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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Faithfully Engaged.
On today's episode, we're talking about a very important topic about money, about finances.
This is something that, whether you hate numbers or love numbers, hate money or love money,
you have to deal with it.
And I think it's even more important that we deal with it from a Christian biblical
worldview.
So today, my guest name is Darrell Lyons.
So Darrell, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, I'm Darrell Lyons.
I'm from the South Texas area.
I live in a little town called New Braunfels now, which is between San Antonio and Austin.
And we didn't have a lot of money growing up, so I just became really curious about
money at a very young age.
And that never really stopped.
Even to this day, it's a curiosity oftentimes that drives my behavior and it ultimately
benefits the people that trust me with money.
Today, I provide leadership to an organization called PAX Financial Group.
PAX Financial Group is an investment advisory company in San Antonio, Texas.
And so I was an advisor for, since 1999, and then moved into more of a leadership role,
providing strategy and vision and finding kinks in the hose.
And so that's what I do today.
Great.
I would love to hear a little bit more about your curiosity about money.
And I'll give you a little bit of a personal story here, too.
I've always enjoyed just financial things, money, like trying to find ways to make it
last longer.
One of my earlier memories is I'd get money for my birthday or something.
And my sister, when she'd get money for her birthday, it's gone.
It was gone in a week.
And then she would look at me at the end of the year like, where did you get this money
from?
It's from birthday.
I haven't spent it yet.
So I've just always had this kind of curiosity with it.
So tell me a little bit about that curiosity on your end as a child and what you ended
up doing with money when you were growing up?
Yeah.
So when I was younger, we lived in a little town called Bernie.
It's a German town in the Texas Hill Country near San Antonio.
And my dad was doing pretty OK.
My mom had me when she was 16.
And my mom, my dad was 20.
So they had to find their spot in the economic world.
And so my dad actually did pretty well.
He's pretty good at his job.
So there was a time where we had a house, a boat, a motorcycle, a couple cars.
It was going pretty good.
And then in 1987, there was a market crash.
They called it Black Monday.
And in the South Texas area, savings and loans collapsed and oil collapsed.
And so that left my dad without a job.
And so since that time, they had struggled to get their footing.
And that created, as you can imagine, a lot of marital challenges and just a lot of tough
times for our family.
Ended up moving to a little trailer park in Castroville, Texas, which is, again, another
Texas small town.
And we were living in this little trailer park, seeing a white trailer.
And I'm edging the edge of our home.
There's weeds.
And you got to be careful when you use a weed eater next to skirting on a mobile home because
it could crack the skirting.
And I'm edging and I'm wondering, how do people have houses with foundations?
That was the thought that was going through my head.
And there was a friend of mine and her dad was a banker.
And he is the president of a bank.
And I thought, man, they have a house with a real nice foundation.
Maybe I could be a banker.
And so I ended up getting a scholarship to a local university, St. Mary's University
in San Antonio.
But I had to pay for my own way.
And so I got a job at a local bank.
It was Bank of America's time.
And that's how I paid my way through school.
I ended up getting a degree in accounting.
A teacher said, hey, you understand this accounting stuff.
Can you tutor other kids?
I had an affinity towards that.
And then I took a class where they gave us a bunch of fake money and whoever made the
most money at the end of the semester got the best grade.
I won that.
And so at the end of my college career, it took me four and a half years to get to the
two degrees.
And I just didn't know what to do because I understood banking, this lending thing,
and then accounting and finance.
So I had to find a career.
And I found this one called Certified Financial Planner.
And so that's how that ended up being a career.
And that's where my curiosity led me.
And going back to the childhood, one of the things that I did that I started to learn
a little bit more about money was actually collecting sports cards, which I still do
today.
I still collect sports cards to this day.
And I used to run little shows.
Like you would go to the shows and set up a table and sell sports cards.
I used to do that and learned about trading and transactions and negotiation.
But it was fun for me.
I did that.
And like I said, I still do that today.
Really never, I don't know if I was, I think my brother was actually a better saver than
me.
But I was never, there was never one extremer the other.
I was, if I bought something, it was always prudent or I'd have the money or I'd save
for it.
But never had anything that was money that was burning a hole in my pocket.
