Cycle #18 – $1302.72

When it rains it pours… This weekend I secured Cycle #18. Seven more to go and I reach my goal. But yes, these next seven will pose stiffer challenges with each step. For this cycle I needed to reach $1302.72. I needed $651.36 more to get there. It happened… I received a check for $700 as an honorarium for teaching a class. I wasn’t expecting this much so it was a sweet surprise. I’m blessed!

I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve always had a hard time swallowing the notion that God really does want to bless me financially. Psycho-analyze me all you want. It’s just a kind of steady-state reality for me. Blessing seem hard to justify. And this exercise is major step of faith for me.

But I’ve been digging in the Bible lately looking for answers about blessings. I think I’ve found three primary roots for understanding why God wants to bless us, here and now, down to earth, with real stuff.

Viewed rightly through a Hebraic lens, the Bible makes no absolute distinction between spiritual and material blessing. God lavishes practical love on his people, now and forever. For Jesus’ followers, forever begins today. Eternal life is an already/not yet reality. The spotty descriptions of Heaven – our “not yet” reward – portray a realm of unimaginable luxury. The “already” blessings here and now include a “first fruits” of this same abundance. This “already/not yet” insight is the theological underpinning for our belief and practice of healing. God heals today; he will heal absolutely someday. This same understanding might help us grasp and appropriate what prosperity looks like in our time between the times.

There seem to be three reasons God materially blesses. The first is personal. God is a Father, a doting Papa who loves to give gifts we can both use and enjoy. “See how great a love the father has lavished on us…” writes John (I John 3:1). This love is incarnational, down to earth, practical. John writes again, “I pray that you may prosper, and be in health, even as your soul prospers” (III John 2). Love is tangible.

Maybe my unwillingness to embrace prosperity proves again the flipside message of Jesus’ “Prodigal Son” parable? The true prodigal in the story may be the older brother who does not grasp that his father has already given him everything. He bemoans that he hasn’t had a party of his own. His father chides him. “Son, just head out to the field and get your own fatted calf. It’s already yours!” Ironically, it’s the older brother who is the son acting like a servant!

God throws extravagant parties. Think of the wild, wasteful splendor of daffodils and tropical fish no one will ever see and the brilliant galactic storms in star clusters 10 million light years away. Even more the Father loves to shower His children with usable favor, gifts that bring real, testable and tangible joys. He blesses us because he can and must by his nature.

Cycle #17 – $651.36

Last week I reported that I invested $295 of my existing $325.68. That left me with $30.68 toward my Cycle #17 total of $651.36. Here’s what’s happened in a week:

On Friday last I received an initial return on my $295 investment of $59.00. Impressed? I was! Then on Saturday and Monday I got three more supplemental payments I’d been expecting – 1) $250 from the Fox Network for my blog on Beliefnet, 2) a payment of $150 for books I’d sold at a conference I’d led last month, and a $250 check for extra work I’d done teaching. Total: $709, almost $50 more than I need for Cycle #17!

I really am amazed at how this process is unfolding. I don’t feel like I’m driving it so much as I’m letting it develop, letting God develop it! Stay close…

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…

Cycle #16 – $325.68

Update: Yes, I’m still at the post, working my project. Other elements in my life have been priorities the last two weeks, but I’m still at my task.

Review: The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses.

Results: I’ve now completed 16 cycles or “doublings” of my first $.01. This last feat was completed when I got an unexpected check for wedding I did for a family member. I wasn’t expecting to be paid. In fact, I told them specifically that I wanted to make my involvement a gift to them. To no avail: they passed along a $250 check, $162.84 of which I can allocate as the completion of cycle #16.

