The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast

Kaley Olson:
Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here with my co-host for today's episode, my friend, Wendy Blight. Wendy, welcome to the show.

Wendy Blight:
Hey, Kaley, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Kaley Olson:
I'm glad that you're here as a co-host. You've been a teacher before on the podcast, and I know that our friends listening have heard you teach before, but they might not know exactly what you do for Proverbs. So I want to give you the opportunity to share because I think you have a really cool job.

Wendy Blight:
Oh, thank you. Well, I am the Biblical Content Specialist for Online Bible Studies. So any and everything that comes in theology between Online Bible Studies and First 5, even sometimes those questions come to me. I also do teachings for both of those and train our volunteers biblically and in theology.

Kaley Olson:
It's amazing. What I love about what you do for Proverbs 31 is not just like what you do, obviously it's a very weighty job to take questions and then give people an answer that's biblical, but how you do it with a humble approach to God's Word and you are a part of a team of people who really take our content and review it to make sure that what we're saying as a ministry is presented in a biblically accurate way. And so I just want to thank you and for anybody listening out here, this is what we do. We help people know the truth and live the truth because we believe that it changes everything, but part of knowing and living that truth is making sure that it's accurate. So thanks for doing that, Wendy.

Wendy Blight:
You're welcome.

Kaley Olson:
And thanks for doing that for us on the show today.

Wendy Blight:
Yeah, I'm excited.

Kaley Olson:
I'm so excited they're here. But moving on to today's topic, you're about to hear from our friends Bob and Linda Lotich, they're going to share about Drum Roll Finances. Wendy, not an easy topic to talk about.

Wendy Blight:
Absolutely not.

Kaley Olson:
But, Bob and Linda did it well because they are not only financial experts, but what I like about them is that they also struggled with this. And so what they're sharing today is not a teaching that is saying, "You should do this," but it's, "Hey, we've been through this and God has helped us. And so here is how you can ..." And I love their humble approach to talking about finances, but also bringing us back to God's Word and how He wants to help us through it.
So enough from us, let's turn it over to our conversation with Bob and Linda.
Well, all right friends, we are here with our new friends that we talked to right before we started recording today, and we already love them. Welcome to the show, Bob and Linda Lotich, how are you guys?

Bob Lotich:
We are doing good, Kaley.

Linda Lotich:
Good. Yeah.

Bob Lotich:
Thank you for having us.

Kaley Olson:
Well, you guys are joining us from Franklin, Tennessee, and we were just talking about how lovely it is over there, and I wish that we were there right now, but for our friends who are listening, they know your names and they know where you're from, but they don't know what you do. And so, will you guys please introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your story?

Bob Lotich:
Yeah, so basically we're financial coaches and we help people. We of course are helping people create budgets, start investing, pay debt, and we do this from a biblical perspective. And so we've been helping people with money for about the last 15 years or so. And like you said, we live in Franklin, Tennessee with our three little kiddos.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. They're the cutest.

Bob Lotich:
Cutest bundles of joy.

Kaley Olson:
That's awesome.

Bob Lotich:
And so that's a brief about us.

Kaley Olson:
That's amazing. We were just talking about if a kid ran in the room, it would be like, "Hey, here's my little financial blessing and burden that just came in to interrupt the podcast." And that's what kids are sometimes. But I'm glad that you guys are here today. You said that you were financial coaches, you've been doing this for 15 years, and you're really passionate about helping people learn to steward their finances in a way that honors the Lord. And that's what you're here to talk with us about today. And so Wendy and I are going to turn the mics over to you guys and we can't wait to learn from you.

Bob Lotich:
Yeah, great. So for me, like I said, it's been about the last 15 years or so that I've been helping Christians with money. And one of the things I've noticed is that so many Christians are making one of three key mistakes with their finances. And I think we've identified a secret to experiencing God's best in your financial life, particularly when you're facing obstacles, hidden in the story of Jehoshaphat. And so that's kind of where we want to start, and I'll let you just tell the story a little bit.

Linda Lotich:
Yeah, I mean, I remember if you grew up as a Christian, maybe you watched the show “Gospel Bill,” which was with Willie George. It was like a church production, and we watched that a ton. And there was one song from that show that stood out to me in particular. And honestly, it's just followed me throughout my life. And every time I read it, I pull more and more out of this story. So we're going to talk about that. It's from 2 Chronicles 20, and the story of Jehoshaphat is that he is the king over Judah and Jerusalem, and he is sitting on his throne one day kind of chill, and a messenger comes up to him and says, "Hey, there are three separate armies that are coming to attack us. They wildly outnumber us and they're going to wipe us off the map. So just thought you should know."

Bob Lotich:
And have a good day.

