I Believe

Mark 9:23 “All things are possible to him who believes!” Yesterday we created a structure of incentives for Kyan and Luke to earn money when they perform well on their weekly Chinese spelling tests. A portion of their proceeds will go to their investment account, and a portion will go towards whatever they choose (likely in app purchases for Brawlstars). They approached their studies with renewed vigor, but when he got a question wrong, I noticed Luke say several times “I don’t think I’m going to do very well on this.” The funny thing is that God has blessed Luke with great natural ability, in music, sports and academics, including Chinese. But somehow his own self-doubt often gets in the way. So I sat him down to explain the power of positive psychology. “There have been many studies showing that if you believe, it is far more likely to happen. For instance, athletes who visualize themselves winning a race, perform much better than those who don’t. And this is just natural mental ability, but imagine how much more so this is powerful when you bring the supernatural into it. The force of God’s heart far surpasses that of our mind, so much, much crazier things can happen when we have faith in Him.” Jesus told us that all things are possible to him who believes. I’m still working on my 100 dreams, and He just notched one up by 10x this morning. Lord thanks for speaking to me through my children. The greatest battle is the one within, because you already won the war of the world on the cross. I pray that I don’t hold you back with my own self-doubt. I believe. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Principles vs Presence

Joshua 6:1 “Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘see I have delivered Jericho into your hands.’” I recently read that the more you excel in any field, the more divergent your tactics will look. Implementing “best practices” will only pull you towards the mean, since everyone is implementing them. If you’re shooting to achieve top 1% outcomes, you can’t copy what’s worked for others. I’ve similarly found that the closer I get to God, the more my tactics look different from those around me. Sometimes His guidance lines up with “best practices”, but often times following His will looks totally different. God told Joshua that the walls of Jericho would crumble after he marched around the city for seven days. That flies in the face of any traditional military wisdom, and Joshua’s generals must have thought he had lost his mind. Today I feel God reminding me that hearing and obeying His voice alone brings victory. You can’t follow the “best practices” of the world blindly, nor can you look at others who are following God and extrapolate that what worked for them would work for you. Other military leaders would be fools to march around city walls in their next battle because it worked for Joshua. Lord so often I look for principles instead of pursuing your presence. I declare that my victory is in you and you alone. In Jesus’ might name, Amen.

Stewardship

Matthew 25:21 “Well done good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”

My boys have started to ask repeatedly about whether they can start buying in-app purchases for their favorite mobile game, Brawlstars. At first I responded no, to which they protested that all their money from Chinese New Year packets goes directly to me, even though it’s really their money. “Shouldn’t we be able to spend just a little bit of it?”

I sensed a teachable moment, and suggested that we start a plan to learn about how to invest their money, and we could use some portion of those returns for in app purchases. Last night we kicked off our first session, which started in an a rather amusing fashion.

“The three main variables to how much money you end up with are your principal, your yield, and time. You know what time is. Do you know what principal is?”

“Yes like the principal of our school!”

“Well that’s a different kind of principal. This kind is how much money you start out with. What about yield. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes I pray that every day! ‘God we yield to your commands…’”

After covering some basic ground on risk/reward and the difference between stocks and bonds, I mentioned that we have a live pre-IPO opportunity in the Amasia portfolio that I’d be happy to welcome them into, and after hearing about the business model and looking at their website, Kyan stated with conviction “ok, I’d like to put 500 dollars into that.” Luke decided that he was happy to do the same.

After explaining a bit more about liquidity, and deciding on a strategy for the rest of the portfolio, I shared the parable of the talents, and why God gives us gifts. “I believe he loves watching us enjoying what he’s created for us, but I also believe He loves watching us grow those gifts, and giving them back to the Kingdom.”

Luke sheepishly replied “well then I’m only going to spend one dollar on in-app purchases and I’ll invest the rest, ok?”

God, this morning I’m reminded of how you use the desires of my heart to change the condition of my heart. In-app purchases aren’t evil, and in fact I like playing games with my kids, but without enacting stewardship, free flow screen time with unlimited in-app purchases would destroy my boys. Thank you for blessing me with good gifts to enjoy, and thank you also for using my desire to align my heart with yours. I love you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.