Next: I’m looking for an additional $325.68 for a total of $651.36

FYI: I’ve made an investment of $295 of my existing $325.68. I believe this calculated risk will serve me well in the future, as I begin to double higher numbers… I’ll tell you more as things develop…

Cycle #15 – $162.84

Last weekend someone challenged me about the premise of this Double Up adventure. Their issue wasn’t so much about the process, but the premise – that God would want me to grow financial stewardship, and that my efforts to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010 could be my discipleship mandate for this season. “Money is root of evil,” they reminded me. Their claim of course is only partially true. The Bible says, “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil…” There’s a difference there.  I’ve been thinking about this issue though. Am I fooling myself into letting greed drive me, and using spiritual words to justify my ambition?

This got me thinking about common misconceptions I’ve held about the “stuff” of wealth, misbeliefs that have held me back from growing into a balanced man and mature and complete in my destiny. Here are a few points/counterpoints, things I’ve commonly believed followed by their rebuttals. I’m sure there are more…

1. Money is dirty… True, but Jesus washes everything clean.
2. Money is the root of all evil… No, “The love of money is the root all sorts of evil.”
3. Money doesn’t’ grow on trees… But it grows like trees from seeds of ideas planted in me that produce fruit which I plant around me.   
4. Time is money… And I have timeless eternity, and therefore boundless money! 
5. I can’t follow Jesus and steward wealth at the same time because he says I can’t serve Mammon and serve God… Okay, I will make Mammon serve me, as I serve God! 
6. I can’t afford things… But my Father already paid the bill! 
7. When I spend I lose and have less.  When I spend I invest and grow more! 
8. I have not because I have not… Wrong again: I have not because I ask not.
9. Ask and you will be scolded… Ask and I will receive
10. The wealth of the nations will hide from me… the wealth of the nations comes to me. 
11. Money isn’t everything… But money is something – something I must and can master.

So, I’m going on, in obedience. “God, give me the right heart in all this!” No ambition, envy or greed… Just obedience.  

Cycle #15 – $162.84

I went looking for, watching for my next $81.92 to reach cycle #15 and the total $162.84. Now the process has slowed a bit. It’s not so simple. $80 isn’t tucked in the couch. Not exactly anyway.

But this weekend another “gift” arrived in the mail. Someone send a “thank you” card to us for something we had done to help their family. In the card they’d placed a $100 gift card for Herbergers, a store my wife Jill frequents. Interesting coincidence: She had a bill in the mail the next day for $90. She called and used the gift card to pay it off. Touché! I’d received cycle #15!  

Now, it’s onward and upward. More to come… And I’m praying that God will give me eyes to see and ears to hear and an imagination to envision the next possibility…

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress… And share yours…

Cycle #14 – $81.92

John B commented on last week asking where and how I landed cycle #14. I looked back at the blog and discovered that the post below somehow never made it to the blog site. Sorry about that. Here it is, from last Thursday…

Sometimes blessings grow up from seed buried in the soil. Sometimes blessings fall from the sky. I’m riding a string of multiplying cycles from unsolicited gifts that have nothing to do with work on my part. I’m not even looking much for them. They are coming, seemingly on their own. Sometimes it seems, increase arrives in this way.

Today I’m crediting a $50 check in a birthday card sent from my in laws for my birthday as cycle #14. It’s a gift, and it more than doubles my current $40.96.

I’m just 21 days into this project and already I’ve doubled the net worth of one penny 14 times. Do that 11 more times in the next 11 months and I hit the mark. I’m beginning to grow more than just curious about this prospect. I’m not exactly excited either. What I’m sensing in myself if mounting faith. This can happen. God can do this in response to my faith, asking, and work.

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…

Cycle #14 – $81.92

Sitting on Cycle #14… looking for my next $81.92. Where? How? Who? It’s like looking for the color “red” around the room. The act of focus and attention forces me to be aware. My brain goes to work sifting and sorting. Where will $81.92 appear? How will I generate it, discover it, receive it, multiply it? Eyes open.

But money troubles me.  It’s a fear I learned from my family of origin.  I say this not to play the victim but to examine and explain the source of my perverted perspective.  In most areas of my life I feel a level of confidence mastery.  But managing resources sparks a paralysis in me that I must defeat in order to bring balance to my life.

