Escaping The Cycle of Materialism

How much is enough? At Blue Trust, we encourage clients to consider this question as they follow their unique path to financial freedom. Often, people discover that accumulating money isn’t nearly as fulfilling as using their money to help others.

On a recent "Wisdom for Wealth. For Life." podcast episode, Blue Trust private wealth advisor, Scott Kiesel talked with clients, Steve and Linda Znachko about how their relationship with money has changed since they committed to a life of generosity and intentionality with their wealth.

Listen in as the Znachkos share how they gained the freedom to step into places of need in their city and beyond.

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Transcript

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(mellow music)- The plan was, I show you all my finances.- (indistinct).- Exactly.(laughing) I show you all my finances and then I come back and you tell me we have enough. And it was that day I looked at Linda and I said, I have to leave. And I did. We had driven separately, I drove out to Cool Creek here in Indianapolis, and I prayed for like two hours. And it was on that day that I realized that there is never enough.(gentle instrumental music)- [Voice Over] You're listening to the Wisdom for Wealth For Life Podcast, brought to you by BlueTrust. In this discussion, we have senior private wealth advisor of BlueTrust, Scott Kiesel, and BlueTrust clients, Steve and Linda Znachko. As a successful business owner, Steve shares with us being trapped in the loop of never having enough income. To the freedom of living sacrificially, they both share with us how they stepped into places of need in their city. Let's listen in now.- [Scott] Steve and Linda, welcome. it is so good to have you and I'm so excited for others to meet you.- [Linda] Well, thank you, Scott. It's good to see you this morning. And I know you're calling us clients, but we also call you friend.- [Scott] Yeah, for sure.- [Linda] And having known you guys for so long, it's really sweet to sit with you and just kind of really reflect on all God has done through our relationship and our friendship. So it's great to be here with you.- [Steve] Absolutely.- [Scott] Well, go back to the inception of our relationship, and as we work with people that have money issues or planning needs, we know that money has gravity. It has this unique hold on people's lives that can be helpful or harmful. So go back to the inception of our relationship, kind of what that meant for you, and things that you guys were struggling with at that time.- [Steve] Yeah, gravity's one word,(laughing) chained and bound is another word. So in this particular, in the beginning of the journey, the struggle was really more mine. I was dealing with finances on an everyday basis. I had a tremendous... Even though you wouldn't have seen it on the outside, a tremendous angst on the inside of always wondering if there was enough. How do you get enough? The drive to arrive at enough. I didn't spend a ton, but saving was my God. So that's kind of where our journey started, which at the very beginning, actually, Scott, it led to my giving my life to Christ and our journey, because we weren't believers when we got married. So we had some experiences where we were just... I had started a business, I was building a business, and we were going to church at the time, but we did not have a relationship with Christ. So I was going through this tremendous struggle, and the best way I can describe it is, I would build a business, I would set a goal. That goal was going to get me contentment, get me freedom, and allow me to have the margin where I wouldn't worry about money every day. And I set that goal four different times, four straight years, and it just never arrived. And the changing, a catalytic moment for us was in the fourth year of my business when we were paid with bonuses at the end of the year, and I got a bonus. And so it was December, it was cold, got a call, got the bonus, and by now, my income was four times the level that I had ever dreamed of. So I finally arrived in that December and I was done. I had enough. And then I got in my car and I drove, and I was two miles outside of the house, and I realized I didn't have enough. I was right in that same cycle of angst, of feeling like, as I looked around, I didn't have enough. And I actually was driving as I was worried about this, and I was actually really messed up about this. It was really hurting me at this time. And I was in that struggle of just going, I don't know if I'm ever gonna get there. What's it gonna take? Confusion. And I pulled out on the highway, an entrance ramp to a highway, and there was a man pulled off on the side of the road, and I had no idea why I stopped, now I do, God led me to stop and help this man, but when I pulled over, he was still on the side of the road, and I was driving my sports car on the way to the club, I had a lot going on at that time, it looked like I had a lot going on in terms of my attire, my car, all of that, and I pulled over, and on the side of the road was a guy who was my age. It was an old, old car. And actually, the windows were frozen over. And I got out of my car and I walked back, and I knocked on the front window and the back window rolled down. And in the backseat was a man about my age who had a hat and a coat and gloves on, and he was reading his Bible. And I looked, and my first thought really was, you're crazy. No one even knows you're here. You're not asking for help. No one's gonna find out your windows are frozen over. So my first reaction was, what are you doing? It wasn't insulting, it was just kind of confusion. Why would you be just sitting here? So anyway, long story short, he has this old car and sometimes when he turns, it shorts out the electrical system. And he said, all I need is