Fractured-heart finance

Excerpt from Whole Heart Finances

I love and hate the game of Monopoly. I love it because it involves money, and that is what I teach about for a living. I hate it because it is tiresome, stressful, and often never ends.

But there is one game of Monopoly that I will never forget. Many years ago, when I was with a group of friends for game night, everyone groaned when our host brought it out. We eventually relented and started to play, but as my friends began to make more money than I did, feelings of resentment and envy crept into my heart. My eyes darkened with every roll of the dice, hoping to get ahead.

This burdensome spirit began to overtake everyone playing, and soon I noticed something peculiar out of the corner of my eye—a hand quickly pulling away from the center pile of cash. A few turns later, I noticed it again. In that moment, I was certain I had found a cheater! The third time it happened, I pointed my finger and yelled, “Cheater! Give us back our pooled parking money!”

After I accused my friend, he blushed and said, “I wasn’t cheating ... I was giving.” A long pause in the room was quickly followed by barrels of laughter. My friend had just admitted that he was secretly giving back some of his Monopoly money as a tithe! It was such a surprising and delightful behavior that we all wanted in.

As the game progressed, everyone started to get creative with how they would secretly give back to the parking pile, including sly behind-the-back moves. My friend’s generosity had completely transformed the game. We were still trying to play by the rules, and we were still competing to win, but a new element had been added that made it a joy to play.

Like the game Monopoly, making money decisions every day is a strategic game that we both love and hate (perhaps we mostly hate it). It is a game that is tiresome and stressful and truly doesn’t end. Study after study confirms that Americans consider money their top source of anxiety.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is an element we can introduce that will completely transform our experience. It will turn the game of managing our finances from one of fear and dread to one of trust and joy. If you were to say that this element is generosity, you would be only partially correct.

In his book Give and Take, Wharton professor Adam Grant lays out a brilliant case for how generosity benefits a person’s life. In one example, researchers map the energy of people the same way a galaxy would be mapped. Those who act as givers are compared to suns in our galaxy, casting light that makes everyone around them bigger. Those who act as takers are mapped as black holes, sucking energy from those around them and making everyone smaller. The

conclusion of the book is that we should all become givers in order to reap the great benefits of generosity.

While this conclusion is valid and would certainly improve our finances, I propose that it is both too hard and not ambitious enough. It is too hard because we often think too much about ourselves and not enough about others. Personally, I was not born a very generous person, so I worry about whether I can simply “become a giver” by my own effort.

Becoming a giver is also not ambitious enough. Instead of settling for the light that we could shine by ourselves, why not draw near to the Light of the world, the Sun of suns, the ultimate Giver? Jesus Christ is all of these things, and his light of generosity is so bright that everyone around him shines and shimmers simply because they are near to him.

The primary element to add to managing our finances, then, is Jesus Christ. You may object to this idea, thinking, Jesus doesn’t really like finances. Like he said to the rich young man who asked how he could gain eternal life, Jesus is just going to tell me to sell everything I own. Variations of this thought have led many Christians to separate Jesus from their finances. While this may feel safer, it can never be a reality if you are a follower of Jesus, because the truth is that “Christ lives within you” (Romans 8:10). Through the Holy Spirit, Christ inhabits your heart.

If you choose to believe that Jesus is separate from your finances, you are not only darkening your world as you draw away from the Light of the world; you are also fracturing your heart. You’re like a newly married person who acts married during daylight hours, but once the sun sets, you leave the house and live like a single person. Can you imagine the stress of a marriage that is fractured in this way?

We do the same thing when we say to Jesus, You are in charge of my spiritual life, but let’s keep separate accounts when it comes to my finances. Going out alone with your finances ensures that you will have a fractured heart since Jesus already lives in your heart. You are acting in a way that is not consistent with your true self.

A whole heart is one that fully embraces Jesus with every decision that your heart truly cares about, particularly regarding money. If involving Jesus in your money decisions seems odd, this is likely because you have only really thought of him as spiritual. Yet Jesus is very much physical! In Scripture, he eats, drinks, and has a physical body—one that he inhabits even to this day! Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke, “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.... Do you have anything here to eat?” (Mark 10:17–27).

Jesus completely understands your material needs, and he completely understands that they require you to spend money. He likes good food and even pretty things—including Carolina barbeque, Guatemalan coffee, and Swedish furniture—and he is “all in” as we enjoy them. Once this reality is woven into your daily financial life, you will find that every dollar becomes a joy to manage.

As you may already know, Jesus Christ is the most joyful person you will ever meet, so if you invite him into the daily game of managing your finances, you will find joy. And just like my friend in my Monopoly story, Jesus will do surprising and delightful things, leaving you with an open invitation to imitate his creative play with your money. Managing your money will become a wide highway for you to love him and others in a deeper way.

Whole Heart Finances will draw out what it looks like to fully incorporate the reality of your union with Christ into your daily finances. Each chapter will begin by gazing upon the person of Jesus Christ, who is a blazing light of generosity, and then it will highlight specific actions that can help you respond to the light you are seeing.

Part 1 (chapters 1–3) will introduce how to bring your whole heart to Jesus as you relate to your finances. Then you will be united with him in a fun and joyful way as you make spending, saving, and giving decisions.

Part 2 (chapters 4–7) will discuss the importance of looking, tracking, and spending plans so that you can apply and express your whole heart as you spend money.

Part 3 (chapters 8–10) will discuss how to responsibly relate to credit and debt so that you can guard your whole heart as you relate to your finances.

Part 4 (chapters 11–15) will discuss how you can use the tools of saving and investing to become more intentional in your response to Jesus’s great generosity toward you. Chapter 15 will bring all the financial elements together so you can dream big about how Jesus can use your own financial plan to help redeem and restore our broken world.

Please note that an appendix filled with helpful tools and resources is available at wholeheartfinances.com. There you can also find a four-lesson small group study designed to teach key concepts from this book in a highly visual way.

Let us begin!

This is the Introduction of my new book, Whole Heart Finances. Preorder your copy today!

Shane Enete, Phd, CFA, CFP®