How does GRACE WORK when... I can't pay my bills? [S3.E8]
We're diving into the nitty-gritty of financial stress and how grace can totally transform our approach to those money worries! You know the drill: bills piling up, that sinking feeling in your stomach, but guess what? We’re here to chat about how grace isn’t just a buzzword; it’s like a warm, fuzzy blanket that can wrap around your financial fears and say, “Chill out, buddy!” We’ll explore why those pesky financial anxieties are like the boogeyman lurking under your bed, and how digging deep can actually help us understand what’s really going on underneath all that stress. So, grab your favorite snack and get comfy, because we're about to unpack some serious life lessons while having a few laughs along the way!
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we dive deep into how grace impacts our financial worries and why it matters.
- We talk about the anxiety that creeps in when we can't pay our bills, and it's a real struggle for many.
- The guys share personal stories about their financial fears and how that connects to deeper issues in life.
- We realize that financial stress isn't just about money; it's about feelings of security and identity too!
- Grace helps us uncover the real reasons behind our anxiety and how to manage it effectively.
- At the end of the day, trusting in grace can lead to a happier, more fulfilled life, despite financial struggles.
Transcript
You're listening to the Misfit Preachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Speaker A:Now here are the Misfits.
Speaker B:This is Misfit Preachers.
Speaker B:I'm privileged to be the host of this dynamic exchange of brilliant ideas.
Speaker B:On my right is Tullian Chavigi and grateful to be with you.
Speaker B:And on my left is, as always, Jean LaRue.
Speaker C:Hello.
Speaker B:III.
Speaker B:I just love to say it.
Speaker B:It just rolls off the soul.
Speaker B:It's a great name.
Speaker A:Jean says it is the best.
Speaker A:Say it.
Speaker A:Say it.
Speaker B:Say it like you said it when you preach and you did it in the city.
Speaker C:Jean Francois Le Roux d' Trois.
Speaker B:Ah, Byron Yawn.
Speaker C:Just doesn't sounds like some animal was being killed.
Speaker B:Stepped on a dog's squeaky toy.
Speaker B:Talian Chevidge.
Speaker C:It's very smooth.
Speaker C:Both of these feel very Mediterranean.
Speaker B:Byron Force.
Speaker C:Romantic.
Speaker B:Byron Force.
Speaker C:Seems like you crawled out somewhere in Arkansas.
Speaker B:We're having great conversations around how do we saturate our lives with grace.
Speaker B:The reality of grace live within that sort of ecosphere.
Speaker B:And if you get in that ecosphere, if it hits home, if it makes sense, the freedom that's available to you to live is pretty incredible.
Speaker C:Agreed.
Speaker B:It's a very incredible experience on the ground.
Speaker B:And so we're working through some particulars of life that come at all of us that are often complicated, painful, create anxiety, depression, conflicts with other people.
Speaker B:These are the normal, nitty gritty on the ground sort of reality.
Speaker B:So we're working through these to make it practical.
Speaker A:Tully and I love the word practical.
Speaker A:Why do you guys pick on.
Speaker C:I didn't say that.
Speaker C:Look how defensive I was immediately.
Speaker C:We could just do this episode on Jean being defensive.
Speaker A:I want you guys to think.
Speaker A:I need you guys to think I'm a practical guy, please.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker C:I want the practicality trophy.
Speaker B:That seemed insincere.
Speaker B:You need to work on your delivery.
Speaker B:So one of the things we're going to talk about in this episode and talk in categories around it as well, is how does grace work when I can't pay my bills, like when there is financial struggle.
Speaker B:And now to set this up, I would argue that at the end of the day, if you pulled away every stressor, every anxiety, everything that troubles you, everything that keeps you up at night, and you pulled all those things off and you got down to the baseline, the baseline worry of your life, like the subterranean thread of anxiety and stress that you have, it's going to be financial stress always there.
Speaker B:Even when you get to retirement and you've done all this work, you get there, you have your savings, your pension, you're on a fixed income, you get over the hill.
Speaker B:It's the same worry and anxiety.
Speaker B:I know for a lot of people this is real.
Speaker B:It's, it.