a jump on my battery and I'll be on my way. So I turned my car around. I had a small sports car at that time, hooked it up, the battery wasn't big enough to jump his car, but as I was working, setting up jumper cables and everything, he was talking to me about his life. He never actually shared anything from the Bible. But what he shared was he started talking to me about, he said, Steve, he goes, I'm on my way home, my wife's got my favorite meal tonight, and it was turkey and mashed potatoes, and my kids are waiting for me, and this is what we're gonna do it tonight. We're gonna do story time, and then we're gonna do this. And Scott, as I listened to him, I just found myself absolutely enthralled with this man. And at the same time, my head is exploding, because I am looking at him and saying, you don't even have enough money to fix your car, how can you be so content? And it turned out my sports car battery wasn't big enough to jump his. So I had to try and get somebody else to pull over and help. And I was literally standing in the entrance ramp with battery cables, trying to get people, and they wouldn't stop. And I would yell at them as they went by, and I was getting really mad, and he walks over and puts his hands on my shoulder and he said, Steve, it's gonna be okay. And again, in my head, I was screaming. I remember saying, how do you know? How do you know it's gonna be okay? Because I realized my fear is that money was going to make it okay, and I wasn't okay until I had enough money, and I couldn't find enough money, and it just kept moving on me. So anyway, the way this ends up is that we got his car started and he drove off. He got in the car and I found myself, Scott, on the side of the road, I didn't want him to leave. Like I wanted more time with this man. Like I was trying to figure out like, I'm not done with this encounter. But he got in his car and he drove off and he rolled down his window, and he yelled out the window, God bless you, Steve. And I literally sat on the side of the road and I cried for 30 minutes. And what crashed on me that day was that I process things externally, and I knew as people, you know that Scott,(laughing) and Linda knows it even better, I knew as people were driving by on that highway, seeing my attire, my sports car, that they were assuming I was the one who could help this man, and I knew as he drove away, Scott, that I didn't have one thing that he wanted. And I knew as he drove away, that I would've given anything to have the contentment and the peace that he had somehow found. And all I knew that day was that he found it in the Bible. So I actually went from there and I went home, and I started reading the Bible. And the only Bible I had was an old King James version that didn't last very long, so I drove to a Christian bookstore and I got a Bible, and actually, it collided because Linda was being pulled in the same way, and it was a miracle of God that we both looked at each other and said, we have to find out if God is real, because what we're doing, this halfway thing, is the only thing that actually doesn't make sense. If He's real, we've got to be all in. If He's not real, let's get all out. But what we're doing is silly. So that was the crash. So money actually led me to... And one of the verses I read was Proverbs 23:4 and five. And it says, "Cease from chasing after wealth, stopping and giving consideration of it, because when you set your eyes on it, it's gone. It sprouts itself wings like an eagle and flies to the heavens." And I realized that was me, that I would see the nest, I would climb, and every time I almost got there, it went and climbed a little higher, and I would do it again. And I remember thinking to myself, God knew this about me 15 years before I knew this about me. What else does He know about me? So that set us on a journey that led us to giving our lives to Christ. So that's kind of how money encountered that.- [Scott] Yeah, what an amazing story. And I know one of the quotes that you love, that you've shared with me is,"The truly free man is not the man who has everything in the world, but the man who needs nothing from the world."- [Steve] Right.- [Scott] And just set up that journey that you just described.- [Steve] For sure.- [Scott] Talk about next steps then in that journey.- [Steve] And like I said, most of this is on me because I was struggling with it way more. So what our life looked like for Linda is I was making a really, really good income. I would get a huge bonus and Linda would want to do new window coverings, let's say, on the house. So I would get a huge bonus and I'd come home and say, here honey, knock yourself out. Here's $250. Do all the window coverings. And she'd look and go, really? I mean, it was literally that bad. So we had this journey and I'm on this chase to get enough. So that's where you guys, Ron Blue comes in the story, Scott, Corey, is that... So in my mind, I am young and I have hit an income level, and I remember when we had the meeting, we come to your office and we were gonna get a financial plan. And I already knew what that plan was. The plan was, I show you all my finances--- [Linda] You thought you knew.- [Steve] Exactly.(laughing) I show you all my finances and then I come back and you tell me we have enough. That was the plan. And instead we went through this exercise, all of us together, and I gave you all of our finances, and then two weeks later we came back and to meet for that plan, and that day was the life-changing day in terms of how we decided, how I decided we were gonna do money, or I was gonna do money, because at that time, you and I and Corey and we asked these questions, we looked at what I had already invested. I was only about 30 years old. What I already invested, and I said, you guys, how does this measure up against the rest of the world? And you said like, top 98 percentile or top two percentile. And I was like, right. And then you looked at my annual income. And again, top two percent. And then you looked at my lifestyle and you said you live very moderately, again, $250 for window panes tells you. You live moderately on that income. So I'm young, I have more money than 98% of the world, I make more money than 98% of the world, and I live a moderate lifestyle. That adds up to two weeks later, you telling me we're safe and I don't have anything to worry about the rest of my life.