is thirst Elijah, sorry. See, he's hungry, he's thirsty. And and he needs he needs this woman's help, and it is an act of faith. And then I also think about it Jesus talks about it in Mark too, about the the widow and and her offering. And so in Mark 12, Jesus sits down opposite the place where the offerings are put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They gave, they all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on. And he was like, This this woman's faith will be remembered, it'll be talked about. And you know, so God uses these examples throughout the Bible of of people who didn't have enough, who weren't in a season of wealth or generosity, and and here he's providing for them, here he's he's uh leading them, but it's first when they're giving to someone else, or they're giving to God. And so here is this like this act of giving, this act of like being generous and in in this season right now of like this all this uncertainty, especially as an entrepreneur, it's like most of the time, especially in the early years of building, your income is very uncertain. You'll have months where it's good and you'll have months where it's bad, and some and you haven't figured out this predictability, this lead gen system, which we all want to get to, right? We all want to get to this like security, this stable, predictable, like here is where my income is coming from, and I can bank on that, and I can rely on that, and I can trust that, and you know, we want to put our trust in that that if we figure out this lead gen system, if we figure out this client acquisition and income process, and we get it dialed in, then we will never have to worry. We will never have to be afraid. And when we do that, it's like we're basically it's easy, it's easy to kind of slide into this. Like, well, I can trust this, I can put my trust and I can put my hope in this system, in this process, and my ability to produce wealth instead of remembering that it all comes from God, and anything can happen at any time. You know, we can be comfortable, and then God can use any kind of situation to reveal our heart, reveal our motives, expose where we've drifted off and expose where we've put our heart into, that it's not in the security of this world, but it's it's our hope in him. And that regardless of what we think our financial situation looks like, regardless of where we think the next project is coming from, where we think the next client is coming from, wherever we're at right now in this season, God wants us to make the most of it right here, right now, today, where we're at, to be able to open up our eyes and to look around and see who can I help, who can I serve, who can I bless, who can I be an open vessel for, for God to work in and through, and that there is an outpouring, that there is a a flowing, there is life, there is fruit that is being produced, and it can only happen when our hope is in him and we're trusting in him for everything, for our our bills to get paid, for our mortgage to get paid, for our payroll to get paid. But it's like what are we doing through this process? You know, and and like that's that's the heart that God wants us to have. And that's something that it's like it's oh, it's it's taken me so long to even get here. And even then, it's man, it's it's it's faith. It's it's a battle. It's it's it's me having to take that step first to say, okay, I I don't know what's coming next. I don't know how this is all gonna work out because the math doesn't add up. But what kind of person do I want to be? What kind of what kind of life do I want to live? And I was tired of being someone who wanted to live a generous life, who wanted to be a generous person, and I wasn't being that person. I wasn't living that life, and I kept waiting for the right circumstances, waiting for all the math to line up, and I was like, no more. Like in in one of my most uncertain seasons, like this is the the shame here. It's like I had a season of predictability. I had a season where every you know two weeks I was getting a consistent paycheck, and I wasn't nearly as generous or nearly as outpouring as they should have been. And so, like, here God like strips me away of all of that. And here I am, like desperately relying on him and desperately like needing him, and and he's changing my heart through this process, and he's shanging my mind through this process. You know, we're transformed by the renewing of our mind, and here he is like changing the way I think about money, the way I think about people, the way I think about my time and my life, and how I want to serve him and how I want to honor him, the way I think about my business and its purpose, and what it's here for, and what it is that I'm really trying to accomplish, and what the mission is. And he's shifting all of these things around through a lot of very difficult and very uncomfortable things, coming back to these two great commandments of love God and love people. And I get to do that through my business, and I get to do that through this podcast, but it's it's being rooted and grounded in him, it's abiding in him, it is letting him work through me and change me and be that person who's willing to give all that I have, who's willing to pour out onto other people before I have to pour out, before I choose to pour out into myself. And that's, I mean, I think you know, money takes all kinds of different forms and shapes. And again, like this is this is just a specific thing that God's been working on in my life. Like this is a very specific lesson that He's been changing my heart through and you know, showing me that that's where that's where money became an idol is because it became this security, it became this scarcity, it became this thing that I I wasn't trusting in God for the provision. I wasn't trusting in him to not let the the oil run dry, to not let the flower run out. And it's it's a scary thing to be in that position, to like be in this position where you're like, okay, God, like I am relying on you to see me through, to provide for me, to keep a shelter over my head, to keep food on my table. Like, I get that. That is so scary. But it's like, you know what stories come through when we put ourselves in a position where we get to trust God and we get to see him work. It's like, man, this last year, in one of the most uncertain years of my life, man, I've seen his goodness, I've seen his grace, I've seen his provision. In ways that I would have never expected, in ways that I would have never planned for or predicted. And those are those are the stories that fill my life, those are the stories that shape my faith, those are the stories that remind me to not give up, to keep going, to dig in, to lean in to him. And man, it's exciting, it's terrifying. But it's amazing, it's exciting. It's it's a life with him that is just so much better than I could have ever asked or imagined. Like it's not easy and it's not safe and it's not comfortable and it's not predictable. But that's because I'm choosing to live a life where faith is in him, my hope is in him, and seeing what that looks like lived out, not just like thinking it in my head, but actually living that out, actually making decisions that are based on that. So if this spoke to you today, honestly, just I encourage you to let God work on your heart, like let God speak to you for what he wants to do in your life and position yourself in a way that you can be a blessing to the people around you, and you and you can just let him pour in and through you. So as always, you can learn more at Clear Authentic Brands dot com. That's all for this episode. See you next time.