How Do I Know What "Enough" Really Is For My Life?

Let me ask you something today.

Does it ever feel like you're always chasing enough, but that finish line just

keeps moving farther and farther away?

You get a little more, but then you feel like you just need a little bit more

and then a little bit more after that.

What if I told you true satisfaction isn't found in acquiring those

endless things, but instead it's found in powerfully defining what

enough truly is for your life.

Well, stick with me today because I'm going to share exactly how to

find that piece on today's show.

Hey there.

Welcome back to your Daily, financially Confident Christian.

I'm Ralph joining you again today, and it is so great for you to take

a little time and spend some time here with me, and we continue in

pursuit of answering that question.

How do I become a financially confident Christian?

I. We're in our series Beyond the Budget, finding Financial

Freedom through Intentional Living.

This series is all about finding that freedom by living intentionally.

Now, if you listen yesterday, we tackled the comparison trap.

If you missed it, I'm gonna encourage you to go check it out.

Talked about how to stop keeping up with the Joneses in, like I mentioned

yesterday, the Joneses certainly have a lot of cool stuff, but today we're gonna

talk about how do I know what that enough?

Because that's the key to this.

How do I know what that enough really is for my life?

Think about it for a second.

You reach a goal.

I've been saving money, I've been wanting to do this, and you buy something

like, oh, this is gonna be, I talked about this when I bought that watch

the other day, I reached that goal.

I saved up to money to buy that watch, and then I bought that watch and I'm

thinking, oh, this is gonna be great.

And after a couple days, I feel completely unsatisfied.

Why?

Because enough keeps shifting.

That enough is never enough.

'cause then you need more upgrades.

You need better versions.

And see this endless chase, because that's what it is.

It's a chase.

You're just chasing after enough.

It drains your peace and it drains your money and it just

absolutely drains your finances.

And in the end, rather than find enough, you just find stress.

You find misaligned spending.

Unfortunately you find complete discontent and then you just feel like

your progress is just elusive and joy.

Any joy that you get is just a flash in a plane, something just short lived.

' cause here's the thing, you got to understand The world's

'enough' is designed by its very nature to be unreachable.

That's what it's all about.

The world defines enough as something you will never reach because the whole

point, it's consumerism at its best, that you're never going to get to enough

because that goalpost keeps moving.

That's what the world says, The world's enough is designed to be unreachable.

But here's a beautiful thing today we're gonna talk about, but

God's definition is clear, and his definition enough is freeing.

Let's go to the word.

Let's look at one Timothy chapter six, verses six to eight.

It says this, but godliness with contentment is great gain having food and

clothing with these, we shall be content.

Now listen, I'm not talking about extreme minimalism.

A lot of people here, they go, oh, well Ralph's talking about minimalism.

That's not what I'm saying.

Godliness with content is great gain.

Hey, do you want great gain?

I know I want great gain.

And then it ends with these, we shall be content.

Because see, it's about recognizing needs versus once I talk about this

on the show a lot, a lot of financial decision is simply trying to discern

what's a need and what's a want, because that clarity, that very thing we're

talking about, that clarity that you get, that's where you find your peace because

when you define what your enough looks like, when you recognize what that is.

You stop running, you stop chasing that those goalposts don't move

anymore because guess what?

You're stop.

You've stopped running after them.

And then you start to really live in stewardship with a purpose

and not that societal pressure that so many of us battle.

So now you're asking Ralph, what can we do?

How, how do we even define what our enough looks like?

And I'm gonna tell you my solution today.

It's not easy, but it's what you need to do.

You gotta define your true needs and then filter your once accordingly.

I'm not saying you can't live without your once, but you gotta define what

your true needs are and then put a filter on those once because this is

empowering and it makes you make peaceful choices and peaceful, wise decisions.

So here's your one action step for today.

I want you to start by listing your true needs.

Now you might think, Rob, okay, here we go.

Rob, I need food, clothing, and shelter.

Okay, fine.

Maybe that is your basic needs, but I want you to take a minute

and just write them down.

I'm gonna call this your Enough baseline.

I'm gonna give you some examples like maybe yours is, I got a

safe two bedroom apartment.

Check the box.

I got a place to live.

Or maybe weekly grocery budget of $125.

Man, I can eat pretty well on that.

Maybe your, your baseline is, I got car insurance and gas and I got to

get to work and I get to church.

Fantastic.

Maybe you have enough to tie that's important to you.

Maybe you have a basic phone plan and you got an internet service.

You can say connected to the world.

That's a good thing or a bad thing, but that's important to you.

Or maybe like a lot of my elderly clients, you got prescription

medication, you got a good doctor, and you go to your dental checkups.

See, to me, those are needs.

So that's the first step.

Really lay out what your needs are.

And yes, they are pretty basic.

Food, clothing, shelter, and the things we talked about.

But here's the sinister part of this.

So many times, and I'm guilty of this just like everybody else, we identify

our wants and we treat them as needs.

And you're like, okay, Rafael lost me on that one and I won.

Walk you through this.

What do you have to have, because that's the key to this whole

thing, and we're gonna talk about some examples here in a second.

What do you have to have that's really just a want.

Let's talk about this one.

A lot of people get stuck in this trap streaming subscriptions.

You're, I need downtime, Ralph.

Okay, that's fair.

That's a reasonable need.

You don't need to work every minute of your day.

Do you need three platforms for that?

Do you need Netflix and Amazon Prime and whatever else is out there?

Hulu name 'em all.

Yeah, you got a need for downtime, but do you need three platforms to do it?

Is that really necessary?

Here's one.