But the main thing is, is I became curious not only about money, but how rich people
did life.
I didn't know a lot of rich people.
And so I started to pay attention to their behaviors and actions and study them.
And of course, since then I've counseled tens of thousands of people with money.
Many of them are wealthy and learned a lot.
And it's made me a better person, not because, not because, you know, I just hang out with
rich people, but just being observant of what's worked and what hasn't worked.
But I've seen people who are extremely wealthy that are very unhappy.
And I've seen, you know, extremely poor people with a lot of joy.
And so I don't just, these experiences just don't pass in my life without me reflecting
on them deeply.
And so over the years I've just been a lot of time reflecting and writing and leading
others and taking these conversations and this wisdom that, you know, I've developed
through the lives of others and try to pass that along as best as possible.
I'm going to ask you to do something that I know you can't line out perfectly, especially
in the midst of a podcast.
But what you were talking about there of kind of those habits of people that are wealthy,
richer people.
Part of why I'm asking this is if you just look into probably just common culture, rich
people are evil.
They only got that way because they were born rich and we need to, you know, tax them 90%
and that will solve all the world's problems, right?
That's kind of the common vernacular that people see.
And I think you would be able to see that that's pretty false pretty quickly.
So what would you say are some of those common habits, money type of habits from those that
are wealthy and good with their money?
How do people get that way?
Yeah, it's a good question.
Gosh, you know, I'm not even sure if you're rich, you're good with your money.
That's the funny thing about it.
A lot of times people get rich because they've got some specific skill set that got them there
and they're just horrible with money.
I see that a lot.
But the irony of it is, is like, they'll have this skill set.
Oftentimes it's skill at selling something and they, they're good at selling something.
They found a niche market and then the demographics were favorable.
So you know, let's say somebody was good at selling cars and they, they were, they just
landed in the Tesla business and Teslas were real popular and during that six or seven
years they were, you know, they were all great at selling stuff.
And then they, the problem happens and this is why I'm just, I'm really just passionate
about my relationship with Christ is because it really in a lot of ways sets them up for
failure because then they get this degree of arrogance that they have a skill set that
really doesn't exist.
So they make bets with bigger dollars on themselves and oftentimes fail.
And that is not uncommon.
So yeah, the, the one thing that I found was fascinating as I learned along the way is
that some people who are rich are very, really not good with money.
It's crazy.
And so, you know, sometimes they, they stop the bleeding when they make these big mistakes
and they can recover.
But I did, I did find that fascinating that people who have a lot of money sometimes they
just kind of, I mean, there was definitely skill sets, but they kind of got lucky along
the way.
So that's interesting.
I think worthy of just pointing out, I think that, that I've certainly recognized that,
that it's so dangerous to have money independent of Christ.
I mean, there's over 2000 scriptures on money.
So this is a very serious topic.
And so the pursuit of wealth, you know, we know in Timothy says command those who are
rich and present age not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth.
But we know that when people do put their hope in wealth and they have success that
if they don't have this Christ centered way of life that there will be other things that
fall, whether it's making a big mistake because they're out there, their senses were altered
because of the altitude of where they're at, or they fumble in other areas of life, health
or their children.
So man, I just think that wealth can be very dangerous if it's done independent of Christ.
I'm really cognizant of that now, but I'm not, I'm not of the camp, which you had mentioned
that rich people are evil because I've been poor and I've been rich and I know there's
people and mean people in both demographics.
I've seen very, I've seen extremely selfish people, hoarders and not willing to share
and they're poor and then I've seen rich people abundantly give with just a generous heart.
So it's just, it's interesting because I don't, I think that there is, there are some
lessons to be learned about if you're poor and you're thinking, I often think of poor
and broke kind of different because I always think poor is more permanent and broke is
pretty temporary, but if you're in a place where you're like broke and maybe even in
that profile of poor and you're thinking, I want to get there, I think there are some
mindset shifts that have to take place to move from being poor to rich.
I think you, you're parsing out some really good things there.
I'll kind of start there at the end of your financial status is more of just something
that exists.
Like sure we would rather be able to have our own needs met and our family needs met,
but the end goal, especially from the Christian worldview is not get as much money as you
possibly can before you die.
That's not a healthy goal to have.