Speaker B:Where's, how am I going to pay the bills next month?
Speaker B:The family's expensive, the economy is out there.
Speaker B:It's just a constant stressor for us.
Speaker B:And it, and it creates in us some anxiety that goes outward to other people and can create conflict, conflict in ourselves.
Speaker B:So I posed the question here to the two of you.
Speaker B:How does grace work when I cannot pay the bills?
Speaker A:I think it's important to state at the outset that when this subject comes up in religious circles, the way it's typically addressed as a means of solving the problem and calming the anxiety is to simply say, you know, Jesus promised that God close the lilies of the field, that he provided manna each and every day.
Speaker A:You know, for the Israelites in the Old Testament, God is the great provider, Jehovah Jireh, and our treasures are stored up in heaven.
Speaker A:That is our great reward.
Speaker A:And it stops there.
Speaker C:I think I've actually preached that sermon.
Speaker A:I know I have.
Speaker C:I know I have.
Speaker A:And it, and it stops there.
Speaker A:And it's supposed to make everybody feel better.
Speaker B:When you say it stops there, you're affirming that those things are true.
Speaker A:I'm affirming that those things, yeah, I'm affirming that that is true.
Speaker A:But the, the simplistic conclusion that that is going to make you feel better doesn't get anywhere close to where we need to go with this subject.
Speaker C:Yeah, because my response, if I was sitting in the congregation and you delivered that sermon, I walk out with one emotion, guilt that I did not believe and trust in God enough.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:That's my only, my only response to that is, well, I guess everybody else is trusting Jesus, but I sure don't.
Speaker B:Do you think that's a common response of people when they hear those sorts of things?
Speaker C:If that's not your response to that particular sermon, then the other response is self righteousness.
Speaker C:Where you go, huh, thank the Lord, it's health and wealth.
Speaker C:I've been trusting the Lord.
Speaker C:That's why I'm blessed.
Speaker B:Are we suggesting that those overtures don't pay the bills?
Speaker A:I'm not just saying they don't pay the bills.
Speaker A:I'm saying when you get under the surface and go, why does this make me so anxious?
Speaker A:Why is my fear of not having enough money or not being able to pay the bills?
Speaker A:Why in the world is that there?
Speaker A:What is going on inside me in deep places that makes finances the bottom line for my anxiety?
Speaker B:Why is it chase that for us?
Speaker B:Answer the question.
Speaker A:I was with Jenna, my daughter.
Speaker A:This was a conversation we had maybe five years ago.
Speaker A:So she was 17, 18 at the time.
Speaker A:Maybe it was before that.
Speaker A:Maybe she was 16.
Speaker A:But we were having a conversation, and we were talking about fears.
Speaker A:And she said, my greatest fear, or one of my greatest fears in life is that I will one day be homeless.
Speaker A:And, you know, I kind of chuckled.
Speaker A:I'm like, honey, you've got such a big family.
Speaker A:You've got so much.
Speaker A:I mean, if you never made another dime in your life, you're never going to be homeless.
Speaker A:So I kind of explored that with her a little bit.
Speaker A:Like, why do you think homelessness, you know, being poor, Homelessness is the issue.
Speaker A:As we talked about it, dissected it, a lot of it went back to her mom and I's divorce.
Speaker A:She felt safe, she felt secure.
Speaker A:She had a home, she had her people.
Speaker A:That was now splintered, split, broken up.
Speaker A:There was a deep insecurity that was developed in her because of that event.
Speaker A:And where she immediately went with that was homelessness, poverty.
Speaker A:She didn't grow up in poverty.
Speaker A:She never knew a day of poverty in her life.
Speaker A:But for whatever reason, that was the thing.
Speaker A:And so it wasn't primarily about the money.
Speaker A:It was something underneath it.
Speaker A:The idea, maybe even the assumption, that if I have enough financial resources, I can create for myself a secure and stable world that cannot be taken from me, that cannot be dissolved, that cannot be fractured.
Speaker A:The way that my home was fractured.
Speaker A:I mean, certainly in this particular conversation, in that particular case, you know, that's kind of where we went.
Speaker A:But I think you have that same conversation with a handful of people.
