The Heart of Money

Setting Financial Finish Lines with Cody Hobelmann

• Courtney Markley • Season 2 • Episode 38

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What if setting a cap on your spending could actually lead to a more fulfilling and purpose-driven life? Join us on the Heart of Money podcast as we sit down with Cody Hobelmann, co-founder of the Finish Line Pledge, who shares his revolutionary approach to integrating biblical values into financial planning. Cody challenges the conventional mindset of wealth accumulation and introduces the concept of a personal financial "finish line," inspiring listeners to redefine their relationship with money through faith-driven boundaries.

Our conversation with Cody unveils the transformative power of contentment and intentionality in financial decisions. By recognizing all resources as divinely entrusted rather than personally owned, you'll discover how a lifestyle cap can bring peace and freedom from the ever-present urge to accumulate more. Cody's insights encourage a shift in how we view work and wealth, steering away from personal gain and towards a life aligned with a greater purpose through Christ.

We also explore the role of fear in financial decision-making and how it can obstruct our faith-led actions. Cody shares poignant stories that highlight the irony of wealth-induced anxiety and the importance of stewardship over ownership. By embracing a mindset that sees money as a tool for God's purposes, we are invited to re-evaluate our priorities and embrace the joy of participating in a larger mission. Listen in to see how Cody's experiences can inspire you to overcome fear and find contentment by aligning your faith and your finances.


Link from episode:
Finish Line Pledge

Speaker 1:

I'm Courtney Markley and this is the Heart of Money. Talking about money can be really hard and uncomfortable, but it doesn't need to be. The problem is, we're taught to think about money in terms that are too much like science, with rules and regulations, and not enough like psychology, with emotions and nuance. Join me on my mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Heart of Money podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Markley, and joining me today. You may have heard this name before. We have Cody Hobelman from the Finish Line. Pledge. Welcome, Cody.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much for having me, Courtney.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. It was such a pleasure to have you here. As mentioned, cody is the co-founder of Finish Line Pledge. You might have heard him and his brother on the Finish Line Podcast. Similar to a lot of our audience, cody's also a financial advisor and he dabbles in the nonprofit space too. He's co-founder of Compound Impact and you're a husband and you just you know you have a lot of things going on, cody, so you're a busy guy and I love that. You're reaching our audience on a great level, because a lot of them have a heart for Jesus, like yourself. A lot of them are either in the financial advising space or the ministry space, and you're coming to the table saying you know what I get to play in both ponds. So I'm glad you're here today and we get to hear a little bit more about your story. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

So tell us, like I mentioned, you do quite a bit of stuff. What does it feel like to be Cody? What's a normal day for you, friend? I have to imagine you're pretty busy.

Speaker 2:

It's hard to say what a normal day looks like because they vary so widely. But yeah, so I'm married to Stephanie, we live in Maryland, we attend church here and we love to spend time outdoors as often as possible. So when I'm not working or recording a podcast, we like to be walking our dogs or spending time outdoors. But, yeah, activities, like I said, it's a wide range, but I get to work with clients at work, I get to kind of help build a firm where advisors can kind of find a place to explore what it means to integrate biblical values and wisdom into the way that you operate in financial services.

Speaker 2:

So that's been a really, really fun journey that I've been on for several years. And then Finish Line Ministries, finish Line Podcast and Compound Impact are both organizations that my brother Keelan and I serve with and got a chance to build over the last several years, and so I've spent a lot of time with my family, which is just such a blessing. Both of us actually married our high school sweethearts, so the whole extended family is like right here. That's so sweet. We don't have to travel for the holidays, we just get to see everybody, so that's a huge blessing.

Speaker 1:

That's super, super sweet. I love that. That's part of both of your stories too. How special is that? Oh, very good. Well, I'm going to spend a little bit of time today, Cody, sharing with our audience this idea of the finish line, because, again, this is obviously really important to you and it's something that you're living now in your own life and you're getting to see the benefits of it from so many people. But I would love to also just take some time afterwards. We're going to kind of shake up, hopefully, listeners, we're going to shake up the way that you're thinking about money and possessions in kind of a great way. Cody's one of those people. The first time I met him, I'm like you're bothered and I like that. Let's talk about this a little bit more.