Nor is the other end of die as poor as you can.
Those are not things that we're striving towards as a Christian.
We know what we're supposed to strive towards.
We're supposed to strive towards Christ to be more like him.
And he hit there as a sense there of that sacrificial love, sacrificial giving that
is absolutely a huge part, but you can do that from someone that's being wealthy.
You can do that as somebody that's, that's poor, but that is a heart perspective.
And separating that from rich people, bad poor people, good or vice versa.
You can say rich people, good, poor people, bad.
We need to get out of that mindset.
And I would love for you to go further into, you're already hitting on kind of what, what
scripture says about money.
What do you feel like a good biblical worldview, biblical principles around finances?
If you're coaching a person, a family, what are some of those tips, those principles that
we need to have to look at finances biblically?
This is kind of a silly thing, but I've got it here.
I, I memorize scriptures and I write them on index cards and then I kind of carry them
around with me.
And I've, I've enjoyed doing that.
And then this year God said, okay, yeah, I don't hear God, I'll believe course, but
you know, just start memorizing scriptures on money, right?
So there's over 2000 and you know that that statistic can be, can vary because there's
different ways to think about how money is expressed in the word of God, whether the
word well, there's a lot of different, a lot of different variations and thoughts on money.
It's just so fascinating that the word of God is, is, is expressed as so much in this
space.
So I just really been really, really just leaning into this and God's just doing some
amazing things.
And so your question is awesome.
So all I'm going to do is randomly, I just randomly, I've got.
50 of these and they're around my house and they're, sometimes, you know, you get home
and you put your change in your keys somewhere.
Well, I also, these index cards go to that same place.
And so, so I just pull one out randomly.
And so you can enjoy this with me because for me, I enjoy the scripture.
It's sharper than a two edges sword.
So this one here says, but remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the ability
to produce wealth.
And so confirms the covenant, which he swore to your forefathers as it is today.
Now that's in Deuteronomy 18, like that's old school stuff, right?
That you would expect.
Okay, you're going to get some good stuff from James or Romans or some of this really
good Holy Spirit.
This is just old school stuff that's telling you, remember the Lord your God because we
are at the end of the day, we are a flawed individuals who forget all the time.
So here we have an again, a reminder in Deuteronomy.
Remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives the ability to produce wealth and that,
the humility is so important as we continue to grow.
And that's why I kind of alluded earlier that it's kind of interesting how I see people
just just the lack of humility as you start to have some success.
It works a lot in stock trading.
So you know, I'm in this, I do a lot of stocks and wealth stuff.
And so I mean, I'm financial advisor is my trade.
But what happens in the stock market, when you have a bull market, when things are going
well, what happens is, is you end up learning some trading strategies and you buy some stocks.
So maybe you buy Tesla as I alluded to earlier.
So you buy Tesla and you make some money on it.
You're like, man, I just spent, you know, $250 in that.
Now I'm going to go and, and I'm going to put a thousand in it because I think I've got
this thing figured out.
And then you do it again, you do it again, and then you're starting now you're starting
putting $10,000 in and then all of a sudden the market turns on you.
And your strategy that you thought you had really buttoned down didn't quite work.
And that's the same thing that happens in life.
And so the idea that the best antidote to is, is humility is just, is just staying grounded
and remembering it's the Lord your God who gives you the ability to produce wealth.
So if you get to a place and you're just totally confident in your skill sets, I know that having
confidence is important, right?
But that's not the issue that we have in society.
Our bookshelves are full of self-help confidence books.
We don't have a, a, a need to learn more about our confidence.
We have a need to learn more about engaging our creator who has confirmed in Deuteronomy
gives us the ability to produce wealth.
And so going to him and just asking for this wisdom to, to understand how do I produce
wealth, nothing wrong with wealth, but that means how do I get the job that I need to
get to earn an income?
How do I impress my, my boss with my skill sets?
How do I start a business?
I mean, really getting, getting with the creator and saying, I, I don't have the ability to
produce wealth, but you do Lord.
So I'm going to trust you in this.
And so that, that's really what it comes down to.
But that's all the time that's that when you're starting out and that's when you're successful.
So that mean, gosh, I could talk about this.
This is a great question.