Speaker A:They might not say homelessness, but, I mean, I know one of my fears.
Speaker A:I'm 52, and I know that I've probably got maybe 15, maybe 20, possibly earning years left.
Speaker A:And I've got money, and I'm not rich, but I've got money in the bank.
Speaker A:Bills are paid, you know, financially, fine.
Speaker A:And I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about money because I'm fearful that I need to make enough over the next 15 to 20 years to supply me with what I need for the rest of my life, however long, you know, I live.
Speaker A:Where does that come from where does that fear come from?
Speaker A:That's really the question that we're asking.
Speaker A:It's not so much about money.
Speaker A:It's how does grace.
Speaker A:How does grace allow us, give us the space, the permission to explore the why underneath the surface?
Speaker C:I totally agree with that.
Speaker C:Money, for me, is.
Speaker C:Is the barometer.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's not the thing, but it exposes the thing.
Speaker C:It's diagnostic for me.
Speaker C:So my experience in the same way is walking down the aisle at Publix and you pass the cat food and what goes to your mind is, I wonder what that flavor tastes like.
Speaker C:Because you go, eventually I'm going to have to retire and this is going to be dinner.
Speaker C:And then I go, I guess I'll have to get a cat.
Speaker C:And the reason I'm going to get a cat is not because I like cats, but because I'm too ashamed that that's where life has gotten to.
Speaker C:And at the root of the money thing is my identity, my ability to be a provider, to be a good person, to be someone who's stable.
Speaker C:I mean, I have friends at 54 who are now talking about retiring.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:What I hate those people and what I feel in that is not an incredible measure of joy for them.
Speaker C:I feel an incredible amount of shame for me.
Speaker C:And along comes the gospel that says, you are not the sum total of the amalgamation of all your previous employment or how the stock market has done it is only in your father who has declared who you are in Christ in those things.
Speaker C:This same thing happened to me Saturday.
Speaker C:Went to lunch with my in laws.
Speaker C:The check comes.
Speaker C:I mean, we're this misfit.
Speaker C:I mean, like, this is a startup company, all those kind of things.
Speaker C:And I thought to myself, if I don't buy lunch, what would it look like?
Speaker C:Look like, oh, great, so glad our daughter married.
Speaker C:You can't even take us out to lunch.
Speaker C:And immediately what I had to say was, jean, this is not that.
Speaker C:This check on this table is not the defining verdict of who you are.
Speaker C:And it gave me the freedom to buy lunch without wanting the good job.
Speaker C:He's a good one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think there is a comfort for me anyway, when I worry about the future in knowing that God has me.
Speaker A:There is a deep comfort that comes when I consider the fact that.
Speaker A:Look at the lilies of the field, birds of the air, the manna for the day.
Speaker A:There is comfort in that.
Speaker A:So I'm not saying that stuff is irrelevant or that stuff doesn't land.
Speaker A:It certainly does.
Speaker A:But I think what we try to do around this table before we get to the landing part is to dive underneath the surface and go, what is, is it about financial fear that is so paralyzing?
Speaker B:Have you ever considered that what Jesus is saying in those passages is not, don't worry about your current standard of living.
Speaker B:I'm going to take care of it.
Speaker B:But you can live with a lot less than you currently have and be happy and satisfied.
Speaker A:There's no question.
Speaker B:Now we in the west have a tendency to layer our experience on top of it.
Speaker B:Where, you know, broadly speaking, most of us, regardless of what level of income we fear we're at below average, are affluent compared to a lot of places in the world.
Speaker C:There aren't people in Calcutta listening to this podcast.
Speaker C:Correct?
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker B:I think Jesus was assailing this fear.
Speaker B:I think he was exposing this fear.
Speaker B:I think he brought it up.
Speaker B:That's good because it was common, it's common among humanity.
Speaker B:And I think that fear is at the base of our DNA of just that, survival, our amygdala.
Speaker B:That's all it cares about.
Speaker B:Now in my experience, which I shared in my interview and when I told my story and got into the situation that I was in and experienced the situation that I was in which I'm kind of walking out now, in the walking out experience, I realized that financial insecurity has been with me my entire life.