Speaker 2:

That's the right word Yep.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm like Cody's bothered. He's a kindred spirit. When people meet me for the first time, they're like, whoa, you're kind of intense and I'm like, well, listen, I'm just bothered. I'm bothered by some things and I want to come around, meet some folks over a table or over some coffee and talk about it. So that's what we're going to do today Cody's going to share with us a bit more about what the finish line means. This is kind of a popular, kind of like hot button phrase that I've been hearing for a long time, so probably many of our viewers are either familiar with it they might not know exactly what it means or if it's right for them. So we want to take a little bit of time to unpack that, but then go a little bit further, okay. So, cody, tell us a little bit about what is the finish line. I'm sure you've never gotten asked this question before, but what is the finish line, who's it for and how has it started to transform your life?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you. So the name Finish Line we were actually given by William Norvell from the Faith Driven podcast he's involved with, but we were describing the concept using different terminology. We did not invent this by any means. This concept has been around for a very long time, but Holy Spirit convicted Keelan to basically answer the question how much is enough? And that was something that he quantified with a number and applied to how much he spends on his lifestyle every year. So how much is enough to spend on your lifestyle every year was the question that he felt challenged to answer. And that's what he did. And the way he did that was by using census data and saying, well, what other people spend and what's appropriate for me and my context and my family size and my geography. And so he went on that journey first and then invited me along and said hey, you're in financial planning, you're working with clients, you're a Christian. Do those things ever intersect? And I said you know they probably should, but I don't really understand what that looks like.

Speaker 2:

So he challenged me to set a finish line, although we had never heard of a finish line, and William said hey, you guys are really talking about finish lines here. Maybe that's a better phrase, so that's how we adopted that language, but it's something that's been around and taught for quite some time and can be applied in other contexts, like how much do you accumulate over your lifetime? How much do you pass to your kids if you have more than you need? So this is really just a way for really anyone who's working and earning and working with money which is all of us to make sure that we're focused on God above everything else, especially money, which is so specifically called out in scripture so often that it makes me want to really pay attention of how can money and wealth become a distraction from the things that God wants for us, and how can we create guardrails or implement systems in our lives that actually prevent wealth from taking an outsized focus in the way that we make decisions, in the way that we live. So that is the heart behind the finish line.

Speaker 2:

It's a tool for Christians. Non-christians actually use this. Quite often. They say I'm going to live well below my means, right, that's kind of the simplest iteration of it. But to actually put a number to it and say this is how much is appropriate for me to spend on my family, for our lifestyle and it's all God's, it all belongs to Him. But I'm going to try to intentionally create margin and approach God surrendered and make sure that I'm not trying to serve God and money. I'm serving God and sometimes I'm going to use money to do that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. So, essentially what you're saying, friend, it's kind of like putting a lifestyle cap on yourself. So just let's put some real practicals on it. Let's say, I'm someone who earns $300,000 a year and I'm feeling this tension of like maybe I've outgrown my lifestyle, you know, maybe my lifestyle is just growing a little bit too far. We need to kind of bring it back in a bit so that it's within those healthy guardrails, to where God has actually called me to live, and so I can talk to someone such as yourself.

Speaker 1:

I can be praying about God how much do you actually want me to keep? And I think that's one of the key distinctions right there is. Your prayer begins to change between like well, god, how much do you want me to give? And instead it's well, god, how much do you want me to actually keep? So you might be earning, let's say, $300,000, and the Lord puts it on your heart to say, well, I want you to live off $150,000. And so everything you make beyond $150,000, you're going to give away. Am I describing that correctly, cody?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the whole paradigm shift is. I think in my own story, and maybe others as well, there's been this desire to try to answer the question how much should I give? And people will answer that question for you, especially in the church. They'll give you an answer to that question. But as I read through scripture myself, one of those things that bothered me is it seems more appropriate to figure out what do I actually need to keep, like you said. More appropriate to figure out what do I actually need to keep, like you said, and that has allowed me to better align the way that.

Speaker 2:

I steward resources, especially my time, and where I'm focused with my energy. You know we're limited, we have limited resources, limited time, and when you acknowledge that you've always had enough and that God is faithful to provide, it actually allows you to continue to take steps of faith in that area of your life. And it helps me to rethink my career. And why am I a financial advisor? And how would God leverage that if not for maximizing, you know, the building of my own kingdom? So it's kind of spread through every facet of my life, but it really starts with a posture of surrender and gratitude to God as provider.

