Living a Bigger Life

One of my greatest fears in life is the fear of living a small life. For the past few years I’ve been trying to figure out what kinds of thoughts, habits, ideas and practices lead to living a small life compared to the thoughts, habits, ideas and practices that would actually lead to a big life.I spend a great deal of time thinking about this, reading about this, and observing the habits of those whom I think are living big lives.

Here are a couple of things that I have observed and learned about what makes for a big life…

1. Be generous with your money
People who live big lives are generous. They are generous with their time, their energy and their money. We live in a time when money is everything. It is rare these days to find people who are willing to part with their precious dough. It’s interesting though at how fascinated and inspired we are when we hear stories of people who are willing to give away their hard earned money. People who are able to give away the most precious commodity known to man are people who are not owned by money, but instead own it and make it serve them.

2. Regularly do things that aren’t for your own benefit
Most people live their lives completely for themselves. It is a rare thing for people to get outside of themselves and do things for others that will in no way, shape or form benefit them. Sadly, when we live only for ourselves, it leads to a very small life. Conversely, when we begin to regularly serve people and do things that aren’t for our own benefit - our lives become increasingly bigger.

3. Have ambition
People who live bigger lives want something. They have dreams. They have goals. Of course, these dreams and goals usually don’t revolve around themselves. If one’s dream or ambition is to get that car they’ve always wanted or to get that bigger home, well, let’s face it….that makes for a small life. Our goals for the end of our year can’t simply be all about having a better body, better health and reading ‘x’ amount of books. There is nothing wrong with these goals, but there has to be more. Our big life dreams and ambitions must be outside of ourselves and for the sake of others.

4. Be You
Many times, we don’t even realize that we are each created uniquely and the most amazing thing that we have to offer humanity and our planet is our self. People who take time to figure out who they are, what they love and what they have to offer have the potential to live some of the biggest lives. Figure out who you are and be that person (unless that person is not generous with their money, rarely does things that benefits others and has no ambition. If that’s the case, then figure out who you are and don’t be that person. Instead, work on becoming the kind of person that lives a big life.)

5. Learn to love
People who live big, love big. Learn what it really is to love people. Learn to love life. Learn to love moments and to love seasons. Don’t be a complainer or a pessimist. See the good in people. Don’t look for problems, but instead look for opportunities in how to live and love bigger.

What about you? What do you think makes for a bigger life?

What kinds of things have the potential to keep one stuck living a small life?

A Scary Little Thing Called Risk

Last year, I was talking to a friend about money, faith, risk, trust, heresy (the prosperity gospel) and the Kingdom of God. During our conversation he told me that he had been saving his money in various ways. Primarily, he was stashing money away in his 401K as well as keeping a savings account in which he had built a sizable cushion – enough to keep him going for some time if he were to ever find himself out of work.

He went on to tell me that a number of his friends had recently lost their jobs due to the economic downturn. Without even missing a beat, he said that he felt like God was telling him to use his savings to start paying his friends rents and mortgages. His words were, "All this time, I thought I was saving this money for my own crisis, only to realize that the money wasn't supposed to just sit there when other people were in need."

Fast forward to 2 months ago. Same friend. Same type of conversation. This time, he mentioned to me that he had greatly reduced the amount of money that he was dumping into his 401K so that he would have more cash at his disposal to actually give away.

I've been wrestling a lot lately with what it means to actually follow God with my life and with my money. What it really looks like to take risk and to trust him.

Here are some of the thoughts and questions that I have been wrestling with:

If all of the current resources that I have really belong to God, then should I be more pro-active in asking him how to use them? Instead of asking God how he can help me save more, should I first be asking him where I can give more?

If Jesus says, "Follow after me and I'll take care of everything else", when, exactly, should I start doing this? Do I start taking risk after I feel like my 401K has enough money in it? Do I decide to start giving money away once I’m feeling secure in my savings? Or my house is paid off?

If the life of the future lived in the present by God’s people is one of generosity, then why am I not more generous?