Speaker B:My mom was a single mom, I was a child moving from double wide trailers to this hotel to this apartment, to my grandparents house and those sorts of adjustments laterally and that influenced my perspective on things and it's always been there.
Speaker B:And then I went into ministry, which you don't get wealthy.
Speaker B:It was a dumb idea.
Speaker B:And as I was looking at the forecast of the future wiped out financially, I realized that financial insecurity was a boogeyman in my life and I was going to have to sleep with the boogeyman for a while and come to terms, not in some sort of flighty way of faith.
Speaker B:I'm not worried about it.
Speaker B:God's just going to bring it to me.
Speaker B:I've worked hard, I'm working hard, I'm doing what's necessary.
Speaker B:But it made me come face to face with that reality of me and it made me push way down deep.
Speaker B:And what I discovered is that my concerns about financial insecurity have how it haunts me.
Speaker B:And those sorts of things are really me concerned about me in ways that I never really considered my own personal earning power.
Speaker B:What skills do I really have?
Speaker B:I've been in ministry all of my life.
Speaker B:And guess what large Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies aren't hiring a preacher to come in once a week and paying the millions of dollars.
Speaker B:And when you begin to dig in a little deeper to those sorts of things, you begin to realize, my faith is in me, in this space.
Speaker B:Do I play a role?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I have to work hard.
Speaker B:I have to do all those things.
Speaker B:But being sequestered in that space, I wouldn't say that the fear is completely gone.
Speaker B:But when you mentioned Jenna and homelessness, I laughed because some of the financial struggles that I brought on myself have taught me the greatest lessons.
Speaker B:That's why I circle back and say, I think what Jesus was saying is, you can live with a lot less.
Speaker A:I agree with that.
Speaker B:And be at peace.
Speaker A:I agree with that.
Speaker B:And be at peace with yourself.
Speaker B:That's a lesson that has been extremely valuable to me.
Speaker B:Now, if you can find another way to find that sort of emotional stability in your life, I highly recommend that you do it.
Speaker B:But they say in the recovery world that there is a gift of desperation.
Speaker B:And the gift of desperation is exactly what I described.
Speaker B:It pushed me down into the deep, deep sinews of my struggle.
Speaker B:And there is a curse of blessing, and the curse of blessing is the affluence that covers up what these deep struggles are.
Speaker B:I don't know if any of that diatribe makes sense, but I've.
Speaker B:I've kind of lived this in real time.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I totally.
Speaker A:It makes perfect sense.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, I think faith in ourselves has been a problem since Genesis chapter three, since the fall of Adam and Eve.
Speaker A:I mean, we have been wanting to play God in every area of our life.
Speaker A:And because it's a job that's too big for us, way above our pay grade, we fail all the time.
Speaker A:And the failure to be the God that only God can be generates a significant amount of stress and anxiety.
Speaker A:It's what Martin Luther called the life of an unhappy God.
Speaker A:That's us.
Speaker A:And our stresses and our anxieties are ultimately fueled by the fact that we can't be God, but we're trying.
Speaker C:And it's.
Speaker C:It's utterly.
Speaker C:That's such a great reference of Genesis 3, because it really is utterly in our DNA that in toil and labor that we.
Speaker C:We, the ground will produce for us part of the curse.
Speaker C:So part of the curse is.
Speaker C:Is that we.
Speaker C:Oh, you want to do it for yourself?
Speaker C:Okay, well, this.
Speaker C:This is going to be a burden.
Speaker C:And, you know, I think as we think about that, as we Think about how these things apply to ourselves.
Speaker C:I was in a men's Bible study.
Speaker C:One guy was complaining about finances.
Speaker C:I just wish God would stop teaching me lessons with my finances.
Speaker C:And so we're done with the Bible study.
Speaker C:The guy was leading.
Speaker C:It started to pray.
Speaker C:And the guy's name was David, and he was praying for David.
Speaker C:And he said, lord, we pray that you would begin to heal David's finances and teach him lessons with his health instead of money.
Speaker C:And the guy's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker C:And all of a sudden, it just really crystallized, like, okay, maybe I should pay attention to this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because the arguments that Scripture is making about the lilies of the field and all those things are from the lesser to the greater.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:If.