Speaker 1:

That's so good, and so tell me, your family has been operating this way for a few years now. Four years Am I remembering that right, Cody?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Four years, okay. So tell me when you were first thinking about doing this. I know your brother kind of prompted you, right? I love that. Is he your older brother?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I have two brothers he's the oldest, I'm the youngest.

Speaker 1:

Oh, very good, Okay, so like big brother's looking at you and he's like hey, I really think you should consider doing this. What problem essentially were you looking to solve?

Speaker 2:

Like, if I'm listening and this is the first time I'm hearing about a finish line. What problems might I be experiencing that this helps me with? Yeah, I think the simplest answer is lack of contentment. That's what I was experiencing, and a heavy comparison to others, and not just what do others earn or have. But that even crept into how I looked at other people in their giving and I'd hear stories about someone giving and these feelings of almost jealousy would show up in me and I'd say that's not right. You know, I don't think that's what we're called to, and Scripture warns against comparison and lack of contentment. So even when I was giving, this concept that I was giving to God out of my resources that I earned was the problem. And, to be completely clear, when my brother Keelan said hey, you ought to consider this lifestyle cap, I said no, thanks, I did not want anything to do with it.

Speaker 2:

The beginnings of what really bothered me about my worldview around wealth, which I think is almost the default that if you're not taught otherwise, it's totally understandable and probably normal to think of everything that you earn and everything that comes into your hands as yours. So scripture started to correct the worldview, and what happened after correctly adopting a worldview that everything is God's and he entrusts resources to us. That is where contentment really first started showing up in my financial picture. I could look at what I had and say God, you've blessed me with everything. How would you like me to use it?

Speaker 2:

And that has been the transformative process that I've just been growing in, and when I hear stories, I can celebrate alongside others rather than desire what they have or feel less than in some cases. So that's you know. Long story short, that contentment was the immediate change that I experienced. When I actually created. I set a finish line. I was accountable to it, I wrote it down. My wife and I said we're going to live this way, but the peace that washed over us is something I've never experienced before.

Speaker 1:

It's fascinating, and yet it's just so simple at the same time, to hear you say well, the key to contentment was less, and what is sort of to unlock for you of this? Well, I'm not striving anymore to earn a certain amount of dollars. I've already told God after this, much like everything is His, anyways right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Everything is His. But after a certain amount you're like I'm called to give it all away. Right, I'm not keeping any more than this set amount that he told me to keep. So it's just unlocking these pieces for you and probably starting to kind of, in a healthy way, challenge the thought process, just like you mentioned with your work. Like why am I doing the things that I'm doing? Am I here strictly for a paycheck? Am I here out of obedience to God? Like why am I here? What am I working for? What are the things that I'm striving for? And I imagine there is a little bit of undoing in that process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this concept kind of inherently made sense to me as someone who manages wealth for a living. The compensation is a percentage, usually a percentage of the amount being managed, but it's not my money. Someone else has entrusted me to give them advice and manage their wealth wisely, so this was kind of a natural way to approach it as a professional. But I had not internalized that until I actually set my own financial finish line and said, okay, we're going to zoom out and instead of looking at one account, we're looking at all resources that will ever pass through my hands. What is your management fee? What do you need to take to provide for your family, which we're called to do?

Speaker 1:

to provide for your family, which we're called to do, kind of like the undoing yeah, going back to the undoing piece of it, setting the finish line. You're kind of like drawing a line in the sand saying, well, I'm not purely working with the intent of just making as much money as possible per se. How did it start to shift the way you thought about let's start with work? How did it start to shift the way you think about work?

Speaker 2:

I think what changed most immediately was the sense of urgency that I felt to get as much as I could as fast as possible so that I would feel free. That's the financial independence. Retire early it's like the mindset that I grew up in and that seemed like such a desirable mindset that I grew up in and that seemed like such a desirable, wise way to go about it. If you can just control your expenses, earn more and more and more, then you'll get where you're going so much faster. But I never really thought about what happens after you get out of the rat race, or you know. This calling this sense of purpose wasn't really even a consideration. It was just a means to an end and the end was accumulation. It's like I missed the whole point of like. Why did God put me on the earth and why is he giving me anything to steward? So that was very freeing in the way that I could just trust his timing, which is still a daily challenge. But if I didn't hit certain checkpoints, I could trust that God had a plan. If I didn't earn X amount of dollars by X age, I wasn't ahead or behind. I was in God's timing if I was surrendered to Him, and so I could find examples of other people who might be where I used to want to be, and it had nothing to do with who I am, so that was very freeing.