- [Linda] That's what you wanted to hear.- [Steve] Yes.(laughing) And instead, we came back two weeks later and you had that big binder.- [Scott] Right, right.- [Steve] And you went through the plan and at the end of it, you showed us that the math said that we had to have 15 more years of an income level and a deposit base that I knew as I calculated that was actually even more than most people would ever make in their lifetime. So now I have more, make more, live moderately, and I still have 15 years to go. And I don't know if you remember, I looked at you and I said, and poor Linda was literally in tears at this point, because I was getting mad, and you guys knew it. I was angry. And Linda was in tears because she thought, now he's gonna really lock down the bank. And I looked at you guys and I said, okay, so then I'm young, I have more... I said, how is the rest of the world doing? And then I said this statement to you, I don't know if you remember this, I said, and by the way, if you change the interest rates or the inflation rate by one percent, it blows everything up. And you guys said, right. And it was that day, I looked at Linda and I said, I have to leave. And I did. We had driven separately. I drove out to Cool Creek here in Indianapolis and I prayed for like two hours. And it was on that day that I realized that there is never enough. I had all the equations that happened, but I turned that day, I came home, I drove to Linda, and we decided that day that we were gonna change the way we were gonna live, that we were going to enjoy it more, we were going to give more and we were going to cut our lifestyle just in a way, not actually not a lifestyle, put a ceiling on our income because the only way to be free was like that quote was not to need it. So that was a monumental time in our life.- [Linda] And I was scared that Steve was gonna just really go off the deep end in this place. And when he came to me with so much revelation from God, I of course knew that it was something in him shifted, like the DNA in him over this topic and understanding because of the revelation of God shifted him in his thinking. And it was just so welcoming for me and for then us to be together finally feeling unified in moving forward with what we were aiming for. And we were aiming for like the contentment that Steve talked about. We were aiming for unity and a future, yes, but a different future. Like not a future of acquiring and saving, but a future of joy and generosity.- [Scott] And that's where I think the math frustrated you.- [Steve] Yeah.(laughing)- [Scott] Demonstrate the sustainability of a lifestyle led you to draw a radical line in that lifestyle. Say let's break the mold. So talk about then next steps, what that looked like in terms of defining how much is enough and then how that radically changed your giving and generosity as the story moves forward.- [Steve] Sure, sure. So from that moment, it was still a little bit of a journey towards what do we do now? But what we established is the principle that enough is never going to be enough. And I have to tell you, Scott, you know, now I preach, and the very first sermon I gave was enough is never enough, and I said, right after I make that statement, and most of you right after I said that statement said, I'm not like that. I'm just this far from having enough. And I said, some of you are$50, some of you are $500, some of you are a million dollars, but you're all just this far, and when you move there, it'll move enough. And actually, after that message, I met with a guy that was worth well over a hundred million dollars, and he told me, I'm that man. So the first principle has to believe that we just finally locked in, that there actually isn't acquiring, we'll never get you there, and that's the biblical principle. It's not that money's evil, it's just that if you're leaning on it, you'll never have enough.- [Linda] Yeah. So like you're saying, it looks so different than it does now, but really starting with saying like, we want to be debt-free, and then what is that gonna look like? Like at what pace do we want to become debt-free? Because that's even a journey and it's a philosophy and it's something you embrace, and then we had to spiritually come around it and say, how is this gonna impact us in like raising our children? Right? And all the decisions we make around, do we go on spring break and do we pay off our house first or like all the things and just kind of figuring it out. And we did go years and years of just figuring it out. And we look back on that and think we just communicated a lot about it. And that was okay. There was no right or wrong way to really finally... Like our timing to say like, get there, but it was the journey to get there that really developed us.