Are you struggling to conquer an aspect of your health, wealth or relationship? The reason may be that you’re focusing on what you don’t have, rather than on what you DO have…

In today’s episode I take a spiritual look at money, and on some ways to change our thinking so that we may change our lives for the better.

Show Notes

[01.51]  The danger of a quick fix

[04.33] Why having what we want doesn’t change our lives sustainably

[09.05] A stampede of “buts…”

[11.18] Affirmations

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Quotes

"So it seems that the problem is common to both – get rich or get thin quick isn’t a sustainable solution to our problems or the quick route to happiness." - Lisa Linfield

"Like all perfect stories, there is always adversity to overcome; dragons to slay; hardships to endure." - Lisa Linfield

"When the time is right, we will have our happy ever afters." - Lisa Linfield

"The challenge with life is that there is not a day that goes past when we don’t get faced with money temptation… and a happy, smiley face of someone that has something we think will make us happier." - Lisa Linfield

"Each one of us believes that relief from our current challenges lies ‘out there’, wrapped within the temptation of  a short-term hit of happiness." - Lisa Linfield

217 – A spiritual look at money

What is it about us as humans that we struggle again and again to conquer the repeat offender in us – be it in our health, our wealth, our relationships?

Hi my name is Lisa Linfield & if you're new here, I hope you find the confidence to get on top of your money and take the next step to your financial freedom

I'm a board Certified Financial Planner or CFP  I'm personally Financially Free and I own a wealth management practice.... but my passion is to teach people about money

I was put on my first diet at the age of 10 when my parents took me to Weigh Less, the local version of Weight Watchers.  Each week I was weighed, my food was weighed and counted, and so began a daily, in fact minutely struggle with food in my head.  The bully voice telling me how useless I am, that I can’t give up sugar… the still, small voice telling me that it’s okay, there has to be another way… and that happiness is more important that my jeans size.

At 47, I think I have been on every diet created.  Low fat, High fat, low carb, milkshakes, gut microbiomes, you name it.  And despite swearing off diets forever because I absolutely KNOW they don’t work long-term, that long-ingrained mindset of resetting on a Monday, committing to a new way of life, and then by Tuesday evening beating myself up continues.  Every.Single.Week.  It’s exhausting.

More than anything, I wish there was a quick fix, get-rich-quick answer to the problem of health, of eating and exercising.

One of my hardest mental challenges in this area was when I had a tummy tuck 8 years ago.  A year and a half after my twins were born my stomach muscles were 7 cm apart – you could fit a fist between them – and were never going to come back together.  As I needed to have reconstructive surgery on my bladder, I decided to go for a two in one to sew my tummy back together and, while they did that, to shave off a piece of the apple tummy I’d had since birth.

It was the closest to ‘get rich quick’ from a body perspective you could have.  Suddenly, the belly I had hated since I was 10 was gone.  It was the answer to all my problems.

And yet, it wasn’t.  I still felt fat, unworthy, and hated myself.  And I’m not unique – friends who have lost – and kept off- weight, or had the gastric bypass and are long-term thin echo the same story – the unhappiness challenges still remain.

The statistics show that 70% of lottery winners end up broke and a third go on to declare bankruptcy (National Endowment for Financial Education)… and studies have showed that winning the lottery doesn’t make you happier or healthier.   Economist Jay L. Zagorsky agrees with the research. He writes for U.S. News and World Report: “Studies found that instead of getting people out of financial trouble, winning the lottery got people into more trouble, since bankruptcy rates soared for lottery winners three to five years after winning.”

The story of Jack Whittaker, who won $315 million in a lottery in West Virginia in 2002, echoes this…  “I wish that we had torn the ticket up.” Since winning, Whittaker’s daughter and granddaughter died due to drug overdoses.

“I just don’t like Jack Whittaker. I don’t like the hard heart I’ve got,” he said. “I don’t like what I’ve become.”

Now we can all say, “that wouldn’t be me”.  But there’s a 70% chance it would be.  So it seems that the problem is common to both – get rich or get thin quick isn’t a sustainable solution to your problems or  the quick route to happiness.

But why not?  Why doesn’t having what we want change our lives sustainably?

I’m a novice at this answer, but I think it lies in two things

1.      We are fooled by “shiny object syndrome”.  We look at something we want, and we’re led to believe “if only I had this, then I’ll be… happy”… “if only I didn’t work, then I’ll be… happy”.

2.      True happiness is found in the gratitude of now.

So let’s look a little bit more deeply at this.

There’s a story all of us know that is, for me, one of THE best analogies for this dilemma of life.  It’s the story of Adam and Eve.  Bear with me as I take us on a new take on this ancient tale inspired by something I read by Nicky Gumbel.

The story tells us that in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had every possible thing that opened and shut.  It would be the modern day equivalent of Prince’s mansion, or Michael Jackson’s Neverland.  It’s exactly what our new found lottery winners often do – buy their dream house… and have enough money to have every single thing they could ever want or need.