Speaker 2:

But interestingly, I don't know how it sounds to other people, but I actually started saving less for retirement, for just in general, which I'm not suggesting should be everyone's response.

Speaker 2:

But for me accumulation was an idol, just the possession of great resources. I wanted to get there and to not focus all of my energy into that was part of that undoing of shifting some resources that otherwise would be saved and from my perspective, just in a barn, right, yeah, where moths and rust destroy, yeah, shifting that into I wanted the 30, 60, 100-fold returns that God promises when you align yourself with His purposes, but I didn't have to experience those returns financially in an account with my name on it. I wanted to trust God to do what he would do, so shifting kind of the uses of money away from savings a little bit, because I didn't feel like there was just this unlimited amount that I was supposed to try to aspire to or build. It was just kind of I trust God to do what he will do, and so that was actually a huge part of. It was saving less for me.

Speaker 1:

I'm so glad that you mentioned that. I really am, because I think more of us need to hear that that is okay. It's okay not to spend your entire life just accumulating as much as possible. It's okay not to spend your entire life just accumulating as much as possible. It's okay.

Speaker 1:

As I have studied scripture and as the Lord has just used it to just pierce my heart, that has been a similar response of my husband and myself of, if you ask me, you know, even just a few years ago, I'm like all right, cody, we're working really hard so that we can save X percentage into this account here, so that this grows and then this starts to come up and up and up, and if I don't have that, it's going to be difficult to sleep at night, right? If I recognize that I'm not putting as much towards this as I ought to be, I'm using air quotes, then I'm not responsible. I think that's a very key narrative that's played out throughout at least the West. You need to be saving as much as possible all the time, otherwise it's not responsible, and when I read scripture, I get challenged by that worldview a bit, and so let's talk through that a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

Cody, earlier, you mentioned that scripture started to again rub up against your worldview and how you thought about money and possessions. Can you share with us? Just maybe there's a certain Bible story or a certain passage or something that comes to mind? For you that started to be the string that started to unravel all of the other things? Share with us what that might have been.

Speaker 2:

The one that I always point back to. That just it's like highlighted in my mind when I think back to that time, right before Keelan challenged me to set a financial finish line, was Matthew 6, 24, that says you cannot serve two masters, you can't serve God and money. And it took a while for it to sink in that that's exactly what I was trying to do, and I just had this belief that I could be trusted with great wealth, even though we have so many poor examples in the world and in scripture of people who have not been able to really honor God in the way that they steward much. And I think there was just this attitude that I had, that I would be the exception to the rule.

Speaker 1:

So, starting, to undo that.

Speaker 2:

And you know, like I said, really seeing it as my resources, that I was giving some of it to God. That was symptomatic of this core belief that I didn't realize that I held, that I was going to serve money and then also serve God and I had to kind of be responsible with how much I served God with my finances or else I wasn't going to get to where I was going on time or whatever it might look like. But the concept of heavenly treasure or eternal treasure is talked about often in Scripture and that's really interesting to me because you know, I didn't become less ambitious. I don't suddenly not have goals anymore. They just look totally different, they're aimed in a different direction and they're motivated by a different worldview.