It's gonna aggravate.

A lot of people drive through coffee daily, and everybody's

said, Ralph, you're always picking on the drive through coffee.

Well, I don't drink coffee.

It's easy for me because you might be saying, I can't start my day without it.

Really?

I don't think that's food, clothing, or shelter.

Hey, you gotta argue it's clothing.

It's food.

Yeah, but, but do you really need it?

Here's a great one.

My listener sent this in.

Ralph.

I need new clothes every season.

I got nothing to wear.

Really?

Are you walking around naked?

I don't think so.

It sounds to me like that's a want.

You want new clothes every, you wanna keep up with the fashion trends.

I get it.

But don't disguise that as a need.

Here's what a lot of our teenagers might say.

I need an upgraded phone because my current one is just too slow.

Guilty.

I do the same thing with my Apple phone every year.

Is that a need?

Maybe The need is to have a phone.

A way to communicate.

That's fair.

Everybody has one now because we need to communicate.

But do you need the latest one?

To me, that sounds like a want or about this one.

Amazon Essentials.

Amazon's done a great job of telling us what is essential.

You log into Amazon, oh, look at all the essentials.

Oh, it's on sale.

I gotta have it.

You didn't buy it because it was an essential, they told you it

was, but was it really essential?

No.

You bought it because it was on sale, but it wasn't essential.

So I'm just gonna encourage you right now, write down some of those

things that are really wants, that you've disguised those as needs.

And then if you really wanna break the cycle, this is the

secret weapon to the whole thing.

You gotta create a filter question.

I'm gonna give you some filter questions, and I want you to ask

this before every single purchase.

It's gonna be tough, but you're gonna have to do this.

Ask yourself this.

Is this a true need align with my values?

We talked about those values the other day.

Does it really align with my values, the things that I hold dear?

So is it a true need to align with my values or is it a want?

Is it a want?

Different by comparison?

You know what we talked about yesterday, keeping up with the Joneses or that

societal pressure, or maybe for you, just the impulse feeling, kind of low tired,

talked about that the other day too.

You're out scrolling late at night, you're looking for a relaxation.

You're looking for an escape.

So ask you that.

Is it a true need aligned with my values, or is it really a want?

Second question, does this purchase move me towards peace and purpose?

Or does it take me away from that?

So is this a true need to line my values?

And does this purchase move me towards peace and purpose or away from it?

Lemme give you an example.

Let's say you're shopping, you're standing in the line at Target,

you're holding a $30 candle, and you got this new throw blanket.

You were out wandering the story.

You're looking for something to do.

Oh, this is a cool, I love the smell of this candle.

That throw blanket.

That'd be perfect for those, those fall days when I cuddle

up in front of the fireplace.

But now I'm gonna encourage you, ask those two questions.

Do I need this to live my values?

Or is it You want it because you saw a friend that has it on Instagram?

Well, they got that candle.

Oh, they got that at Target.

Oh, I gotta go get that.

Oh, oh.

I saw my friend Sally.

She's got that throw blanket.

She had a great picture of that.

Her and her husband snuggled up on the couch on Facebook.

Then I ask the next logical question, will this make my home more peaceful?

Or is it just a momentary distraction?

I don't think a candle in a throw blanket is gonna make your house more

peaceful, but if you're going into debt to do it, I can guarantee it's

going to make your life less peaceful.

And this is why this helps these things.

I don't just pull these outta the sky.

They help because they distinguish those needs from once and

they distinguish that noise.

That noise of, oh, this is a need.

This is essential, as Amazon would say, or as social media, do you need this?

And if you do this, it's gonna promote peace and it's gonna reinforce

the big takeaway from this series.

It's gonna reinforce that intentional living.

How about we pray together?

Father God, we just thank you for providing for all our true needs, all

the things we actually need, not our disguised wants, but Lord, our needs.

And we often, we confess that, often we confuse those wants and we confuse those

needs, Lord, and I just ask that you would help us to define that 'enough'

for our lives and help us to live in the contentment that you want us to live in.

Grant us wisdom, Lord, grant us clarity and mostly Lord grant us self-control.

And let our choices honor you, Lord.

And we ask this in confidence.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Listen, defining your enough brings peace, not pressure.

It's gonna be that thing that breaks that pressure away from you.

So list your needs, create a filter, and then choose

contentment and choose purpose.

I'm gonna ask you to do something right now if this show is impacting you.

If this particular episode has impacted you, I wanna encourage

you to share it with somebody.

There's somebody out there right now that's hurting financially.

They're stuck in that shame.

Maybe you've broken free of it and you're using this show to reinforce that.

Well, maybe somebody needs to hear today's message.

'cause they're stuck in that I don't have enough.

I don't know what enough looks like.

I'm gonna encourage you to share our show.

Best thing you can do is text or email them our website that's

financially confident christian.com.

I'm also encourage you to pick up a copy of my book.

It's a free gift for you when you go to financially

confident christian.com/master.

I'm gonna give you a free copy of my book.

It's called Mastering Your Finances.

It's a quick read, but let me just tell you right now.

It is truly impactful and it gives you a little bit of a kickstart

to get in your finances in order.

Now, tomorrow we're gonna be talking about the superpower of delayed gratification.

Yes, I'm telling you right now, delayed gratification.

You might think, well, that's restriction.

No.

Let tell you now it's a superpower and you're gonna want to hear

about what I have to say tomorrow.

So encourage you not to miss it.

Well, let's go out there today and be financially confident.

Christians, you can do this.

I truly believe in you.

Believe in yourself.

Stay financially savvy.

God bless you, and you have a great day today.