And continue every single car just brings life to me because I just recognize that, that,
that God has really wired us to engage with him and money and money is, is one of those
subjects that sometimes we disconnect our creator.
We just completely disconnect.
And I'm suggesting that that's really, that's really not the way of life.
I think that is one is, is I love the, the index card, kind of the strategy that you
have there of just having the word of God nearby you.
I'm a huge fan of having anything.
Now my wife has done stuff on our bathroom mirror before of writing verses.
I know people put stuff on there on their refrigerator, on their phone, yeah, whatever
works that you have, you can have with you.
It's that powerful.
It's that important.
Second thing that really stuck out to me is like you referenced, this was Deuteronomy.
This wasn't, this wasn't Jesus words.
It wasn't Paul's words.
And sometimes, especially as Christians, there's a reason why we go to the New Testament
a lot because of Christ, like it's important.
But we forget that Deuteronomy, the Old Testament, all of it's important.
All of that is that biblical wisdom and ultimately points to Christ.
So we don't need to throw away Deuteronomy.
We don't need to throw away Leviticus and Isaiah and all that.
They're important.
There's wonderful, wonderful wisdom there.
And to tie that up to what you just said there, I mean, we could take this outside of finances
and separating Christ from your profession, from your education, from your family, from
anything, you're missing the point.
There's not, there's not church on Sunday and then the rest of your life, you do your
own thing.
No, that humility, like you said, we need heaping doses of that.
And I'm sure you could say this for yourself.
I say it for myself that there's many times that I'm humbled, that I look through my life
and I'm grateful for some of the good things I have.
And I start really believing because of all the great things that I've done of why I have
that and how humbling is that to come to scripture and realize, wait a second, this
isn't about you.
God's the one that provides wealth.
So I think that it was an absolute wonderful display of biblical wisdom there.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm just, I'm completely on board with what you said, you know, the idea of just, it's
just such a hard thing for Christians because we want to build this confidence.
And then we also want to have Christ's confidence.
But I just really think that the idea of engaging our Creator with all things money is really,
I think the only way to go because I think about like me growing up and my, you know,
my mom, she's, you know, dad, you know, they struggled and there's times where they had
to say, you know, Christmas might not be here this year or it might be tough.
And you know, that's for a kid that's difficult to digest.
And for me as a kid, I hurt not just for presents, but I actually hurt for my parents.
I was like, man, this sucks for my family.
And but see when you're engaged with Christ, if and you're struggling like that, you, there's
revelation that, that God in those circumstances was actually doing a good work on me to prepare
me for today, which was much bigger than Christmas.
Like so, so God uses sometimes we have to just when we engage with God in tough circumstances,
we can sometimes get glimpses of how God is using these tough circumstances for something
greater, even generationally in some cases.
But when we get independent of Christ, we get all squirrely and worried and uncomfortable.
But, but man, I think that it's a really beautiful relationship when we, when we can bring in
all of our financial thoughts and put them before the Lord and then go in scripture and
he reveals some of some of the powerful things he's done in the past with people he's loved.
And now he, how he, how he uses money in such a way that glorifies him.
And we just have to be patient in that process and trust him.
One thing when you were talking earlier that came to my mind.
So through my, through my day job as a, as a counselor, I talk about finances fairly
frequently depending on what's going on.
It's obviously a pretty big life stressor that people go through.
And I don't have this research right in front of me.
I'm sure you're aware of this as well.
And you're filled that suicide is really predicted based off of financial crises.
2008, 2009, big financial crises, suicide numbers went up pretty significantly.
And as a counselor, obviously that's, that's concerning and just as a human, like we don't
want people, um, harming themselves based off of finances.
But you can see real quick that if we separate ourselves, now it's my self worth on the line,
my confidence, my ability to provide, uh, oh, I lost all this money.
Essentially they just lose hope.
They lose any hope in themselves and providing.
And that's why it's so important to not separate that from, from Christ, like you're mentioning
there.
Um, yeah, you're still going to be upset.
You're going to be in despair if you lose in some cases, everything.
But as a, as a Christian, as a Christ follower, we have hope that God works all things, um,
to, to the good to is good.
And we may not always understand that in the moment, but we have that hope.
We have that trust.