- [Steve] So we had decisions after decisions that would come and the first one was... And we would have to have discussions each step along the way. Like, I did get a bonus and I could pay off the house. Well, we had been struggling with building a business for a while, and Linda was very comfortable now with a little bit of security, and now all of a sudden we were gonna pay off the house. And she's like, can we do it in steps? So we would have to have discussions along the way of just saying, what's the goal? And the goal was to have that margin. So it guided our decisions to do that, until we decided that the next step was that we needed to look at our income, and actually, we looked at our lifestyle and we knew that in all reality, we had enough. And it's not enough to cover all the equations. It never has been because it goes from one month of savings to one year of savings, to five years of savings, to having enough to live on the interest to... But we just said we were gonna stop that, trust God, and we cut, we drew a line on our income, and the rest we were gonna give away. And to do that, we created a foundation so that we didn't feel rushed to have to make financial decisions, it's actually a very simple process. We created a family foundation and we just kept this much, and it was less than what we gave away every year. So we drew that line. And I have to say that was scary and probably the scariest time for you.- [Linda] For sure. Yeah, I would say the only reason I could do it is because Steve had kind of proven his leadership to me already. I mean, it developed over time, but we had started to taste contentment. We had started to taste like the joy of generosity and like giving our money away, like we had joy in that and it was building relationships. And then we were like, oh my goodness, we don't have... At the end of the year, maybe we don't have enough asks to give all this money away, so then what do we do with it in the meantime? And like for me, it took me a long time to really understand that the reason the foundation would be so beneficial to us was because it would allow us to have the money set aside, so when the bigger asks came, we were ready and able to give. So I was like, oh, I get the concept now of that. And that then allowed us to consider bigger gifts and gifts more in timing with what we felt like we were hearing from God.- [Steve] Well, and Linda, when we first started the foundation, because when you give it to the foundation, you can't get it back.- [Scott] Right.- [Linda] It's the first gift.- [Steve] I was still on 100% commission and there are always threats to my business. So one of the questions that we had to wrestle through is, Linda's always been more generous. I mean, she's been incredibly generous. So she was saying, look, I'm willing to give when the needs come, but why do we have to set it aside to a point when we don't know what's coming ahead? And we just looked at each other and knew that if we didn't do a specific choice, that our living style would continue to creep up, it would not be available. So we just tested that, and we just knew from watching others, and I even talked to some people and that we just saw lifestyle creep that always happened, and we had to look at each other and say, we'll be no different. We'll just keep creeping up. So we had to lock it in. And I want to tell you, there were some scary times in that. There was a time when my biggest client said they couldn't use us anymore, and all of a sudden we didn't have... It looked like that was a threat, and we had to look and say, what do we do now? And push on through that. So there's struggles along the way. It's not easy, but it's wonderful.- [Scott] Yeah, and that's exactly what I was thinking is, just talk about that struggle, because I remember, you make this decision, you draw this line in the sand and immediately you lose one of your largest clients. I mean, business wise, socially, emotionally, the circle of friends you run in, the folks that you're just talking to that think you're nuts. Talk about the impact of that decision.- [Linda] Your question is a good one, Scott, because it kind of helps me remember, really, like the bandwidth of the impact of that and us deciding that, there were certain people in our life that were kind of hard on us to be hanging around because they were, like Steve said, climbing a lifestyle ladder that we had decided we weren't gonna climb anymore. And it wasn't like that anything's wrong with what they're doing, it's just how do we stay focused on the goal that we feel like we're trying to go after here and set just a lifestyle in a social circle our value system kind of had to reveal itself in every way in our lives. And we struggled through that for a while, for sure.- [Steve] Yeah. And I think the other thing that we found undeniable is that whether they agreed with it or, and I'm not talking about Christians, we have a lot of unbelieving friends, so this led to discussions with everybody and--- [Linda] Family and friends.- [Steve] Family that really did, friends, business associates, and the thing that we did find is that we found God's wisdom in that, in terms of the world, money is the biggest God. It makes the same promises to the world that God makes. I can give you success, I can give you safety, I can give you security, I can give you prestige. And when you draw a line with that, people have a hard time explaining that, and it is such a runway to talk about your faith, because when you start fiddling around with money, people don't have a way to explain that, and I had a friend of mine that was a banker with Morgan Stanley, and he just like said, he called me Z-Man, he goes, you know, you don't have enough. He goes, I'm in the financial world. You don't have enough to do what you're doing. It was confounding to him. But Linda and I both, the number of discussions that our financial decisions allowed us to make testimony to the kingdom and to our king, and it's hard to deny when you're actually making money decisions, you don't have to say a lot, sometimes, it just kind of answers a lot for you. I don't know if that makes sense.- [Scott] Yeah, yeah, it really does. And I think about the impact that even that decision has on your family and your kids.- [Steve] Yes.- [Scott] Talk about that decision and the impact in their lives.- [Steve] Yeah.