The Better Budgeting Podcast

Episode 90: When Fear Meets Finances: Surrender and Accountability

• Danielle Reese • Episode 90

Share episode

Send us a text

We draw a straight line between fear, half-commitments, and money stress, using Jeremiah 37–38 as a lens on why budgets fail and how courage and counsel change the story. We share practical ways to move from wishy-washy habits to clear, accountable action that serves your real goals.

• commitment versus wishy-washy money habits
• King Zedekiah’s fear and mixed decisions
• how fear sabotages budgets and debt payoff
• surrender as decisive alignment with goals
• wise counsel versus noisy advice
• accountability structures that stick



Schedule a session: Let’s talk about your finances, why it’s hard to commit, and what you need to stop riding that wishy-washy line and fully surrender to make your finances better
Work with me: Check the link in the show notes to join the Better Budgeting Playbook or our free Financial Freedom Society on Facebook
Send feedback: There’s a “send a message” button—anonymous or with your info
If you decide to give your life over to Jesus Christ, please let me know. I’m going to praise to the heavens for you.


Danielle is a money coach helping those who have been trying to figure out their finances FINALLY create a clear plan so they don’t have to worry about waiting to refill their bank account the next payday.

She is the founder of The Financial Freedom Society on Facebook and her signature money coaching program, The Better Budgeting Playbook. You can sign up for her newsletter by clicking here.

Take the first step towards financial freedom and sign up for a complimentary assessment call with me, Danielle Reese.


Grab your copy of "Let's Talk Groceries" Your Guide to Reducing Your Grocery Bill" This is an ebook with over 30 pages of tips, tricks, and guidance to help you save hundreds on your grocery bill!

Sign up for The Better Budgeting Blueprint for $99.

Grab your free copy of The Bank Statement Exercise.