Speaker C:If you watch a bird land on a limb today with a.
Speaker C:With a worm in its mouth, how much more about God saying, trust me, trust me, trust me?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And there is a great liberation in literally having nothing to lose.
Speaker B:There's a great liberation having nothing to lose.
Speaker B:And I think we said in the previous episode that being around other people is a laboratory of self awareness.
Speaker B:Finances is the same way.
Speaker B:And there are four windows of awareness.
Speaker B:There's what I know about you, and you know about you at the same time.
Speaker B:You're Jean Larue.
Speaker B:You're my friend.
Speaker B:There's what you know about you, but I don't know about you.
Speaker B:And some of that stuff you don't even really know yourself.
Speaker B:You haven't discovered it, but only you know that.
Speaker B:And then there's what God only knows.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The most powerful window in that pain of self awareness is what others know about me, but I don't.
Speaker B:That I can't see.
Speaker B:And when you're pointing things out to me about my life, if I'm secure enough in Christ and can receive it, it will radically liberate me if I can receive it in the right way.
Speaker C:Are you saying, like, I love what you're saying?
Speaker C:Are you saying that.
Speaker C:That money or our relationship to it can serve.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:As the fourth window, really a mirror?
Speaker B:Yes, it is.
Speaker B:It is exposure in what I don't see of myself.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:And it walks into my life and goes, byron, what.
Speaker B:What are you worried about?
Speaker B:How much hubris do you have to possess to fear not having as much as other people have?
Speaker B:I mean, that's kind of the confrontation that it takes.
Speaker B:Can you not.
Speaker B:Because ultimately, and for me, at least in this space, to not be wealthy any longer, to not have the resources that I used to have, where it really hits me is in my pride.
Speaker C:Comparison.
Speaker B:Oh, by comparison, for sure.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:That's like.
Speaker A:And the little things.
Speaker A:Because I lost big too.
Speaker A:I don't have what I used to have.
Speaker A:And my inability to do certain things that I used to be able to.
Speaker A:Even good things.
Speaker A:You know, my grandkids need help with paying their, you know, Christian school tuition.
Speaker A:They don't have to go to a Christian school.
Speaker A:We've decided we want.
Speaker A:Want them to go to one.
Speaker A:But it requires, you know, requires the help of the family to make that happen.
Speaker B:Can I make an observation?
Speaker B:I hate to interrupt you, but this is true for, for us, all of us.
Speaker B:I think what I'm.
Speaker B:The bank account that I'm concerned about there is not financial.
Speaker B:It's the loss of social capital that I had that served me.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:In the preservation of finances.
Speaker A:That's what I lost, justified me, validated me.
Speaker B:And it was a means to my financial security.
Speaker B:And it is, it.
Speaker B:It evaporated.
Speaker B:That's the type of awareness.
Speaker B:It's a great conversation.
Speaker B:Guys.
Speaker C:I want to hear the rest of what he was saying.
Speaker A:I don't remember what I was saying.
Speaker C:About the Christian school for your grandkids.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean that.
Speaker A:So the issue is like, okay, I want to be able to provide this.
Speaker A:I don't have the resources I used to have or I'd pay the whole bill myself.
Speaker A:That wouldn't be an issue.
Speaker A:I can help pay the bill, but I want to be.
Speaker A:I want to be able to do that and that can serve them.
Speaker A:And I can walk away thinking I really want to do a good thing here.
Speaker A:But then I dive a little bit deeper and I go, why do I want to be the guy to pay the bills?
Speaker A:It's not just so that they can get a Christian school education, a private school education.
Speaker A:It's because I want to be a savior.
Speaker A:I want my grandkids to look to me and like and think.
Speaker A:Tutu will take care of any and every problem I have.
Speaker A:As long as Tutu is around, I'm safe, I'm sound, I'm protected as long as.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:It is a form of justification by works.
Speaker C:That is sobering.
Speaker B:Thanks guys.
Speaker B:I'm gonna go.
Speaker B:Repent immediately.
Speaker A:Foreign, you've been listening to the Misfit preachers.
Speaker A:Like subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's Prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an s dot com.