- [Linda] Well, it's been an ongoing conversation. And as we have grown into this, yes, there were decisions that were made and some clear cut timing to some things, but it's been ongoing in us understanding the fullness of what God has had for us. So our children have been along the journey with us. And it is interesting, even now, we've had some recent conversations with them about inheritance, like after losing my parents and anticipating losing Steve's and just all the things about that, and seeing the wisdom in them, honestly, has been really humbling because they didn't just hear us talk about it, they saw us live it. And to look back as a parent, as we've been married 40 years and our oldest is 36 years old, and just say like, gosh, what did we teach them after all these years? What did stick in them? And this is one of those things that they themselves not only just saw us do, but they started practicing in their lives. And the values have taken root in them really deeply and it's been really beautiful to see.- [Steve] Yeah. In fact, Scott, the kids said, we just had something where there was a forward giving of inheritance of my parents, and we gave them some money that they have not had before, and they're gonna have excess. And we were talking about our concerns about just saying, hey, you guys, we have a term of just saying there's some dragons you have to slay on your own and you don't get to just watch your parents. And it was really interesting. Our kids turned to us in that meeting and they said, all we know is that if we blow this, it's on us, it's not on you and mom. And I was like, that was really interesting. They said, you have shown us the way. It doesn't guarantee we'll do it well, but it does say if we don't, that's on us. You guys don't carry that responsibility any longer. So I thought that was kind of interesting.- [Scott] Yeah, yeah, that's great. And one of the things seeing in your kids, in your example, we all want our children to be productive, not consumptive. We don't want the tentacles of money to pull them down. And we've seen how that gravity can pull kids in and drag them down and inhibit their ability to be independent, to have their own relationship with God. They can learn to trust in parents or in money rather than God and for money to become their sufficiency. And I think that's such an important point in this journey. And then what you've demonstrated for them in drawing this line and trusting God in this radical move to generosity.- [Linda] I was just thinking also just one of the other things like Steve just started to mention that along with like capping our income and starting a foundation and some of those big things, but just also the philosophy that we've adapted with our children just more in recent years is to do some forward giving with them instead of just waiting until we're long gone to give them everything that is left. That we watch them and dole it out a little more slowly and enjoy watching them grow through these decisions themselves and watching them be generous givers and then delight in what they're choosing to do, and saying like, the joy... I'm like, oh my goodness, we would've missed the joy of watching our son choose to go do this or that with his children. And it's just a delight that was also like the bonus to the decision to do that and choose this as our way to gift our children like on the early side. And I've been really thankful for that.- [Steve] And Scott, one of the things you just mentioned that we had literal conversations with our kids is that we said, we don't want to bind you, we want to raise you in a way that if you fall in love with a teacher, that you can marry a teacher and know that you can be happy. And that's a big responsibility on us as parents. We had the ability, and a lot of your clients have the ability to set it up that somebody could actually look and go, I know, but how would I live on that when I'm so used to, and none of our kids, one now, they're just starting off and they're gonna have a nice career, but our son decided to be a pastor. That's got a limited income. Our other daughter had married someone that was in a nonprofit, and so they were not going to live. So we did feel a responsibility of how do we raise them in a way that they're not bound to have to marry into a certain lifestyle, or feeling like they just can't do it.- [Scott] Yeah, which is a tremendous point because kids naturally aspire to the lifestyle of their parents, unless you guys do draw those lines and communicate proactively and set them up in a way that they can win and be content at any lifestyle.- [Steve] Yeah.- [Linda] Yeah.- [Scott] So I go back and to put handles on this, for somebody who's listening and say, boy, that tickles my ears. I love the concept of drawing that line, the freedom that comes, but how do I do that? How is that practical in my life? And I know, to go back to the motivation a bit, you've said to me we have to be worshipers before we can be givers or servers. So for somebody who's listening to say, I like the sound of all that, I want my kids to be successful, I want to have peace of mind, I want to have that freedom that the gentleman in the car had.(laughing) How do we put handles on that for people?- [Steve] Well, I...- [Linda] No, go ahead.- [Steve] I think there's a simple, not easy, but there's a simple reality, and that is that I realize we all have a king. We know the story of this king, and this king says he's got all things under his control, that he will come, he will take care of us, that he will give us what we need. We have all those promises. And his goal is to set us free to be able to live with confidence, but we can only act under that king to the extent that we know and trust that king. So we can hear stories of the king, but at some point the freedom comes from how well do I know him and how much do I trust that he can do everything that he's promised? So a part of our journey of taking these steps was to say, we know our king, we hear whispers, but we want to get closer because ultimately, we want to trust that king in every promise that he's made, and in truth, that's the journey we've been on, Scott.