Faith for Finances: It's Like Learning to Drive a Stick

Our core scripture is 3 John 2 and Joshua 1:8:

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."

and

"This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

Today, we want to look more in depth on how to change the way we think. We’re talking about how our conscious and our subconscious make up our belief system. Now, our conscious mind is where we think about something on purpose. The more we think things out purposely, the more it gets deposited into our subconscious. Once it’s in our subconscious, it then becomes an automatic thing for us. I remember when I was in college I had the opportunity to get a car. Now the car was old. It was an old Ford Maverick that my daddy had. It was a standard shift and it was so old (How… old… was it?!) that the stick was on the column! It didn't have the benefit of those nice numbers that say first and second and third gear. In fact, it didn't even have more than three gears. You wouldn't even say you were in third. You had first, second, and “high.” I don't quite remember how to drive it, but I know a couple of the gears were where you’d pull the stick towards you and either go up or down, and that was first or second. Then you’d push the stick away from you and then go up or down and those were reverse and high gear. I remember I wanted the car and was glad that it was available to me. You know, it beat walking! So, I learned how to drive that car on a Saturday in the Sears Parking Lot and on Sunday, I drove it back to school. For the most part driving it wasn't an issue, because once you're in high gear and you're driving along on the highway, it's no big deal. It's only when it came time to stop. I went through a bunch of little towns to get to school, so every time I got to a town, I had to stop. In between towns, I was flying high, feeling good, and doing alright. However, every time it came time for me to get to a town I had to think, "Okay, how do I downshift, release the clutch, and come off the gas, etc.?" Because not only did you have that stick with no numbers to tell you where the gears were, you also had to deal with the clutch, and the gas (accelerator), and all of that! So, it was always a conscious effort on what to do next. That's what we do with our conscious mind. We have to think about things on purpose. At first, you have to talk yourself through it: First gear, pull the stick towards me, go up or down or whatever it was…high gear, push the stick back... However, after a while it becomes automatic; you go into automatic pilot. When I got my next car, which was also a standard shift (one with five gears and the nice little numbers to tell me where everything was), I wasn't concerned at all about the clutch, or changing gears, or anything! I could do all that stuff and eat French fries and drink a shake at the same time; have the radio on and just be rolling away. However, when you first get started, you don't even want the radio on and if someone is in the car with you, you want them to be completely silent until you get into high gear! In those early days, it's a conscious, conscious, conscious effort.

So, the same is true when we're changing our mindset. Especially, when we're changing our mindset about finances, because a lot of what we learned is NOT helping us. As we mentioned before, a large percentage of people are broke by the age of 65. We don't want to be in that number - depending on our family members or the government to take care of us. We don't want to end up like that, so we’ve got to change some of the thinking that we've heard over and over again from our families, or our circle of friends, or the people we hang out with at church. You know… all those people that are broke! LOL. The statistic said that 98% are dead or dead broke by 65, so that only leaves 2%. Again, I'm hoping that this high number is not the number; however, whatever the number is, I know it's the large majority of people that are in that particular situation. So, that means we can't go to most of the people that we know and ask their advice on how to get ahead in life. We can't go to the average person and ask them, because they have no clue. We have to seek out the people with the answers. That's part of the practical advice that I'm giving on today, but let me just head back to the conscious and the subconscious mind for a minute. So, we change our minds on purpose and we do that by meditating. At least that's one of the ways that we do it. We meditate on the Word of God.

To meditate means to utter, to mutter and to muse over. Another word for muse is “imagine.” You need to start imagining where you're going. You want to think about it, you want to get pictures out of magazines. If there are certain things that you want to do in your future; vacations or a certain house that you want to live in, cut pictures out of them and place them somewhere where you can see them and start thinking about them. Tell yourself, this is what I'm going to have when God changes my life, when He changes my financial situation. Remember, God wants you to be blessed in every area, including your finances. Focus on where you want to go with your finances. Get pictures and start imagining and speaking over them. Speak the Word of God that promises you that God wants you to prosper. Meditation can establish and will facilitate the paradigm shift.

So, we go from our conscious, purposeful thinking to our subconscious. That’s the automatic pilot where we're just flying high, eating our French fries, singing with the radio and changing gears without thinking anything about it. Then those things form our conscience. Our conscience is our belief system. So, that's how you make the paradigm shift. You purposely put God's Word in your mind and in your mouth and in your heart. You purposely do it until it becomes second nature, until it's on automatic pilot. You just automatically default to it. So, spend time meditating on the Word. Visualize it. Again, get pictures out of magazines or print them off of the Internet to have a point of contact for your faith. Pray about it. Ask God which pictures to choose and then allow yourself to meditate, to imagine those things.

So, a little bit more on the practical part... We talked about that crazy percentage, 98% being dead or dead broke by the age of 65. Here’s a very great piece of practical advice I want you to take away today. There was a man named Buddy West who once said to Bishop I.V. Hilliard, "Ira, if you don't want to be poor, then don't do what poor people do."

So, what do poor people do? That vast majority of people who are dead or dead broke by 65, more often than not, spend foolishly. They are bound by consumerism. They are always buying things without saving any money. Unfortunately, if they come into more money, they just go and get into more debt. However, that smaller percentage, those people who are prosperous, keep money and make it grow. They take their money and they fund asset creation. They make wise investments. They are not bound by consumerism. In fact, they are the ones selling to the consumer.

It’s important that we learn to spend wisely and invest for our future and our family’s future. We’ll discuss practical tips for this in our next blog. For now, just know, if you don't want to be poor, then don't do what poor people do.

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