You can connect with her on Facebook or Instagram.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the Better Budgeting Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Reese. I'm a money coach and the founder of the Better Budgeting Playbook, and this is my one-on-one coaching program for women and couples who have been trying to figure out their finances, finally create a clear plan so they don't have to worry about waiting on payday anymore. I became a money coach in 2020 after paying off over$60,000 in debt, rekindling my marriage, becoming financially free, and wanting others to experience the same. If you'd like to work with me, you can check out the link in the show notes there. Also, we have the Financial Freedom Society on Facebook. It's a free Facebook community focusing on debt payoff, saving strategies, budgeting, and money mindset. You can find the link to that community in the show notes as well. I am so happy to have you here this week on the Better Budgeting Podcast. Listen, we are going to make a major turn in this podcast because I was recording one earlier this week, this same podcast, and we're going to actually talk about what I was talking about when I was talking about it earlier this week. But I went to my Bible study group this morning, and this passage that I read fit so perfectly with what I'm going to share with you. So if you have been listening for any amount of time now, or you're just tuning in for the first time, I'm a woman of faith. I don't talk a lot about my faith on this podcast. You know, I do believe in God. I believe Jesus Christ and He was alive, and He, you know, the Holy Spirit is still living in among us. I truly believe all of these things. So this is actually my very first podcast episode, really like stepping out my faith here. Okay. So I might lose some listeners, but I'm hoping and praying that this just like strikes a chord with somebody out there. And yeah, we'll we'll go with that. Okay. So the podcast that I had originally started recording is about commitment in our finances. Just commitment. And I remember talking about like wishy washy feeling of you're either committed or you're not committed. You're either doing the dang thing or you're not doing the dang thing. Okay. And I was reading Jeremiah 37 today. And if you've ever read the book of Jeremiah, it is sad. It is very sad. His whole life, Jeremiah's whole life, he is just trying to pour into people, remind him who our God is. He is a good man. He is going to take care of us. But you know, you guys are living pretty crazy right now. And and this is these are the things that are going to happen if you continue to live the way that you live. So in chapter 37, there is a king. His name is King Zedekiah. And listen, sometimes when I read the Bible and I don't know how to pronounce the name, and I could be saying that wrong, but I say zidada, and we move on. Okay, but I'm doing my best to pronounce this for you. So Zedekiah, he is the king, okay? And he is succeeding many great kings of these era. And he is very young, a very young king, like roughly maybe 21 years old. And you think about like he is in charge of an entire multiple generations, right? An entire community of people. He is the king. And he he calls the shots at 21 years old, and he is succeeding all of these great kings. There is a lot of pressure with that. So Jeremiah is telling this king, like, yo, we need to straighten up our stuff because God is going to, you know, wreak havoc on us here. And if you are not a follower of Jesus, if you don't believe in God or you know you have questions about it, listen, this is this is not necessarily a deep dive. God loves us, all right. The New Testament, Jesus dying, that's the New Testament. This kind of like changes some of the behavior with God, all right? But here, here's where we're at. All right, back to Jeremiah 37, right? Uh the king talks to Jeremiah and he's like, hey, Jeremiah, pray to our Lord God. And you're like, well, why didn't why didn't Zedekiah, why didn't the king pray, like, why is he asking Jeremiah to to pray to God for us? Right? Like if he if he's been just pushing away Jeremiah for preaching about God, like why are you asking, why are you asking me to pray, dog? Okay. So Jeremiah prays and he gets a word from God, and it basically says, Hey, like, things aren't gonna go your way. We got a war out here outside of these gates. It's not gonna go well. And what do they do? They put Jeremiah in jail. They're like, nope, we don't like that answer. In jail, you go. Do not pass go, do not collect$200 straight to jail. And then 37-15, it says they were furious, the people, they were furious with Jeremiah and had flogged him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary. Jonathan's house had been converted into a prison. Jeremiah was put into a dungeon cell where he remained for many days. But then, interestingly, verse 17, King Zedediah, Zed Zedekiah, secretly, that's what my Bible says, secretly requested that Jeremiah come to the palace where the king asked him, Do you have any messages from the Lord? If I was Jeremiah, I won't be playing these games. I've just been in jail. I have been in jail for telling you what the Lord has shared. And you're you're about to ask me, Doc. No. No, no, but Jeremiah, he he's wonderful. He's wonderful. He's like, Yes, I do. You will be defeated by the king of Babylon. Now, before the king sends him on his way back to the dungeon, Jeremiah pleads, like, please do not send me back to this dungeon. And King Zedediah, Zedekiah, gosh, I'm gonna just keep getting this wrong. Zedekiah commanded, this is verse 21, commanded that Jeremiah not be returned to the dungeon. Instead, he was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace. I'm not saying that that's like the best place, but it sounds a whole lot better than the dungeon cell, right? Like it's in the royal palace. It is in the courtyard. When I envision this, I think of like statues and flowers and stuff. At least I get to look at that. And then this really stuck out to me. The king also commanded that Jeremiah be given a loaf of fresh bread every day, as long as there was any left in the city. So the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, um, and basically nobody could get out, so they were running low on food. And I was like, oh my gosh, King Zedediah, Zedekiah, or King Z, he's got a heart. He's got a heart. He didn't send him back to the dungeon. He did, he's giving him food. He didn't even beat him like last time. I'm like, okay, he's got a heart. He's he's got something in there. Like something's happening in that heart, right? Well, here's Jeremiah now preaching from the royal palace, right? Courtyard. And he says, Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die of war, famine, and disease. But those who surrender to the Babylons will, Babylonians, will live. The reward will be life, they will live. The Lord also says the city of Jerusalem will certainly be handed over to the Armony, Armony, the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it. Verse 4. So we're in uh 38, Jeremiah 38, verse 4. So these officials went to the king and said, Sir, this man must die. That kind of talk will undermine the morale of the few fighting men we have left. Okay. This is this is where King Z has a moment to be like, no, I I believe that Jeremiah is good. He is sharing good news. I'm a little shaky myself, not knowing which direction, but like there is some hope in what Jeremiah is saying. You want to know what King Z ends up doing? Ooh. Jeremiah 38, verse 5. King Z agreed. All right, he said, do as you like. I can't stop you. King Z, what are you doing on the throne? Homie, like what is what is happening? What what are you doing? Why what do you mean? What do you mean I can't stop you? You threw him in the dungeon in the first place, and then you put him in the courtyard of the royal palace. What do you mean I can't stop you? So officials took Jeremiah from the cell on the courtyard, right? And he lowered him into this empty cistern, which is a big reservoir, okay, deep. It's filled with a little bit of water. Um, that's you know, where they're getting off in the rainwater and stuff, and it's collecting, you know, and storing water essentially. The Bible even says that there was a thick layer of mud