- [Linda] Right, so much faith building, for sure.- [Steve] Is that we had stuff coming at us and you know we've had some really serious trials and health issues that money couldn't change and that we needed to be able to say, okay, can we trust our king? And we were building that journey as well. And I'm sorry, the reality is there's no place that we lean more and there's a time that you've got to start throwing stuff out of the boat, otherwise you'll never learn that the king can be trusted. I don't know if that's too metaphorical to answer, but I hope that answers somehow.- [Linda] That's really good.- [Scott] It really does. And you've used words like journey and steps. And I know practically it's a daily process of relationship. And you've taken practical, tangible steps to remind you on a daily basis. And I know when you walk in your office, it's written on your wall.(laughing) You have to make a choice. And you want to talk about what those daily choices are? Because somebody could practically choose, okay, I'm gonna start today.- [Steve] Yeah.- [Linda] It's got to be a choice. First, like Steve's talking about, a personal relationship with God, where you're in his word and you're listening to him and you believe that he still speaks and you believe he speaks to you and you believe that he's got your name written on his heart, right? And starts there. And then if you're married, the unity has got to be here in order for us to have a platform that this is sustainable on. And then also, I think for us to partner with you and Ron Blue and just hear ourselves talk and process out loud, and like you guys ask us hard questions and you make us think about things and talk about things that I don't want to talk about. I don't want to talk about my will or how much we're gonna leave our kids, but it forces us to put language around our value system and what we're doing now matters for the future. I wouldn't just delay it all and forget about it and not talk about it, but it helps us be accountable to the vision. And I think for the vision to be cast, Steve has cast a lot of vision you guys have, and it's helped give me guardrails to know like, okay, this is the path I'm on, so that as I take my steps I can get there, and it's been a slow journey, I mean, Steve and I have been married 40 years, like it's taken time for us to get where we are and it's generations with our children and grandchildren to just watch all this unfold and the fruit of it, but I think it's a commitment to the journey, for sure, but with accountability and wisdom around you.- [Steve] Yeah. And I think Scott even drops back is that our journey had to be first, do we actually believe that there's never enough? Because it had to start with us saying, where is our dependence going to be? And once we decided, the reality is there isn't going to be enough, and we have this other choice that we knew we had to get to know the king better. And that meant our individual time getting to know him, our worship time, our being. We've made choices to stay involved with a local body rather than being gone a lot, even though we have the means, I'm not judging anybody, but that's actually a part of us knowing the king better, is that we're in a live, really hungry body that just presses us in and that's a part of our journey. And yet we could have multiple places. But it just meant that... And again, I know that's dangerous and it's gonna land on some folks, but it means in our lifestyle we'd be gone 50% of the time, and at least our local body, we can't really be committed to a local body with being gone 50% of the time. We can't get the same out of it that we will when we're here invested in actually working in the kids' (indistinct).- [Linda] Right.- [Scott] Yep.- [Linda] And living in community and deciding to invest here in everything going on in our city, in our state, and really understanding the culture of people from the local body all the way out so that we can impact where we do live and resource where we do live has been really important to us.- [Scott] Yeah, yeah, that's great. And I know the granularity that the daily choices that you've shared with me are me or God.- [Steve] Yes.- [Linda] Yes.- [Scott] Then or now.- [Steve] Yes.- [Linda] Yes.- [Scott] The world or the kingdom. Just very practical choices that each of us can make on a daily basis.- [Steve] Yeah. Like you said, that's written on my wall, because I... And that was actually a saying that God gave me in my quiet time, just realizing that every single decision runs through one of those grids. Is it gonna be God or me? Is it gonna be kingdom or world? And is it gonna be then or now? And that just really helped me see how clear our choices are. And the other thing that I think want to help is that we started to experience some of the things. I mean, we've been journeying and we are testifying that once we started this, God started to roll in ways that all of a sudden he got real big in our lives real fast. When we let out a line, when we let the line out a little bit, he was true to his word, and all of a sudden we were seeing and experiencing and tasting things that we could not believe and we wouldn't trade for the world now.- [Scott] Yeah.- [Steve] Yeah.- [Scott] So let's shift and transition there because our firm verse talks about that, that there is this promised undiscovered life that we can have through generosity. So what did this lead to, as you guys drew that line in the sand, it impacted your kids, it impacted your lifestyle, you started a foundation, you began this journey of generosity. Talk about some of the fruit that came from that decision and some of the stories that came out of that.