My grandfather on my mother’s side was a holiness church pastor.  In his world money was evil. He never wanted to touch the stuff.  His provision came as pure charity from others: the “laity” in his church who dared enter the “world” and earn their bread.  That’s as far as he thought about stewardship.

My grandfather of my father side had the opposite vice.  He was a gambler who played fast and loose with his wealth.  Over his lifetime he probably made a fortune then lost it 10 times over.  His perspective on money was a magical one, complicated by a strange faith in fortune, and luck, and the power of a fast hand to outsmart the slippery, abusive will of money.

I stand between my two grandfathers.  I’m afraid to touch the stuff, and yet I “play the slots” so to speak, expecting my money to magical appear or disappear.

In my hunger to become everything God has created me to be, I’m now putting myself in a place where God can correct these character flaws.  To be a true disciple of Jesus is to be rounded, whole, courageous and faithful in ALL things Godly.  That means – in my case – developing a mastery of stewardship.  That’s the deeper motivation behind this doubling venture: I can’t be everything God created for me until I learn this lesson.

“Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress… And join me if you dare!

Cycle #13 – $40.96

This morning I completed my 13th cycle doubling $.01. I’ve been playing this “game” for 20 days now and according to my creative accounting system that’s based on proportion not amount, I’m halfway to my goal of $100,000.

Yes, I admit, it’s a kind of mind game. This adventure is about growing wealth, but even more it’s about changing my thinking and building my faith in the matter of wealth, 1one small step at a time. Here’s how I’m choosing to see my challenge: the proportion between $.01 and $.02 is exactly the same as the proportion between $1,000 and $2,000 and $50,000 and $100,000. If I can double one penny, I can build to double $50,000. Why not? I’m changing my mind. The Bible calls this “stewardship” and Jesus had a lot to say about our right management of resources as “seed” for planting and multiplying. From this perspective $01, and now, $40.96 make me a wealthy man. I have plenty… not plenty enough but plenty of seed to continue the multiplication process. “Out of many one” is also “Out of one, many.”

There are three kinds of value: wealth, riches, and money. Wealth is the inherent value of pieces of earth. Money – really monies – are human systems of exchanging things that have wealth. Riches are those transition points of exchange, the junction point as wealth becomes money, and money becomes wealth. Riches are the relative ability to move value between the expressions of money to wealth and wealth to money. Riches are the form that each takes in transit.

Today I do not have a lot of money, but I do have wealth. For one thing, I live in America. I drive on groomed roads I’ve paid for with my taxes, have access to libraries stuffed with the knowledge of ages, and I enjoy health care and utilities that provide me comfort and security. I have an education and experiences and a repository if ideas that are, frankly, invaluable. I’m grateful for this, and gratitude is the beginning of imagination, which is the faith to see how I can exchange wealth for currency of my culture.

My goal after all is not MONEY, it’s the ability to translate wealth into riches and back to wealth again. Money is just the medium of exchange. Gratitude is my ability to assess and access true wealth. I have a wonderful family, health, hope, and fond memories. I have knowledge and experiences, and relationships, and opportunity. I am wealthy. Now to the business of translating these assets into mediums of exchange so I can trade one form of wealth of which I have abundance for another which I may lack. If I can trade my ability to write a book for money, I can trade that money for log cabin on a lake where I can gather my family for a summer holiday. That’s where this is all going…

I completed cycle #13 in another simple and direct way. I found the additional $20.48 because I went looking for it. Yesterday in the mail a friend sent me a gift card as a “thank you” for help I’ve offered to her son in his choice of schooling. It is a $20 gift card to one of my favorite restaurants with a note that I should take my wife Jill for a date. Jill and I have a weekly item in our budget for “dates” so this gift actually works as a substitute for that allocation. From there I dug around the mail stack and found another “lost” $.44. That left me $.04 short. I got that when I arrived at Caribou Coffee this morning and got $.10 off my coffee for answered their trivia question: “What was the name of fated boat in the T.V. who ‘Gilligan’s Island?’” Answer: The Minnow.

