Are You Too Broke for Christmas or Too Blessed to Notice?

Hey, let me ask you a question. Are you too broke for Christmas this year? That's a tough question. Or maybe the better question is it's your faith that's broken.Well, I thought I'd start some statistics today. Listen to these statistics. These will blow you away. 61% of Americans are dreading the holidays. Why?Because they're worried about that extra spending and that financial burden that so many of us feel this time of year. Listen to this one. 76% of Americans say they express emotional distress. The so called money wounds.Those things that continually come back every holiday season just creates this huge financial pressure. Hey, this is supposed to be the time of joy. But 76% of Americans say they live in emotional distress, especially this time of year.And listen to this one. I'm not going to bore you with too many more stats today, but listen to this one.46% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck spend so much on the holidays that they cut into their disposable income. These are real statistics and I bet as you're listening right now, they affect you. Well, they certainly affected today's listener.Let me tell you, today's listener question says, Ralph, this year money's really tight. I want to enjoy the holidays, but I'm embarrassed that I can't give like I used to. How do I keep my faith up when finances are low?Well, let me tell you right now, that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Because you not have the same amount of money as other people. But here's one thing I want to promise you, you have the same faithful God.See, peace doesn't come from your bank account balance. It comes from your belief. So let's talk about keeping our faith today when we're struggling financially.That's what we're going to cover on today's show.

This is Financially Confident Christian, your daily dose of gospel, grounded insight and faith driven tips to help you break the cycle of financial shame with confidence.