- [Linda] Yeah, so I was just gonna say, saying all these yeses to God as he prompts us and gives us revelation, and we just kind of keep exercising our spiritual muscles along the way year after year, and just found myself one day sitting at my computer and a breaking news story flashed across my screen that there was a baby found in a dumpster here in Indianapolis. And the news reporter said, baby Doe found in a dumpster wearing only a diaper. And I felt that land deep, deep in my gut. And I just saw the injustice of that. And I knew that I needed to do something because God immediately flipped the breaking news story headline when he said to my heart, Doe is not a name and a dumpster is not a grave and a diaper is not burial clothing. And that's God flipping the economy of this world and making it his. And when I called the coroner about that case and asked, what do we do in our city and our state for babies like this that are found? And the answers they gave me revealed more injustice than I could have imagined. And when they said to me when they answered the phone, you're the only one that has called, and I thought, okay, there's my assignment, I knew it was for me. And I had no idea what God was birthing through that revelation, and just through his turning my heart inside out for that baby and really giving me a desire to take care of that child in death. And that was following a criminal investigation that lasted over a year. But through that year, God just started to show me kind of this blueprint of what he knows your name ministries was going to be. I was able to say yes because the vision of our foundation was set long before all of this came to be. And in 15 years I've never had to spend a minute fundraising or talking about the needs. I've just been able to go and answer the call of God on my life. And I know I was born for this. This was one of the things I was born to do. I got a call about a baby, very sick in the NICU here at the Children's Hospital, Indianapolis Riley Children's Hospital, and I got the call because of the work I do with He Knows Your Name, and the relationships that I have. But it became very personal. It landed right in our lap personally. And I went to see this little child and realized quickly that she was suffering as a newborn who was critically ill because her mother was using drugs while she was pregnant, and her mother delivered her and then left her. So she was sitting in the NICU for a week and the staff at the hospital really did not know what they were going to do. And their suggestion was to take her off life support. And I had gone in and just talked with them about it, tried to understand the situation, and I thought, well, I'll take care of her in death because that's what I do. And when they said, no, we need you to take care of her in life and make end of life decisions for her, I mean, I was spinning. I just had no idea.- [Steve] Well, and they needed someone because they had tried to get her adopted and there was nobody and the clock was running. This is where the things all roll up. Because of all that Linda had done, it was known in the community, even in the law firms, in the hospitals, they turned to her and said, we need somebody to take this child and they knew they could ask her.- [Linda] Yeah. So I was saying, okay, I'll be back tomorrow and I'll take care of this child. And I called Steve sobbing from the parking garage, and he said, you're not going alone. And it became ours to do our yes to make, but Abigail became ours literally because we ended up adopting her. And she is our fifth child. And never, when we turned 60 did we think we would adopt a child. And with over 30 headstones at the cemetery here in Indianapolis, I've taken care of 43 babies in death that all of them have their own last name. But Abigail has ours and she's the only one at that cemetery that has our last name. And it's just--- [Steve] And the hospital, I mean, what that led us into because what the biggest fruit is, like you said, you were talking about life. So the experience with Abigail is we get invited into this, we go and we see her, and I think a little bit of the story's worth telling because when we first walked in, their hands were tied at Riley because no one had guardianship. So we walked in and this little girl is in a hat that doesn't fit her in a very clinical setting. Only a diaper on. And it wasn't because they didn't care, it was that they didn't have the rights. On her door was BUFA, Baby Up For Adoption. She wasn't even being called by her name. And again, not because they didn't care, they just had their hands tied. Once we took guardianship, they actually came to us and said they knew the next day it was gonna be where we remove life support, and they asked and they said, could we make this, get this ready for tomorrow? And we walked in the next day and we walked in and the lights were down. She was sitting on this beautiful pink fleece with a pink hat with booties. They had made signs all around her room. In preparing her homecoming, they just did a beautiful job, and we walked in and we walked into this sacred space, which is just a really thin space, between heaven and earth, is just at that point of death, and we got to worship with this little girl and we brought in some worship music, we baptized her, we prayed over her, we read scripture over her and then it was time to let her go. And they said that she would pass probably within a couple of minutes, because she was so weak. So we took a couple hours with her, celebrated her, and then it was obvious she was struggling, then it was time. And it was gut-wrenching. When we removed the life support, she ended up living for two hours. And we got to hold her without any life support, and sing over her and pray over her. And I think what I