Speaker 2:

But I think God knows that. You know, certain people are very driven and ambitious towards achievement and when that's totally directed at ourselves, that's how we end up as the rich fool with really big barns. But to look out and say God what are you doing, how have you made me uniquely and how do you want me to participate in what you're doing? He can change the focus and often when you start walking in your gifting, you see things happen that you can't even take credit for with your own hands. It's like the Holy Spirit is up to something and he happens to be using me for the small part of it, and that's just a really exciting way to live is what I'm starting to discover, and I think he knows that we are inherently selfish. We're motivated to improve our own situations, and so he gives us this alternative of do not store up treasure on earth, instead, store up treasure in heaven. I don't know exactly what that is, but he gives us some clues on how to go about that, and that's why I keep coming back to surrender and gratitude. I think those are on the pathway to storing up treasure in heaven. It hijacks our selfish nature and says, hey, you actually are kind of focused on the same ambitious mindset with a different time horizon it's eternity rather than the rest of your life or the rest of your career and the way that you go about it is actually, in many cases, sacrificial. What does it look like to live your life in a way that doesn't maximize your worldly wealth with the time that you have on earth, but instead by loving, serving others, looking at a stranger and seeing Jesus and treating them accordingly? That is a way that we can actually try to pursue that. I don't think it's a suggestion, I think it's a command do not store up treasure on earth, but instead in heaven. It's like I don't have a theology degree, but that's one of those things that really bothers me of. You know, going back and auditing how did I manage finances this year? Okay Well, am I storing up treasure on earth? To some extent, yes, I think.

Speaker 2:

You know, all of us are wise to plan for the future, but where are we letting fear drive our decisions? Fear of not having enough, fear of what might happen in the future? And you want to be prudent, you want to be wise, but you don't want to operate out of a mindset that there will not be enough in the future. Because the fact that we're here today, living, breathing, having this conversation, is evidence that God has always provided enough for us, and he's done it through all kinds of different means and he's very creative. But there may have been seasons where we didn't feel like we had enough, but we did. And to live a little bit more like that it's a little scary, but I think that's where the treasure in heaven is actually stored.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for sharing that, cody. I love where you're taking us right now, and again it's just challenging our perspectives a bit to say well, are we living with an eternal mindset, or are we living for a kingdom mindset, to build up God's kingdom, or are we spending the majority of our time, effort, energy, focused solely on building our own personal kingdom? That will one day amount to nothing, right Like? Let's just be honest there. I'm curious. You've talked to a lot of people who have, you know, pursued God in this way of setting a finish line and, again, this isn't the only way to do it, but it's a way and I like that. It really helps again set those kind of healthy guardrails so we keep our focus on the thing that ultimately matters. How have you seen, cody, how have you seen people drawing closer to Jesus by going through this process?

Speaker 2:

I think you can actually look back in history and find many examples of people adopting this mindset in different countries in different times and different inflationary periods. And I point back to the Israelites wandering through the desert for 40 years. They had a finish line imposed upon them, which is a different kind of relationship to God that he said only store up what you need for the day and he was talking about foods, manna and pheasants, right, not US dollars and your IRA or bank account. So they were just told only take what you need, don't store it up. And the first thing they tried to do was store it up. But that is one of the earliest versions of a finish line that I can see and what he taught them through. That is what prepared them to enter into the promised land, which was part of a much, much bigger story.

Speaker 2:

But it's hard for me to zoom out. Sometimes I get focused on am I going to have enough mana tomorrow? You know what would it look like? What if I'm responsible for more people? Or you know whatever it is. But you can see this story on both sides. You can see Rockefeller when he's asked how much is enough? He says just a little bit more right.

Speaker 2:

And then you see John Wesley, who basically said here's how much I'm going to spend on myself. And it's a totally different time and he didn't adjust it throughout his life. But he actually accumulated quite a bit of income streams and basically at the end of his life was saying I have these coins in my pocket, I should have given those. Oh, I have this coat that I'm wearing, I could have given those. Oh, I have this coat that I'm wearing, I could have given that away. So when I look at the comparison, I'd love to be on the journey that leads me to think and behave more like that second story, which is just so totally focused on others.

Speaker 2:

But through the podcast we get to hear stories like this almost weekly and this leads to people like Alan and Catherine Barnhart giving away their company, which is generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and they set a finish line and they said this is what I need for myself.

Speaker 2:

We've heard people who started companies that they don't actually take any ownership in because they're just so focused on what could God do with it if I didn't take my piece along the way and battle him over this concept of ownership? That is really exciting to me and I'm hearing more and more stories from around the world of people living that way in large and small ways, because sometimes we're not entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars and that is not a great way to measure generosity, in my opinion. I think you can measure giving, but it's really difficult for us to measure or judge generosity. I think of the widow giving her two copper coins and how Jesus responded, and how the Pharisees gave large amounts and how Jesus responded. There it's so personalized and that's part of the beauty of it is it has broad applications for all of us, regardless of what we've been entrusted with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let's lean into this a little bit. More of generosity is for everyone. We are all called to live generously, not just the ones that we deem as super wealthy. But in these contexts I always like to zoom out for just a moment and say like, remember, friends, if you live in America, you are one of the wealthiest people in the world, no matter what your income level is here. If you have access to clean water, if you have a roof over your head, if you have a car in your driveway, you are one of the wealthiest people in the world. So let's take that for a moment and say you know, last I checked Cody you may have a more accurate, tell me if this is wrong but last I checked the average household income in America ranked within the top 4% wealthiest people in the world. Now, of course, we can say like, cost of living is a lot higher here, you know, and there's a lot of things. Have you heard about inflation, you know? Yes, but our standards of living are also so incredibly high.

Speaker 1:

So I say that to just again bring some healthy perspective, because I know there's quite a few people listening in who may feel that tension of like all right, well, when I get to the point I feel like I have enough to give away, then I can start to think about, you know, becoming generous. But really it's for everyone today and it's about the surrendered life. So let's just talk for a few more minutes. Cody tells, like what are some of the biggest hangups that you hear from people? Whether or not you know they say yes, I want to set a finish line or not. But, more specifically, what I'm hearing you say is just like this lifestyle of saying like I'm surrendering to the will of God and I'm dedicating my life to serving Him and not simply chasing after money or growing wealth for the sake of growing wealth. What are some of the biggest hangups that you hear?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love this question. You know we serve an incredibly generous God and we are made in His image and it's natural. I'm not surprised by any of the studies that correlate joy with generosity, because it's living in a way that we are designed to live. Of course, it comes back to give us fuller life, right? That just makes complete sense to me when we understand a little bit about who God is and what he's freely given to us for us to try to live the way that we are designed to. It's really no surprise to me.

Speaker 2:

But I think fear is the biggest obstacle really, and I see it honestly. On both sides there's fear of not having enough, which can really prevent someone from taking risks. I think the fear of taking risk is actually a limiting factor that can stifle our ability to hear from the Lord and actually obey. I've seen that in my own life and that can look like not having enough or it could look like the fear of loss. If you have accumulated much, I think there's entire industries built on preventing you from losing what you've accumulated, and that is a really interesting dynamic, because the underlying motivation is fear. I mean you can get insurance on pretty much anything. I'm not suggesting that you should or shouldn't, but it's interesting to watch the trends of the more you accumulate, the more you have to worry about. That just makes sense to me as well.

Speaker 2:

But it also can prevent you from taking risk and not just financial risk I'm talking about with your life. If you've built up a certain status or position or income level and your lifestyle has grown accordingly, it becomes much more difficult. If God calls you into a totally new thing, then that can actually be a huge obstacle. It's more for you to unwind to say yes, it feels like more of a sacrifice. And so unwind to say yes, it feels like more of a sacrifice.

Speaker 2:

And so I do hear lots of stories of people walking away from really big incomes, from really big lifestyles, and I get to hear how that plays out in their lives, which is such an encouragement because it's not a suggestion from thousands of years ago. It's a pattern that we've established throughout history and it's very real and happening today. That's one of the reasons I love all the stories that get shared around this. But I really do think that fear of not having enough either now or in the future and fear of loss are going to be the biggest limiting factors to taking that step and saying God, I trust you, you've always been faithful to provide. What would you have me do next?

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that. I wholeheartedly agree. And as you were talking, I remember this conversation I had with a client a while back. He had just found out he was a millionaire, so he called me. He was like super stoked, he literally spent his entire life working to this point, all right. And I remember him so distinctly saying like Courtney, we did it, we're millionaires. You just got the call from our advisor Like we're excited, and I was like yes, congratulations, this is awesome. And I just asked him you know, yesterday you weren't a millionaire, today you are. What's true about you today? That wasn't true about you yesterday. And Cody, without skipping a beat, he said I have more stress now because I have more to lose, and rest now because I have more to lose, and so it speaks so clearly to what you just shared and it's so true.