Um, and yeah, if our hope is in that money, maybe things are good for now and maybe they'll
be good for a good chunk of your life.
But if things go downhill, they go downhill fast.
And we really need to be careful, especially as Christians to, like you're saying, not
separate God from that wealth, um, cause he can work those down moments just as much as
the up moment, um, up moments.
Yeah, he really can.
Um, I just, I know it's hard.
Like man, right now, um, you know, the, the healthcare, right?
Health insurance, um, we use like a Christian sharing plan, which is good.
But even then all that stuff's expensive for families.
I mean, so you've got that, you've got, um, you know, worried about how do I pay for my
kids college?
Um, and then of course we know inflation, you know, we had 9% inflation.
So that trickles through the system pretty hard, you know, groceries.
I can't believe how much I just go in and get a few things from the grocery store and
I'm like, that was $95.
And I look at the late, she goes, yeah, I go, that used, that, that used to be like,
seemed like 40 or 50.
So, um, yeah, man, I, I, this is tough.
I mean, it's tough.
It's, it's kind of from a, from one perspective, we, we sit here and go, you know, um, we're
the richest nation in the history of the world.
So how tough is it?
Right?
Um, you know, there's kids eating munt pies.
You know, I, I'm, I'm a, I, I have compassion children.
So I get to have a point of reference, but, um, it's not the point of reference that I,
you know, I could have, but a lot of us don't even have a point of reference.
So what I'm trying to say is that, um, our difficult times, um, are a not that difficult,
but B they are, they are, they are still your difficulties, right?
They're your unique challenges.
You're like, I understand, I understand there's kids in Africa.
I understand that, but I'm a mom and I don't have any more money and my kids need braces.
So this is actually hard, Darrell.
I know this is hard.
This is, I know there's kids in Africa, but Darrell, my kids need braces and this is,
I'm scared.
I say all that because, um, apart from him, we can do nothing.
And so what does it mean to be a Christian?
What does it really mean to be a Christian?
But when it comes to money, the faith is gone.
Like how is that possible that we completely, every other part of our life on Sunday, but
we pray before dinner, but when it comes to our money, we completely, completely disengaged
from our creator.
Like there's no prayer.
There's, there's futile prayers.
There's no getting in the word.
There's just complete worry and anxiety.
Um, this is evident in the statistics today at anxieties at an all time high.
And so my question to Christians is we're called people of the way, you know, originally
people of the way.
So there's got to be a different way of thinking about money than everyone else.
And it's my conviction that, um, that when he says I'm the way, the truth in the life,
no one can come with the father, but through me, there's a different way of life and the
byproduct of our trust in him is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity and self
control.
So when it comes to money, it's not going to bring us joy ever independent of Christ.
So I'm really trying to, I'm really trying to make sure that when we, when I talk to
my community of people that we're advising, I really want us to really get in a place
where we're not having money conversations here in church on Sunday, but we're really
fully integrating our money, um, with our faith.
And, and that's, that's something that's been lost in the body of Christ.
And, um, I've been talking about a lot more lately.
I think that that's again, an extremely good point that we need that infused in everything.
Um, I've had a fairly recently different perspective as far as finances go in the church just because
this past year, um, I'm the, I run the offering and do the budget and everything at church.
So I've never been behind the scenes with, with that kind of stuff before.
Um, and something I was actually really glad that my pastor, um, kind of warned me of,
uh, going in was to just check yourself because now I have access to who's giving what, um,
and he's like, you need to check yourself because you might get into, well, why aren't
they giving this much or whatever?
And the best I do, I try to just block names out the best I can.
That's not fully possible.
But, um, anyways, I've, it's been, it's been a really interesting journey just seeing this
side of things and it's gotten me really interested in how people look at church giving, um, giving
to the, the offering.
Um, and something that my pastor's really been counseling us on is to making giving,
um, a, making it a, a discipline and not just a, oh yeah, that's the thing we do.
Um, he said this.
It's kind of one of those good and bad things that we had, like this is the way I give to
that is set up like on an automatic, um, amount and his kind of counsel on that is like, that's
really good because you know, that's again, that discipline and it provides you to not
kind of just like, I don't really want to give this much.
Um, like you just do it.
But he said one of the issues with that is it can kind of separate the kind of the spiritual
part of that.