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…

Cycle #12 – $20.48

Almost half way there… with $20 bucks. So far I’ve doubled $.01 12 times to $20.48. When I do that for 13 more cycles I’ll have more than $100K. By proportional measures, I’m almost halfway home. Once I reached $10.24 all I had to do was reach that one more time – doubling the total.

Yesterday success happened easily, and again somewhat surprisingly. I’m praying for each step and asking God to create the increase of the seeds I’ve planted. Then I’m looking and watching for how it will come.

‘What I look for I see. Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop. If I look now for the color red in the room, I can see it. I see it because I’m consciously sorting my perceptions with that assignment. When I look for another $10.24 to “appear” in my life, I find it. Yesterday I found it again in an unexpected honorarium for a teaching I did over the weekend. I spoke for a group of college students in a group sponsored by Lutheran Renewal. I was not expecting to be paid, but the leader delivered me a check for $200. It’s a lot more than the additional $10.24 I need, but that’s the rules… The balance goes to pay for books for my daughter in college… Cycle #12 complete…

Oh… Oversight! On Sunday I forgot to give – “tithe” – from my increase from last week, $5.12. 10% would be $.52. So this morning when I ordered my coffee I dropped that into the change jar for Gayle, the woman who works behind the counter. She’s been struggling with health issues and is a single mom raising a child. No better tithe than taking care of single moms…

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…

Cycle #11 – $10.24

I don’t like to talk with Percy about money. He makes me uncomfortable. But I need his wisdom. I need his challenges.

“Why does money frighten you?” he once asked me.

“Frighten me? What are you talking about? The lack of money frightens me!” I said.

“Not true,” answered Percy. “You somehow associate pain with an accumulation of finances. You have to find out why. If you were not afraid, you would have solved your shortfall long ago. You have to discover where the fear comes from, or you will never master it. Fear lets money master you. Why?” He waited.

“You’re off the mark with this one, Percy,” I protested. “I’m not afraid of money.”

“Of what money represents,” he countered, “Of the responsibility it generates. Having resources demands attention and care and a watchful eye. Are you afraid of standing guard? Or of losing what you have once you have it? Or of having to say ‘no’ to people who will ask for favors. Are you afraid of a complicated life? Or do you think money is dirty and will somehow corrupt you?”

“Money is the root of all evil… as the Bible says,” I snapped back.

“No, you have that wrong.  ‘The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil’ is how it actually reads.  And the fear of money is the love of money in another form.”

“You’ve lost me…” I said.

“You fear money because you imagine it’s big, too big for you. You make it big, a master, a lord, a god. We all fear what we don’t understand and imagine it as more than it is. But money is easy to understand – it multiplies or dies. It’s alive. As long as you don’t know this, you can’t understand money, and you’ll imagine wrong pictures of reality.”

“I’m not doing any navel gazing about my bank account,” I said emphatically.

“Fine. Just begin with the assets now in your hands. You have mastered that much and you’ve proven you are not afraid of that level, whatever it is. But more? I bet you’d freeze up as some arbitrary amount. We all do. There’s some quantity at which fear begins to paralyze. All you have to do to grow in this area is to keep pushing that boundary backward. Don’t go all at once. Just push a bit back at a time. Multiple that principle and you’ll soon be in unchartered waters, and out of your pit.

Today I’m hardly in uncharted waters; not yet. All I needed was an additional $5.12 to complete cycle #11 and arrive at grand total of $10.24 – real money, wow! But while $10.24 isn’t a lot, it’s 11 of 25 doublings, and that’s progress in a proportional sense. Here’s how it happened this round: I’ve been praying for ideas and for God to open my eyes to ways of multiplication.

Today the answer came without so much as a thought. I happen to reach into the back of my closet and pulled out a coat I haven’t worn in weeks, maybe months. After I’d buttoned it up reached in the pocket and there… Yes, it’s true… There I found a small stash of cash – two $5 bills and three $1 bills, money I had totally forgotten about. Yreka! If only it could always be this easy!

The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…