Speaker 1:

We've seen this pattern over and over and over again. As we're wrapping up today, friends, I told you we were going to work hard to try to shake up your thinking a little bit. Right, our goal is always to draw people closer to Jesus through money conversations, and so you might walk away feeling a little tension. Right now. I even feel it a little bit as we're leaning into this more. But let's just pause and just take a moment to ask yourself, you know, is wealth standing in the way of you saying yes to Jesus? And if you're not sure, I want you to look at your assets. Okay, that could be simply your income, that could be your home, that could be your 401k, that could be your IRA, you know, whatever you want to take a look at there and just say, if God asked me in this moment to give it away for his kingdom, would I hesitate? If I would, then there's some hard work to be done and, cody, you mentioned earlier as an advisor, you kind of got a crash course in this already because you've managed other people's money all day long, right.

Speaker 1:

I've had a similar experience where the last few mission trips I've been a part of, I think because I'm like the financial person they always let me hold the group's money during the mission trips, which is a big deal. I'm always like super nervous, like that. I'm not going to lose this, you know, big stack of cash as we're walking around a foreign country, right. But it's interesting, it's happened every single time, and so whenever we are at a place where we need to buy supplies or we need to buy food, whatever it might be, I pull out the group's money and pass it out to everyone, and everyone's always like oh, thanks Courtney for buying dinner, thanks Courtney for buying this. And I'm like, no, literally, this is not mine. I'm literally just holding it for you, like this is not mine.

Speaker 1:

And so in that moment again, it was kind of like a check of like I could, for, like, in a weird way, get an inflated ego, like how generous am I that I'm like buying everyone all this stuff, when this, literally, this money was put into my hand for this specific purpose. And now I'm just being obedient and dealing it out to everyone according to what I was asked to do. Right, it's not even a reflection of my generosity, it's simply a reflection of my obedience, right? And so I encourage people to kind of look at their money the same way. God put it in your hand for a reason.

Speaker 1:

That reason may not be for you to keep it, and I think that's kind of the first step in starting to flip that switch, when we look at our money and realize, oh, yes, I put into my account. It might technically have my name on it, but it may not be for me to keep Right. So that's my encouragement to you, friends who are listening. If you're feeling that tension, good, I'm glad. I hope you're a little bothered now, like my friend Cody. This is good and certainly if you want help walking through this more, cody's going to share in a moment some awesome resources that they have available. You also know that you can meet us anytime at financialdiscipleshipcenter to learn how to live more like Jesus with your money. But, cody, tell us, if people are walking away with just one thing from today, one thing? I know you shared so many amazing insights, but if they could walk away with one thing today, what would that be?

Speaker 2:

I think what I wish I had known much earlier in my journey is that God has created each of us with a specific purpose and plan in mind, and that should be the foundation of how we live our lives and how we manage everything that he's entrusted to us. So the process of discovering what that is might look different for everyone, but I'm fairly confident it's going to start by saying yes to something. So I would just encourage people to ask God why have you created me If you don't already know with clarity what that is? He may be leading you on a journey of discovery, and that's going to start with saying yes and taking a step.

Speaker 1:

Amen, thank you so much for that. Absolutely, please, take a step, please, please, please. And Cody, if people want to get more involved, if they want to hear more about what you're doing, maybe listen to you more on your podcast.

Speaker 2:

How can people get in touch with you? Yeah, so we have a website, finishlinepledgecom. We are always putting new resources on there to help people think through some of these concepts but also take some steps. Feel free to contact me directly, cody, at finishlinepledgecom. Our podcast is going to be available pretty much anywhere that you listen to podcasts Apple Podcasts, spotify. It's also on the website, but it's called the Finish Line Podcast. It's, in my opinion, a great collection of amazing stories of how God's using His people to accomplish His purposes all around the world, so I hope that's fun and encouraging to anyone who might add that to their list.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. Thank you so much, friend. Thank you all for listening in. I hope this conversation encouraged you but also gave you a really healthy challenge, and I hope you have something now to take with you in your next prayer time with the lord. Say god, let's talk about this right, let's wrestle with it a bit, and I pray that that praying leads to you saying yes, as Cody said. Thank you all. Thanks Cody again. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for listening. If today's conversation has blessed you, share our podcast with a friend and if you have a money question, email me at Courtney at MarkleyCoachingGroupcom. I'm Courtney Markley and this has been the Heart of Money.