Like you can, it's a little bit easier to pray over the check that you put in the offering
plate and say, you know, let this be used for, for your glory or whatever.
Um, so I guess kind of leading into that.
Um, what would you say are some ways to make, um, just giving specifically to the church,
but in general, how we can make that more of a spiritual, um, moment and, and making
it more of a joy, um, which is what we're called to do.
Yeah.
You know, I, I'm a little squirrely here because, um, you know, my, you know, my pastor friends
might not a hundred percent agree.
So you can take this for what it's worth as a throw it out.
But, um, I'm a giver.
You know, when I, um, I was completely broke and, um, had my first born and we only had
one car and I was a financial advisor with one car.
It's like having a shop teacher with four fingers and, um, I left my office keys at the
house and so I was trying to go to work really early to work myself out of this challenge
and predict that I'd put myself in because we were just starting the business out.
This was, you know, pre 2007 and my credit card had equaled my income and so I was just
trying to make things work.
I was doing cash advances and just really nonsense stuff and, um, just trying to survive
and, um, I was like, well, I've lived in the trailer.
It's not so bad.
I could do it again.
And, but the sinking feeling came, came over me that morning that I couldn't get in the
building cause I left the office keys at the house.
Um, and it was early morning.
So no one was able to get me in.
So I sat in my car and cried cause I was like, I'm going to fail as a dad.
This, I'm starting out with my first born.
We have four now, but at the time I was just nervous.
And I remember telling God, I was like, okay, I'm going to low, um, and I'm scared.
And, um, at this point I'm going to trust you with my first fruits because prior to
that I gave when it was convenient.
I would give, you know, sporadically.
But at this point I was going to make a commitment and Lord, I'm going to give to you my first
fruits, um, regardless of my circumstances and I was completely broke, right?
So I didn't have the money to give my first fruits, but I was going to do it anyways.
Now this was not a contingent plan.
This was not like God, if I start giving you, I want you to bless me.
This was just me just saying, I'm going to try this trust me now.
And, um, um, I committed to that and I've never stopped.
Okay.
So this is where it gets squarely where to give.
Um, so first, well, before I get to where to give, um, some people wrestle with, do
I give from the gross of the net?
Right.
Okay.
Well, let's go into theology.
What does it say?
Okay.
It says render in her seizures, what is seizures?
And then she, okay.
Maybe it's that means the, you know, net, I don't know, you could get into weird theology
stuff, but, um, typically it's, it's gross, but it's a challenge.
Look, that's a real challenge because if you look at this gross number and then you take
out the healthcare and taxes, you're like, Oh, I don't really have much left, but that's,
that would be the goal is to, to do it on the gross number.
That would be the goal.
But some people just are struggling to get there.
Americans, on average, give 1.5%.
Um, Christians give 1.8.
If you go a little deeper on office, Barna or whoever did this, but if you look at practicing
Christians, which right, we have this cultural Christians, that's why they're so close.
But if you go to practicing Christians, those that read the Bible and go to the church,
that's closer to 3% or above 3%.
So go Christians were twice as giving as the secular public.
Um, but still 3%.
Like, okay, wait, that's not really a tent.
That's really not a tide.
Um, so we're still falling short.
So here's, here's my perspective.
I'm like, okay, what's, what's the impediment?
Like what's the challenge?
Well, um, you know, I mean, you just scratch the numbers down and it's hard for family to
give.
It just really is.
Um, certainly priorities are out of whack.
I can tell you that because, you know, they're, they're, they're still buying stuff.
They just, this giving thing.
So do I get caught up on the gross and net?
Not so much.
I'd say the gross would be a goal.
But if you give 10% of the net, look, okay, cool, just do that.
That's fine.
Um, and then the other thing is jump making the leap from zero to 10%.
I've seen that as a real challenge over the years.
Um, good Christian people haven't been giving.
And then all of a sudden I'm telling them about these scriptures and how, you know,
how important it is and they're like going from zero to 10% and they put the dollars
on there like, I don't know, that's a lot.
So, um, I'd say, you know, ease into it.
If you need to do three, four, five, whatever it is, get there though, you can get there.
Finally I get to the other place where people are like, well, yeah, but I'm just not, I'm
just not all sold on my church.
