When was the last time you had a conversation about money with friends or family?

Across my client work three beliefs about money come up time and again that I felt was worth discussing.

“Money is something you don’t talk about”

Money has become a taboo topic, maybe it always has been. It’s too personal, too revealing. I don’t mean property investing or ETFs, I mean the more personal stuff like spending habits and bad debt.

The issue I have found with this is that people don’t talk until there’s a big problem. Not talking about money leads to bad habits, guilt filled spending and denial.

In the bible there is a story where Jesus speaks to a rich young ruler (Matthew 19), the ruler goes through all he has done to be righteous, but Jesus prompts him just that little bit more, a testing to sell his possessions and give to the poor. It is this that breaks the man’s facade, and you see how much wealth was tied to his security and identity. He needed someone to speak into his life about money. Do you have someone that can do that for you?

“I’m just not good with money”

If I had a dollar every time I heard this, I’d start to believe I’m good with money!

No one is naturally gifted in finances. It’s learnt and practiced. This belief tends to manifest itself into a reality quite quickly.

A quick look into Matthew 25, a parable where three people were given money to manage and one essentially sticks his head in the sand, does nothing with it and that person gets judged the hardest.

One takeaway is that inaction is an action. You’re choosing to make a poor decision. The belief you should be changing this to is “I can learn to be better with money.”

“There’s never enough”

I don’t come across this view as often, but versions of it are still prevalent and it speaks to the same issue: greed and scarcity.

What you fix your attention on shapes your experience. A person convinced there’s never enough will find evidence for that everywhere and someone who believes money is the answer to all things will never be satisfied. Neither bring contentment and both tend to lead to unhelpful money decisions.

My Money Beliefs

The belief holding me back was “money brings security”. I thought that I needed to have enough to feel financially secure, to find contentment and peace.

What I discovered is that money itself does not offer you security. It is fleeting. What we are actually searching for is something to Trust. When I changed from putting my trust in money to putting my trust in God and how he wants me to use money, my whole mindset and attitude changed.

I believed money was the path to security and finding a sense of peace, but it was actually using money the way God intended that brought me much closer to that place.

It is something that if you haven’t experienced, it can hardly be believed. I put it down to the created finally living the way the creator planned and for some reason that brings a sense of rightness.

How does God want us to use and view money? That will be explored later.