00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 725 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Derek Guajardo from strong life coach. I encourage you to find your own journey to building your own strong life. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader, Because the truth is It's not just about you. And trust me.
00:00:32 I've had times in my life where things were really, really bad, but being able to turn around and help and serve others actually somehow made my situation a little better. Oh, it didn't really fix it. It didn't make the problems go away, but it helped my heart and my mind and my soul. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:00:55 If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's episode about investing in others, through stewarding your treasures.
00:01:27 I talk with you about how your money can bless others directly, how your money can bless others by giving you time and how your money can help. Even if you don't have that much of it. As we talk about stewarding your treasures, wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime, it turns out you can.
00:01:51 All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon on Monday. Jared and I were talking a little bit about how the investments that you use, the actual money that you put into the investment can be used to bless others or to help others.
00:02:24 And I wanted to talk a little bit more about how the money that you have can be used to invest in others and bless others both directly and indirectly. You know, Tuesday, we talked a little bit about the parable of the talents and those different sorts of interpretations. And on Wednesday we talked about using money to purchase time to scale what you can do using the time that you can buy back with money.
00:02:52 But today I want to talk a little bit about actually directly serving others with, you know, sometimes in little ways and sometimes in large ways, we're called upon to give the money that we have in a way that helps others. As an example, just a tiny one. Have you ever been in line at maybe a Starbucks or the grocery store or somewhere else?
00:03:21 And you felt called to pay for the drink of the person in line behind you, a total stranger, someone you don't know. I had this happen once in an airport where as I was getting up to the line, the lady told me my drink had been purchased by the person that had just left and I didn't know them. And so of course I went ahead and purchase the drink for the person in line behind me as well.
00:03:45 It was obvious that I could should pass that forward in some way. And what happened is my layover was pretty long. It was well over an hour. So I went back to the place to get a refill and purchase another drink almost an hour later. And as I got up the line had continued. And again, the person in front of me purchased my drink and I bought the one for the person behind me that had gone on for well over an hour.
00:04:12 And I asked the woman, had everyone been doing it? And she said, yes, because see the truth is sometimes what you use your money to directly bless someone else. It sends ripples out where those investments continue to pay dividends, not just for the person that you directly helped, but for others, this can be in the form of tithing and giving or offerings to your church.
00:04:36 This can be by purchasing groceries for that neighbor, that's struggling and not able to purchase them right now because of something that's going on. This can be about handing the waiter an extra tip, but that's another story that's happened where my wife and I were blessed. We were on a trip on Thanksgiving day and all, I'll give you a hint. If there's somebody working waitstaff on a Thanksgiving day,
00:05:01 you, you know that there's a really good chance that they need that job and they need that money. And the waitress that was waiting on us was obviously flustered and my wife is very empathetic. And so she stopped her for a moment and kind of took her hand and said, what's going on? It's obvious that you're upset. And the woman said apologized and said she was so sorry,
00:05:23 but she was kind of flustered because on her way to work that day, her van had broken down and it was now sitting on the side of the road and she was not sure how she was going to be able to get it fixed because you know, that that amount of money was going to be fairly significant. She wasn't even sure how she could get it to the shop and what was going on.
00:05:45 And so she was a little distracted. My wife and I actually have a budget item forgiving, and we actually ended up being able to leave that woman a fairly significant in cash. We emptied out our, our trip fund, the money that we were taking in cash for, for driving up to my mom's house. And we left all of that for her as a tip and the amounts not important.
00:06:12 And it probably wasn't enough to cover all of the repairs, but I guarantee you it's still a much larger tip than she normally would have gotten on a, about a $30. I feel that we had had had left 10%. You know, she would have gotten three or four, maybe $5, but we left much more than that. And I say that not to brag on us for doing that,
00:06:34 but rather to point out because we've done a good job of stewarding our money. We're able to freely do that. When we feel called to do it, when that opportunity to directly bless someone arises, then we can do it because we've done it. Good job of stewarding the resources that God has blessed us with. Your money can bless others directly in those ways,
00:07:02 but it can also direct. It can also indirectly help others. Sometimes it's not about handing someone money instead. It's about using your time. Like we talked about on Tuesday buying your time so that you can go take a day off and invest in the boys club or the girls club or big brothers and big sisters or other things that allow you to impact maybe children or another charity that has your heart and your mind.
00:07:32 It allows you to spend time on those things because having some financial independence gives you that freedom. He can also help you indirectly help others by investing in things like a charity by giving money to organizations that do good things, you can multiply your money and pool it with others to do even better things. I also look at that as why I'm called to give to the church.
00:08:01 And the truth is though, here's the question that usually comes up. What if I don't have very much, what if I'm struggling? What if I'm just barely getting by or what if I'm in debt and trying to use all of my money to pay off debt? Am I still called to give? And I would argue that yes, you are. Now sometimes you're called to give money.
00:08:23 I believe tithing is something that we're called to do, even if we're in debt, even if we have very little, but that's my belief system. But even if you're not going to be able to give or not willing to give actual money, maybe that's too big of a struggle. I still believe you're called to help and bless others both directly and indirectly.
00:08:45 So it's the challenge then is to find the way to do it. Can you find a way to invest a little bit of time and energy into an, can you find a way to take a skill that you're really, really good at and use it and gift it for free? Maybe you can work with the people at the place where you work and find a way to organize the entire group.
00:09:10 So that as a group, we can do something that really serves and helps a large number of people. No matter how difficult your situation is, there's almost always someone else that you're called and able to help because the truth is, it's not just about you. And trust me. I've had times in my life where things were really, really bad, but being able to turn around and help and serve others actually somehow made my situation a little better.
00:09:44 Oh, it didn't really fix it. It didn't make the problems go away, but it helped my heart and my mind and my soul. And not because I was looking at someone else and going, Oh, you know, look, there's so much worse off than I am. No, it was because I could recognize in that common problem, the things that I was suffering and the things that they were suffering,
00:10:04 although they were different, showed me the humanity that we all have and how we're all made in the image of God. And we all have difficulty and challenges, no matter how good things look on the outside, the challenges are still there. And what we're called to do is help each other as we move through this journey called life. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast,
00:10:38 as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of treasures, you can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S four four two two two treasures tips.
00:11:11 And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world..