Like, and then I say, okay, well, why are you going there?
You're not sold on your church.
I mean, you know, and so they don't want to give all to their church.
Well, I, I, I, this is, this is where the pastor may take issue.
I'm not, um, I'm not really concerned about the steeple so much.
There's a lot of para churches and ministries that if you wanted to give to them, that's
fine with me.
Um, I'd say your priority should be your local church, just like mine is.
But if you wanted to enjoy the giving differently, because there's a part of the joy factor that
I think is encouraging and you say, okay, I'm going to give 75% to the church, but this
other 25%, I'm going to give to, I'm going to make it up a compassion.
Okay.
Like, I'm like, like, I don't have any issues with any of these strategies.
Um, some pastors and they say, and all needs to go to the church, the steeple church, I'm
not caught up in that because I think that we're still so far away from what, uh, from
getting there.
And I think at the end of the, without any debate that God loves a cheerful giver.
Right.
We do know this.
So how we get there, I'm not so much legalistic about, but I did give, I think some approaches
that everyone can adopt and maybe some objectives and goals, uh, for people to, to aspire to.
But the, the, I've alluded to the anxiety and worry that our country has today and many
of us are Christians that experience this worry.
And I've sat down with families, kneecap to kneecap, thousands of them that have worried
deeply.
And say they're a Christian and worry like they're not.
That's weird, but it's true.
And I've been there and I've one of those people.
So I'm not, I'm not casting stones.
It's just weird that that exists.
Um, but what I'm saying is a potential antidote to that worry.
Remember in the original Greek anti doesn't mean against.
We always think about like the anti Christ.
It means in replace of anti means in replace of.
So I'm suggesting one of the antidotes to this anxiety is giving.
I'm suggesting that to you.
I'm suggesting that it's a testament of faith, like a, like a practical testament of faith.
And so what I'd suggest to anybody is the worry exists.
It's perpetual.
There's no way out.
I know it doesn't make sense, but everything Jesus said doesn't make sense.
Turn the other cheek.
That doesn't make sense.
Like there's a lot of stuff.
Jesus reversed the script on everything.
This is a supernatural thing.
And so my suggestion is, is that we need to start giving and we need to start taking that
seriously.
A long answer to whatever question you asked.
Sorry.
I know I love it.
I think there's, there's, there's a ton of wisdom in there.
And at the end of the day, um, I mean that those, the statistics that you gave, hey,
it's great practicing Christians are higher, but I mean, it's just not good enough.
You know, like it's not about, um, making our pastor super rich.
I love what you said.
Hey, maybe we need to be looking at, if I don't trust my church so much, maybe, maybe
we need to look elsewhere and find a local body that is, is being biblical with your
money.
Um, but regardless, we have to, it is, it's something that's not just a, we have to because
it's this command and it's this terrible, horrible thing, but because it does bring us joy.
And it is like you said, it sounds backwards, but when you do give, now you have this vested
interest.
Um, we were talking about this about, uh, we, we support a, uh, missionary couple, uh,
through our church.
Um, and now we care about the country that they're in.
It's a lot easier to pray about that country because we have a vested interest.
We're reading the newsletter.
Um, you're, you're invested and you care.
And that's a lot of what anxiety is, is you don't have a direction.
Um, you don't really have a purpose.
You just, you just don't know.
Um, and it's that I don't know is that really causes that anxiety with this giving, you
have a direction.
Sure.
You may not know where that money is coming from sometimes.
Um, and that's where the concept of faith is so important, but I love that you break
that down and just at the end of the day, we just need to do it and you'll be better
off.
Um, I liken this with a lot of my clients, uh, with, uh, just some of the mental health
things we do.
It's not complicated.
Um, but being able to have a healthier life, be able to make your finances healthier.
It's not that complicated.
It can be hard.
It can be take a lot of discipline to do it, but we don't have to over complicate it.
We're at 0% do 3%.
That's better than zero.
And we can work ourselves out.
But again, but at the end of the day, we have to do it.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I don't know if we would have, um, I mean, corruption is obviously a problem.
But if we, you know, if we were following God's plan, I'm not sure we would have the
homelessness or world hunger or anything.