at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it. Like this this is probably worse than the dungeon at this point. Now, there was in Ethiopian, Ethio Ethiopian, Ethiopian, there we go, Ethiopian. Um, his name was Abed Melech, yep, Jeremiah 38, verse 7, okay. And he's a court official, and he basically says to the king, yo, this ain't good, my lord, my king, these men have done a very evil thing by putting Jeremiah the prophet into this well. He will soon die. And that ain't cool. That ain't cool, brother. You know what King Z says? He's like, Okay, take 30 men with you and pull Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies. King Z, do you really know what you want? Do you have any idea what you want? Because you have been so back and forth here, brother. But listen, it continues on. It just continues on. So they they pull him up by ropes out of this cistern, out of this reservoir, and they put him back in the cell in the courtyard. Now I don't know how long this is, but eventually, King Z, Zedekiah, he says, Hey, go fetch Jeremiah for me. Jeremiah 38, 14. He sends for Jeremiah and they brought him to the Lord's temple. And King Z is like, hey, I want to ask you something. If I'm Jeremiah, I'd be like, you are not asking me nothing. Jeremiah even says, if I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And if I give you advice, you won't listen to me anyway. And I'm like, is that not so true in 2025? Like we give people advice and they don't listen anyway. So King Z, he promises, hey, you know, I'm not gonna kill you, all right? I'm not gonna hand you over to people that will, but we just we got to chat this out. In Sweet Jeremiah, he says, This is what the Lord God of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says, if you surrender to splipping the page, Babylonian officers, you and your family will live and the city will not be burned down. But if you refuse to surrender, you will not escape. The city will be handed over to the Babylonians and they will burn it to the ground. And here, here is where I was like, oh my gosh, King Z is, he's a real human, man. He's got some feelings. He says, But I am afraid to surrender, for the Babylonians may hand me over to the Judeans. And who knows what they will do to me. I'm like, oh he's scared. That sucker is scared. He is he's terrified, and that's why he's been so wishy-washy. And then uh Jeremiah 38, verse 20, he says, Jeremiah says, You won't be handed over to them if you choose to obey the Lord. Your life will be spared and all will go well for you. But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me. All the women left in your palace will be brought out and given to the officers of the Babylonian army. Then the women will taunt you, saying, What fine friends you have, they might they have betrayed and misled you. When your feet sink in the mud, they have left you for free or fate. All right, I'm not gonna get into that little last section, but the big section is, you know, you won't be handed over to them if you choose to obey the Lord. Your life will be spared and all will go well for you. And I got to thinking, like, how many times are we wishy-washy about things? Like King Z was clearly wishy-washy on a lot of things. He didn't know what to do with Jeremiah. He didn't know. He just wanted to make the people happy. How many times are we wishy-washy in our commitment in our finances? How many times are we doing things because we want to make the people happy? We want to make our kids happy, our spouse happy, whatever it is. And for King Z, unless he's gonna fully surrender, meaning unless he's fully committing to God, all these bad things are about to go down for him. And and God was gracious enough to like lay that out for him, spell it out. There was, there was no guessing. He knew exactly what was gonna happen. How many times do we not commit to our finances? We kind of just like dive in and we're we're toe in, maybe feet in, but we're not fully submerging into it. We're not going on the debt payoff journey fully. Maybe we are like, oh, we got one card paid off, we got two cards paid off, there's six left. And we're like, that's freed up enough cash flow. We're gonna just go on vacation. We're just gonna go do these things. We need to stop being wishy-washy. And do you want to know why in 3717, Jeremiah 3717, I believe that King Z wanted to secretly talk to Jeremiah? Secretly at that. Because he didn't want to be foreseen as a weirdo, as someone that is not enjoying life, as someone that is turning down vacation so that they can pay off debt, as somebody that says no to going out to eat because everybody in the car is screaming, I'm hungry, and it's only 15 minutes until home. I mean, that's not really King Z, right? Because there wasn't any Chick-fil-A back then. But you understand what I'm saying. The comparison is there. So if we're comparing this to finances, we have to commit to the journey. We can't just get through the first hard part of phase one and just let it fall off and be like, oh, you know, there's just enough. There's just enough cash flow. We paid off enough. No, no, no. Like, keep going. And how do we do that? We get accountability. Whether you come into my program, the Better Budgeting Playbook, I'm gonna coach you up. I'm definitely gonna do it. And I'm not gonna let you stop. Okay, that sounded a little weird. I will let you stop. You can you're free to leave at any point in coaching. Okay. What I meant is I'm not gonna give up on you. When you're telling me, hey, you know, I feel like we should be spending more money on vacation, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna come back to it. All right, what do you want? Do you really want to get into that new house? Because if you really want to get in that new house by next summer, guess what we're gonna have to do? We're gonna have to say a little less to Christmas. We might have to say a little less to the vacations. And that's hard to hear sometimes, but if you know you're not gonna make those decisions on your own, you need accountability and you need education too. At least in these chapters, Jeremiah 37 and 38, King Z, he doesn't have wise counsel. No, people are like, you should go and kill him. And he's like, you know what? Yeah, right, we should. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then someone's come, you shouldn't kill him. We should get him out. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you don't have wise counsel in your life, you're going to run into this wishy-washiness that is inevitable. It's inevitable. Because you've got somebody chirping in your ear to do this, and the other person chirping in your ear to do that, and you just you get stuck. You don't know what to do. So I encourage you, go schedule a session. Let's talk about your finances. Let's talk about why it's so hard to commit for you, what you need to do to stop riding that wishy-washy line and fully surrendering to make your finances better. And honestly, if this episode really, you know, resonated with you, if you liked this episode, let me know. Give me some feedback. There's a send a message button right there. It's all anonymous, or you can share your information with me, whatever you want to do. But if you decide to give your life over to Jesus Christ, please let me know. I'm gonna praise to the heavens for you. I'm gonna pray for you. And I'm just I'm gonna be so forget everything else I said.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

We got a new friend in the kingdom of heaven, guys. All right. I know this was a different episode. I don't know if more are gonna come out like this. I think I'm gonna let God take that reign and you know, we'll go from there. Um, but I just thought it was so interesting that I started recording a podcast about commitment, and I was talking about people being wishy-washy and like just get it done, like fully submerge yourself in it. And then I read this today and I said, oh my, I see the resemblance here. And that's why I believe the Bible is living proof that God is still real, because listen, that that is really 2025 right now. Okay, there's a lot of people walking around, not even just finances of wishy washy, but all decision making, right? All right, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. We'll talk soon. Bye bye.