I've realized over this last year that I used to be a lot more generous. Then I became a lot more careful. For the past couple of years, I have been very focused on planning and saving. Trying to put myself in position to have all of my bases covered so that one day, I can finally have enough, finally relax....and then.....I can really start to be generous and follow after the things God is asking me to do.

Don't get me wrong....I think saving is smart and I think it can also be good stewardship. At the same time, I wonder these days, when Jesus said,”Follow me, put me first and I’ll take care of the rest…” Did he actually mean that we should follow him and literally trust that he would work everything else out?

I fully comprehend these ideas with my head, but recently, I’ve realized that I really do get a wonderful sense of security from the amount of money that I have in my bank accounts (or anxiety from lack thereof). The interesting thing is, when I think about God’s call to follow and trust him, it seems like the only ones who ever get to really find out if he was serious when he said he would take care of everything else, are the ones who take risks to follow him.

The thing is - risk is really scary for me. But lately, I’m realizing (again) that this Jesus following life…a true, authentic, Jesus following life is probably supposed to be lived more in the world of risk and trust than it is safety and stability.

So, how about you? Have you ever wrestled with the risk and trust vs. safety and stability issue?

How much comfort and safety do you receive from stuff?

If you are a Jesus follower, have you asked him lately where he might want you to risk something?

Created to Serve

When I was 16 years old I paid my first bill. As part of the deal, my dad would allow me to have my license and a car (a 1984 Nissan Maxima) if I paid half of my insurance. By that time, I had been cutting grass for some of those in the neighborhood for 4 years and had been learning how to make money.

At age 16, I learned how to budget money. I used a system that my parents had taught me - the envelope system. It’s really a pretty simple plan that I have now been using for almost 17 years. The concept goes like this: you budget your money by placing certain amounts into each envelope. An entertainment envelope. An auto insurance envelope. A home maintenance envelope. And so on. The money that doesn’t go into an envelope to be spent gets stashed away into savings. When it comes time to make a purchase, you don’t spend more than you have in that particular envelope.

The beauty about living on a budget is that it forces you to be disciplined with your money and teaches you to live within your means. The downside to living on a budget is that it sometimes tells you how to live your life....if you let it.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a friend who was in need. I really felt like I wanted to give some money to my friend who could certainly use it at the time. The only problem was that the envelope labeled, ‘money to give away’ only had $20 in it. I, however, felt that I wanted to give away closer to $100. Given the ‘rules’ of the envelope system, I was not to give away more than $20. (Please understand that I was not considering giving away money that I did not have. I was not planning on going into debt. The money was there, it was just stashed away in another envelope – a savings envelope – a ‘for the future’ envelope - a DO NOT TOUCH envelope).

I started to wrestle with what to do and spent a little bit of time praying about it. I believe that the budget that we are on is God honoring and I believe that God desires for us to be wise money managers. I also believe that when it comes to spending the money that he has entrusted to us, we should ask him where he would like it spent. As I wrestled for just a few minutes over what to do, it suddenly dawned on me that I was wrestling against myself. I was immediately ushered back to why I got on a budget in the first place. I created a budget over 16 years ago to serve me. At no point in time did I ever set the budget up in order that I might serve it. And the truth is....it has served me well.

As I’ve been thinking about this over the last number of days…I’ve started wondering….what other things in my life have I put in place to serve me, but over time, I have somehow started to serve those things?

It kind of reminds me of how often the Pharisees looked to the law for life and missed the point of relationship with God. At one point, Jesus went so far as to say to those guys, "…You search the scriptures because you think you’ll find life in them when the one they testify of is standing right in front of you and you can't even see it."

I love saving money. I save for my kid’s college fund. I save for retirement. I save for vacation. I save for things that I might not ever need. I save for all kinds of things. People sometimes ask me, “So, do you like to collect anything?” I usually reply, “I collect money.” But being $80 short in one of those envelopes in order to help a friend in need or invest in a friendship that is valuable to me or invest in a mission trip that I hadn’t planned for but feel that God is calling me to (might be more than $80)…...well....I’m okay with that...because my budget has been created to serve me.

In my 17 years of budgeting money, if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it is that some things just don’t fit into an envelope.