Yet, despite having today’s equivalent of Neverland with a bank account to match, there sat a tiny little apple, the one thing they didn’t have, and couldn’t have.

And a bit like a tub of triple caramel ice-cream sitting in my freezer can bore a hole in my brain until I eventually put it and me out my misery and eat it, not having that little apple started to bore a whole in Eve’s brain.

So instead of focusing on what she had in her 45 room mansion and huge bank account, she focused on the thing she didn’t have and wanted most.  A tiny little apple, that promised her a life of more.

Like real life, her tiny little thought was then flamed by the voices out there… in this case the voice of the snake… in our case the voice of social media… the voices that tell us how happy everyone with the apple is, how happy we will be when we have it.

And one big, life changing thought began growing in her head… the lie that God is withholding something that is really exciting from you, something that, when you finally got it, would make you TRULY happy… more than what you have now.

And so, like many of us who just ‘had to have’ the new car, or the bigger house, Eve gets hold of that apple, eats it, and then discovers that it doesn’t make life better, God wasn’t withholding, and now, on top of that disappointment, you have the frustration with yourself that you gave into the temptation.

As Brené Brown says, you now have a Shame Shitshow. Beating yourself up for spending the money, smashing the triple caramel ice-cream, and all the added costs that come with the bigger house, the bigger car, the bigger life, or the scale that won’t stop creeping upward.

And it’s in that lie that God is withholding something that is truly exciting from you, something that would make you even happier, that I want to us to pause.  Mostly because I need to think through that profound thought a little deeper.

What if we deeply believed that God was perfect love?  What if we truly believed that he was the perfect parent – with not a mean or withholding bone in his body?  And that, as a perfect parent, he has given us EVERYTHING, every single thing we needed right now for the perfect story he is crafting for us?  And, like all perfect story’s, there is always adversity to overcome, dragons to slay, hardships to endure… but God is the faithful guide, and we the heroines… and, when the time is right, we will have our happy ever after.

I just have to pause for half a second to try and digest that, and I hear a stampede of “buts…”.  But my work is crazy, I deserve a little something nice to cheer me up.  But my child is struggling, I deserve a 15 minute break of cappuccino and cake alone in the coffee shop.  But the commute is killing me, that house that’s twice the price is closer to work and school and will solve all my stress.

As I try and stop the stampede of “but’s”, This next quote, from the book Redeeming Money by Paul Tripp smacks me in the face:

I am deeply persuaded that there is a direct connection between ingratitude and financial trouble. (To the degree that we are content with what God has graciously and lovingly provided, to that degree we have immunized ourselves against the temptation to take our lives into our own hands and to use our money however we think best.) A grateful heart focuses on the riches provided and not on the things that may be lacking.

Tripp, Paul David. Redeeming Money (p. 47). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

A grateful heart focuses on the riches provided and not on the things that may be lacking. 

Isn’t that one of the biggest problems we have?  The bully voice in our heads that focuses on every small mistake we make, every character flaw we have, every party we’re not invited to… the bully voice that points out what we don’t have, what the Jones’s do have, and what we are lacking… the bully voice that drowns out the still, small voice that is grateful for and knows deeply that there is far more to life, for more amazing talents we have, than the things we may be lacking.

The challenge with life is that there is not a day that goes past when we don’t get faced with a money temptation… and a happy, smiley face of someone that has something we think will make us happier.  As Paul Tripp says earlier in his book:

Money temptations greet us every day. Money lies are told to us every day. Money is presented to us as the savior that it can never be. Every day millions of us are seduced into asking money to do for us what only God can do.

Tripp, Paul David. Redeeming Money (p. 15). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

So what happens if each day we focused on the following affirmations

●        God is perfect love, providing everything we need in this very moment

●        My grateful heart will focus on the richness of all that He has provided

●        God is faithful to his promises – he will provide my needs

script:

Each one of us believes that relief from our current challenges lies ‘out there’, wrapped within the temptation of  a short-term hit of happiness.  Be it a new car, a new phone, triple caramel ice-cream, a bigger house.

Jack Whittaker thought that winning $315m would finally give him the all the things everyone else had that would lead to a happy ever after life… when he ended up with a drug addicted daughter and grand daughter.  He thought it would make him a nicer person.  It didn’t.

Eve thought having what she didn’t have would change her life.

And if we’re honest… we’ve all spent hours and days planning how we get something – a new house, new car, even new job…. Just to have it and realise it isn’t the answer to all long lasting contentment.

Each one of us is persuaded to doubt God’s goodness, his fairness, his provision, and his love for us.  We’re persuaded to think that “if we just had…” life would be better… when the answer is shifting that same mental energy that we use to focus on what we don’t have… to focus on what we do have.

Hold tight to gratitude friend, and for every ‘yes, but’… counter it with ‘I’m grateful for’.. and step back and assure yourself that God works for the good of all who love him… and as you show him you can trust him with a little, he will trust you with a lot.