Hope for your financial life and beyond

Wealth Is Like A Strong City

September 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

Some proverbs just pop with imagery and for me this one brought back memories of the many hours of sleep I lost playing SimCity. I loved building those cities, although I never quite took the time to really understood what the whole point of the game was. I mean, once your map was full and you were connected to all of the side cites, what was supposed to happen next? Were you just supposed to make it stronger, better and more futuristic? Was there ever an endpoint to the game? Oh well, I digress…but I want to play it again right now.

These proverbs also caught my attention because Solomon repeated the same phrase twice in different parts of his book. So if the wisest man who ever lived repeated something twice, it probably requires some extra special attention. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Planning Tagged With: , , ,

Why to Develop a Strategic Plan

August 14, 2012 by 1 Comment

It has been a tough summer in many parts of the Midwest as crops have suffered due to the lack of rain. Drought conditions reduce crop yields, lessen the food supply and can put a farmers entire livelihood in jeopardy. In some countries, a severe drought can lead to famine as crops completely disappear over an extended period of years.

These type of conditions are very difficult for a farmer to plan for because they never know when one might occur. One person from history, however, did get a heads-up about a drought/famine and, because of his foreknowledge of the event, he quite possibly enacted the greatest crisis management plan the world has ever known.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Planning Tagged With:

Count the Cost: Stick to the Plan to Win (Part 3 – Luke 14:28)

July 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

All of us want to finish our lives with honor and dignity. We want to look back over the years that we have been privileged to live hear on earth with a sense of pride, accomplishment and satisfaction that our lives have been well spent. We want to have reached our goals and contributed in some small way to the lives of those around us. We want to have been winners at life.

Wasn’t that the goal of the builder in Luke 14:28?

He wanted to win by finishing his tower. And he knew that weighing the costs of the project ahead of time in some serious get-down-to-business strategic planning sessions was going to help him accomplish his objective.

The point of the verse is about planning but the goal was to finish. What does “finishing” look like in regards to finances?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Biblical Money Truths, Planning Tagged With: , ,

Count the Cost: Find a Plan to Win (Part 2 – Luke 14:28)

July 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

George Bailey is beside himself at the prospects of living here.

Recently, a few miles from where I live, a house was sold for a minor sum of money after sitting vacant for years. The buyer, instead of choosing to live in the property, had the house bulldozed to the ground. Now this doesn’t seem like that uncommon of a thing to have happen to a property. After all, you have to make way for new construction, right?

The irony of the situation, however, is that it was new construction the buyer had leveled…well, at least it was new 7 years ago when they started building this beautiful, upper six-figure mansion of a house on a perfect, 5-acre corner lot of country land. No one had ever lived in that house. The original owner/builder only managed to get it about 75% completed.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Biblical Money Truths, Planning Tagged With: ,

Count the Cost: Follow a Plan to Win (Part 1- Luke 14:28)

July 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In Luke 14:25-33, Jesus is encouraging his followers to count the great personal cost it will take for each of them to truly be his disciple. He is trying to explain that in the very near future he is going to be crucified and in order for them to follow him to his death, they must be willing to die themselves. They would have to forsake everything (including family) in order to make this type of commitment to Jesus.

In order to get his point across, He uses two incredible examples that show how planning ahead of time can lead to a successful outcome.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Biblical Money Truths, Planning Tagged With: