Lisa, a friend of mine who has known me for the last 16 years, came to visit over the recent Christmas Holiday and asked me a powerful question I really had to stop and think about. As we were up late one night talking, she asked me, “What is biggest lesson you have learned in this whole process of bringing forth your vision?” I sat there and thought about it for a moment because there have been so many powerful lessons and insights I have gained, but the one that stands out above the rest has been learning that my self-worth is not my net-worth.
The challenges you will have along the way are in direct proportion to the blessings God has in store for you. As a single mother stepping out to work a business full-time, I have had serious financial challenges as a part of my journey. I have always known that God has a large financial bounty for me and this has kept me holding on during the lean times. If I believed that my net-worth was my self-worth, I would have stopped in my first year as so many start-up businesses do. Did you know that the test of lean financial times is a common thread the weaves through the tapestry of most of the greatest success stories?
I have been studying prosperity and abundance for more than 11 years and early on in my readings, I remember reading a book about creating abundance and the author said, “You will know you are ready for wealth and abundance when your emotions are not attached to your money.” Wow! At the time that seemed like a misprint or an impossibility. At the time, I just couldn’t understand how someone could be in a place where their emotions are the same regardless of their checking account balance. The two were directly related in my mind.
Now, I fully understand what the author was talking about. In order to be ready for the blessing of financial abundance, you must be in a place that you are the same no matter what your bank account balance says. Whether your balance is overdrawn by $25 or you have a balance of $25,000,000, God needs to know that you will be consistent and unchanged. Read this one again, because it is so important as you make the moves to live your vision. Can you be the same no matter how much money you have or do you get excited and happier the closer it gets to payday? Do you feel secure when you have money in your wallet and insecure when you don’t? Do you feel like more of a person with money than you do when you don’t have it?
People usually treat people with money very differently than people without money, so it can be a challenge to truly live this understanding. You have really got to “get” this. Your self-worth is NOT your net worth. You are who you are no matter how much money you have, what kind of car you drive, or what restaurants you can afford to eat out at. Your level of self-esteem is not dependent on the amount of cash in your wallet or the balance in your checking or savings account.
Learning how to be consistent and truly understand that I am an incredible person called to do great things in this world and walk in that at all times has been my greatest lesson. Yes, at the beginning a low balance in my bank account would incite panic and could even drive me to tears, but now it doesn’t move me one way or the other. I know what is coming, and I just have to have faith that God keeps his promises and will provide for me.
Here’s the magic… Once you understand that your self-worth is not your net-worth and you detach your emotions from your money, you then move to the next level of understanding – your net-worth is a natural result of your self-worth. As your self-worth increases, you will be comfortable sharing your work out to more and more people and a natural result will be financial wealth. The great news is by the time you get to that point, you will be completely detached from the money and it will be free to do what God created it to do – multiply.