want to say is that what our experience was in that is that we experienced something that actually led back to our financial decisions, that we don't know what our life would be like without experiencing that. And it was so hard and so beautiful that it is hard to even explain. And even as Christians, when we walked into the hospital, I thought, this is very telling. We went to sign in at the reception area and the receptionist, because there's a sign in place, and the reception looked at us and said, oh no, we've been waiting for you. Everyone's waiting for you. And I thought that's what it needs to be. That's how we as Christians, I think are looked at, is that when Paul says that Jason's groaning for the children of God who are led by the spirit to step up, we walked into a hospital and everybody was waiting. And the doctor after Abigail passed, just looked at us and said... And he stood there. It was almost uncomfortable for about 10 minutes after he passed, and he was like, he was heartbroken, and he just looked at us and we said, I need to know who are you and why did you decide to step into this pain? And we had the most beautiful conversation with this Nigerian doctor. So the spaces that we have been invited into that we just don't know how to explain it, Abigail was an orphan and Scott at her funeral. Indianapolis Star ended up doing a full page story on her. The courts allowed us to adopt her posthumously, and then at her funeral was 130 people and going down the highway were 50 cars in a procession. And she had gone from an orphan to the daughter of a king and celebrated like I would be celebrated. And those are just experiences we didn't see when we made the decision. But God saw them. I think we have to picture that He's looking at us and saying, I have to tell you, you're not gonna believe what you can see when you open these doors. So I lead a ministry in Ukraine. I pastor a ministry in Ukraine for disabled kids. I've gone during the war, I've been in the Syrian refugee camps. I've preached in 17 different countries and all of it, Scott, all of our life has it's trail somehow back to when we decided to rightsize our decision making process. When Linda started, He Knows Your Name and He Knows Your Name started rolling, we had to start another charity, and the attorney said, well, why don't you just roll up He Knows Your Name and do business as... They can keep He Knows Your Name under your original foundation, (indistinct), okay, great, let's do that. So I think one of the most powerful days in our lives, and it was 20 something years after our foundation choices. And they came to us to do it, they had to do an accounting of all that our foundation had done over the years. And I don't know why, they just filed some paperwork. And anyway, for the first time we found out how much we had given away. And I was sitting in my office and it was a lot. It was a lot more than what we have. And I was shocked at the number. And I don't say that braggingly, I say it to make this point. So I ran home to Linda and I said, how much do you think we've given away? And you didn't have any idea. And I said the number. And I said, now, honey, and we were just in shock of just saying this, not because it was so great, but here's what it led to. I said, Linda, if God had said to us when we made our decision you're gonna give this much money away, would either of us have done it? And we said no. It would've been too scary. On the front end of it we would've run. Second question, if you take all of that and drop it back into our bank accounts today, what will we do that we missed? And we couldn't come up with one thing. The third, which was the most that had us in tears is we started then looking at Ukraine, He Knows Your Name, our children, the refugee camps, the people downtown, the ministries that we've been able to give to. And we started realizing the people that we wouldn't know, the stories we wouldn't have experienced and the God who got so big and it actually frightened us of looking at each other and said, what if we hadn't done this? So is there pain and struggle? Absolutely. And I can honestly say not one single regret. In fact, that day we looked and said, we want to do more. Not because of the dollar signs, but because of the people multiplication. The kingdom, the light we had seen, the God we got to know who got really big as we did that.- [Scott] Yeah, those decisions of faith don't use the same math, right Steve?- [Steve] Yeah, I was gonna say, Scott, I think the saying is that if you're waiting for the spreadsheet to ever give you permission, it's never coming.- [Scott] That's exactly right. Thank you Steve and Linda for joining us today. This has been fantastic and so practical as people look at tangible ways to make money decisions that lead to deeper faith decisions, and your stories have been inspirational. So thank you guys for joining us, for sharing, for being friends for so many years. Appreciate you guys so much.- [Steve] Thanks for the invite, Scott. We'll see you in your office soon because we've got some other questions for you too.(laughing)- [Scott] Sounds good. Sounds good.- [Linda] Thank you, we appreciate it.- [Steve] Bye.- [Scott] Thank you very much.(upbeat music) Bye-Bye.- [Voice Over] Thank you so much for listening to the Wisdom For Wealth For Life podcast, brought to you by BlueTrust. Thanks so much for listening and please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by BlueTrust are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency, are not deposits or other obligations of, nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested. The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended as specific individual advice. The client's experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients, and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Blue Trust.