I mean, obviously, like I said, obviously the, you know, corruption in the Congo and
all that is, is makes it problematic, but really are it's, it's, you know, I've got,
I've got, I started ministry overseas in Moldova and, uh, we get kids off of the streets on
the basketball court, love those, love those players and people.
And, uh, you know, when he comes over here, we just have, we become friends over the years
and he's just like, you know, just so crazy.
Now Americans just are so kind of, I mean, he doesn't say selfish, but just caught up
in our own little world.
And, um, he just brings perspective in my life.
So I appreciate that.
Yeah.
No, I think that's great.
And that's why I guys, I was going to say, I've seen, I've seen people with millions.
I've seen Christians with millions, millions, millions that don't give, but I've also seen
poor people who don't give.
Like, and again, it doesn't matter to God does not need our money.
Um, I'm just surprised that, that, uh, this is a, this is something that we don't take
a little bit more seriously, but I'm also not surprised because it's a sensitive topic.
And if we're depending on a pastor to, to shepherd us, this is one that it's hard for
them to, to really, uh, take on directly.
And you may do it like a pastor may do it once or twice a year, um, or maybe even, you
know, four times a year, but there's 2000 scriptures on money.
I mean, to a certain degree, this is, it should all, this, this topic of money could be a subject
every single sermon.
But of course a pastor, that's going to be challenging.
Not only is it challenging to him because some of the, the nuances of money can get
overwhelming, but it also comes across as, you know, uh, you know, conflict.
So my point in that is that, um, I, I, I just know that there's a gap in this space of thinking
critically about God's plan for money as people of the way.
And I, I, I've just been out about, you know, trying to help people read, you know, reconsider
it.
I, I, I absolutely love that.
And I think what you're, you're doing and, uh, how you're sharing the importance of thinking
about money in a biblical way is just so incredibly important.
That's something I like to do for the audience.
Um, I really like this podcast to be centered on, on action.
That's why I like to bring people in that are actively doing things.
If you had to give the audience just maybe one or two takeaways from our conversation,
what, what would you encourage them to, to take away from this?
Yeah.
Um, one is, is I'd like for you to start giving.
Um, I'd like for you to give more, um, ideally to your local church, but at least, you know,
if not, then to those that are hurting and hungry in some capacity.
Um, and then second, I'd really like for you to get in God's word and see what he says
about money.
It's fascinating.
Um, and he does, he's indifferent.
Like he, if you, if you're, there's plenty of cool people who are rich.
Um, so there's no problem being rich.
There's no problem being poor.
It's very interesting how if you read a Dr. Rabbi Lapin's work, thou shall prosper.
Um, he says that the one unique characteristic in the Jewish community that's different than
most is that they believe that being wealthy is inherently good.
Um, and so what we've done in our culture is kind of shun that idea, but read the word
of God and see what it says to you.
I mean, it's sharper than a two edges sword.
It will, it'll amaze you what you'll learn about money if you study his word.
And I'm not talking about for you to be wealthy.
I'm just talking about for you to, to live a fulfilling life, the life that he says is
abundant.
You can learn a lot about money through the word of God.
So those two things start giving and read the word.
Absolutely.
Love it.
Uh, those of you that, that are listening in the show will probably want to either know
more about Darryl or, or be able to be in contact with them.
So where can they find you after the show?
Yeah.
Um, so you can go to packs financial group.com, PAX financial group.com.
I have a lot of resources on there.
Um, I do have a podcast retire in Texas.
So give some commentary.
I kind of keep it secular in nature, but you get the, you get the feel that I'm a believer
in throughout.
So I'm giving a lot of economic commentary.
So I'm trying to help the public there, but, but people, people know I'm a believer.
Um, and then I'll have my biblical responsible investing book that'll be out.
It's already printed, I have it, but it'll be my publisher will launch in January 30th.
So you can be on the lookout for that.
Uh, and then of LinkedIn, LinkedIn's a good way to connect with me.
So those are just kind of some ways.
Awesome.
Well, I appreciate you again for, for just sharing so much biblical wisdom about finances
and, and for being on the show with us today.
Yeah, it's been fun.
You asked great questions.
So thank you.
Absolutely.
And thank you to everybody that tuned in for this episode.
We'll see you on the next one.