Welcome to the show. I'm Ralph. I want to thank you for joining me on your journey today as we try to keep the joy in the holiday season without going broke.And that's what we're really focusing in on today. The overall goal of this show is to help you break that cycle of financial shame and do it with confidence.And this time of year, I hear it time and time again, so many people are emotionally and is financially strapped. And here's one thing I want to share with you right away. Most peaceful people that I know aren't always the wealthiest. They just aren't.But you know what they are. They're the ones who trust God with what they have. And listen, I've had to learn that lesson myself. I'm going to tell you a story.It's going to blow you away today. All of us have had those lean seasons where faith and not finances carried me through. So let me paint a picture for you.My wife and I were very young or two young kids at home at the time. I was working for a job where I got paid once a month. So you can just imagine what Christmas was looking like here.December 25th is coming, and my wife and I are trying to figure this out. I mean, things were super tight. We had just moved into a new rental, and we had to buy a lot of stuff.And we're looking at our balance and saying, listen, we haven't bought much for the kids this year. What do we do? We were both stressed out about it.We had two little boys, and we're like, oh, man, society saying they need to have all these toys and all this kind of stuff. And we made a decision, and I'm gonna tell you right now, it was an embarrassing decision. As I look back at it.We went shopping and we intentionally wrote a check that we knew was gonna bounce. That's just the truth. I want to put it out there for you. I'm not proud of that. We made good on it. Don't misunderstand me. I didn't go and not pay.But we knew at the time when we were writing that check that it wasn't going to be available when they put it in. Now, fortunately, they were able to resubmit the check.We paid some extra fees, but it was that stress of that moment, that wanting to make sure we had for our kids. So listen, I'm an accountant. I'm a trained person. I had gone to college for accounting, and I felt that stress, too.And like I said, I'm not proud of it. But let's look at what Corey Ten Boom once said. You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.And, man, I wish I knew that at the time because I would have handled that situation differently. Let's get back to our question today, and that's how do we build our faith when we feel financially broken?You might be feeling that financial brokenness right now, but I'm going to give you some ideas right now. First thing, you've got to focus on, stop worrying and put your trust in God. Because the truth is God knows your needs.He knows your needs before you know them. He already understands them. And here's the beautiful part of that. He's not limited by your paycheck. God doesn't have a balance to worry about.So trust him. See, stop worrying. Put your faith in him. Second thing I'm going to encourage you to do is do an identity check. I'm going to say something bold here.You might be a little bit taken back by what I'm fixing to say. Christ didn't own anything. It doesn't talk about the Bible. Christ's house that he owned.I mean, he had his sandals, he had his clothes, he had a lot of things. But here's the thing we need to understand as Christians, our worth isn't found in possessions. We'll have all the possessions in the world.We can have all those things. I know people that have had them. But that's not where your worth is found. It's found in your purpose. And I'm going to point you to something.I don't know if you know this or not, but I do a weekly show. It's called Truth Unveiled with Ralph. And it's really a show about unwinding culture and tying it back to biblical truth.And I just did a show about consumerism and I'm going to encourage you to check that out. We'll put a link to that in the show notes.It's a weekly show, but it gets a little deeper than what I do on the daily Financially confident Christian. But I, I talk all about consumerism destroying all of us. So I'm encourage you to check that out. But let's get back to today's show.Another thing I'm going to encourage you to do is live in gratitude. Because when you're grateful for things, think about how many times that you've been in a tough time and you start to think, I don't have enough.But when you have a gratitude, it changes your perspective. It turns out that thankfulness, that gratefulness, it turns that not enough into, listen to this, more than enough.So when you're feeling down, like when we were thinking about that with the kids, I could have made a better decision. I could have thought, you know what? These kids have so much to begin with. It wasn't like Christmas was going to be. They don't have any toys.So consider what you already have and along that road, surrender it all to Christ. See, God is never going to bless what you hide. So one of the things I'm going to tell you this show.One of the main capstones of this show is invite God into your finances. This is why I tie the two things together. A lot of people say to me, Ralph, it's strange how you tie faith and finances together.Well, here's how I do that. Because we need to come to an honest acknowledgment. It's all his anyway. So when we pretend like we're going to hide it from guess what?He already knows. God already knows when you're struggling. He already knows when things are tight.And you just wonder sometimes, is he just saying to you, listen, just reach out to me. I can help you. Now, he might not give you this abundance.A lot of people think that when you pray about finances, God's going to rush this abundance on you. Scripture never promises that. It promises us provision, not comfort, but acknowledge him. He can't bless what you hide.And finally, it's all about faith over fear. See, big takeaway for today. Fear says something like this. Fear says, I can't. When you live in fear, that's what you constantly hear.You hear that in your head, I can't, I can't, I can't. But faith says something so much bigger than that. And this is what you can take to the bank today. Faith says God can.And I'm going to go a little extra step. And God will. Let's get into our Bible verses. Today we actually have two, because I couldn't decide on which one I liked best.Let's get into the first one. Very common book from the Book of Matthew, chapter 6, verse 33.It says this, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. And I pick that because think about that. What are we leaning into there? Seeking first his kingdom. That's so important.Seeking first faith, Seeking first understanding him and his righteousness. And what does it promise to us, all these things. Now, he's not talking about stuff.He's not talking about you're going to get a brand new car, you're going to get a vacation, all those things. So he's talking about. He's talking about the things that matter.Let's get to our second Bible verse, and that's from the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 19. And my God will meet all of your needs according to his riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.I don't even need to comment on that one because it says it all right there, doesn't it? He's going to meet all of our needs how about we pray together? Lord, we come to you right now and we just ask that you would help to teach us.Lord, help us to trust you more than our bank account. So easy to get stuck on those bank accounts. Help us to see the provision through your eyes, not through world's eyes, not through society's eyes.And Lord, help us to remember the abundance that you've already given us. And remember that it's not measured in dollars, but it's measured in our purpose. And we ask this in the mighty power of Christ. Amen.So here's your action item for today. Real simple thing. I want you to write down three ways that God has provided for you this year.Listen, if we're being honest, we probably make a list two or three pages thick. So whether it's big or small, just write down three things and thank him for each one of them.And then when you start to feel broken, read that list and remember how much he's already given you. And I want to give you something right now. I just finished writing my third book, and it's called how to Become a Financially Confident Christian.And it's yours absolutely free. All you gotta do is go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/becoming so today.No matter what your bank account says, God's presence is your greatest security. And gratitude reminds us of what we've already got. And it's in his hands. So trust opens up that door to peace every single time.So go out there today and be a financially confident Christian. Stay financially savvy, go God bless, and I'll see you on tomorrow's show.