Linda Lotich:
He probably takes off not wanting to get beheaded or something. So Jehoshaphat gets really afraid, but what's so great about him is that he loves the Lord. And so he gets down on his face immediately and starts praying. Then he calls for all of Judah to start praying and fasting. And so they all gather together. I mean, it even says that there were men, women, children and infants in this place, and they're all fasting and they're praying together, seeking the Lord. And Jehoshaphat starts to pray. And what was so great about what he did is he started saying, "Lord, we've seen your faithfulness before." He starts it out saying, "Aren't you the God that …" and then he fills in the blank with all these things that he's seen the Lord do before, or that his ancestors have told him that the Lord has done for them before.

He reminds himself, and Judah, of God's faithfulness already. And then he starts to get a little bit angry and then he's like, “Wait a second, these armies, we had a chance to fight them before and we let them go and this is how they're repaying us?” He starts getting really a righteous anger in this, just saying this, this isn't right. And he ends the prayer with, "We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you." (2 Chronicles 20:12c) And as he praised, I can imagine there just being a hush over the crowd just listening, trying to hear what the Lord is wanting them to do.
And a man stands up, Jahaziel, right? He stands up and he says, I'm going to read it straight from the scripture because it's 2 Chronicles 15 starting at 15. “And he says, ‘Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the LORD to you, 'Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold they will be coming up by the ascent of Ziz. And you will find them at the end of the valley in front of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight this battle. Station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out, face them for the LORD is with you.’"(2 Chronicles 20:15-17)

And it says, “Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and they all fell down before the LORD worshiping Him.” (2 Chronicles 20:18)

Bob Lotich:
That's so cool.

Linda Lotich:
So from here they decide, all right, this is what the word of the Lord is. Let's listen to Him. Let's do it.

Bob Lotich:
A little bit scary.

Linda Lotich:
But I mean can imagine wanting to just stay within the city walls and say, "Well, God's fighting this battle for me, so let's just stay here and just hope nothing happens." But they went out, they faced the thing that was probably terrifying, and the bold thing that they decided to do was to send out the worship team first. It says they sent out the praisers (2 Chronicles 20:21), which I just have this view of the praisers with tambourines and ribbons, but they sent the people worshiping the Lord first.

So those people must have been, I mean, audacious, to go out ahead, be the front line of the battle. And they come to where they're going, the ascent of Ziz, and they see all three armies, but every single person is dead. In fact, it even says not one person escaped. So when they got there, the Lord had already fought this battle for them. So that had to be a huge relief and just thankfulness to the Lord that they were not going to be killed and destroyed and taken, wiped off the map. That had to be some relief. Then they find on top of that, that since the Lord fought this battle for them, they were the victors on the earth and they got to take the spoils of war, which was garments and goods.

Bob Lotich:
Whatever, all the weaponry, all the stuff.

Linda Lotich:
Everything that they had, there was so much, it took them three days to bring it from the ascents of Ziz, all the way back home. Three days of everyone caring as much as they could. And then on top of that, it says that the dread of the Lord was on the surrounding cities. So everyone else heard this story, word got around and they were like, "Oh dang, don't mess with them because the Lord's fighting for them." I mean, this is just a crazy miracle of something that happened.

Bob Lotich:
And God got the glory, which is so cool. And so I want to just tap into the secret here that Jehoshaphat … And so his key to seeing this supernatural in this, that we've observed, is that he paired the spiritual side of things, the praying, fasting, praising, doing those things with the natural side. So his actions of actually marching to the battle line, obeying God in that thing. And as a result of doing those two things, the experience, this mind blowing supernatural miracle, that's one of the coolest stories in the Bible. So I want to just kind of look at a couple of ways that this could have played out. So number one, they could have done nothing. So when they got this bad news that there's three armies coming against them, they could have just put their hands over their ears, la, la, la, la, pretend like it's not happening and do nothing. Not create a plan, not pray, and just pretend like it's not happening and that it'll all go away.

Linda Lotich:
Not a great solution.

Bob Lotich:
We all know that's not going anywhere good. Right? The next thing they could have done would be only the natural. So bad news comes, armies are coming, and it's like, "All right, we're going to create a battle plan," but in the natural, realistically, they're going to get slaughtered because they're so greatly outnumbered. So the third option, other way it could have played out, is if they would've only done the spiritual. So this would've been maybe praying, asking God to intervene. And maybe they wouldn't have been killed, maybe they would've been saved. But even if God had done the miracle, they might not have known what God had done. You know what I mean? They might have just thought that those armies just changed their mind because they didn't go out to actually see what happened. And then they certainly would've missed out on the biggest blessing of having all these spoils of war that they were able to bring back.

But what they did, which is so cool, is they did both. They paired both of them together, and that's how they saw and experienced this supernatural blessing. And so this reminds me of James 2:17 where he said, "Faith by itself, if it's not accompanied by deeds or actions is dead." And so that's what I love so much about this story, is that Jehoshaphat did both. He did the spiritual side by taking those actions of immediately praying and fasting when the bad news came, sending the praisers out first, praising God for the thing, and then doing the natural part that he had to do to march to the battle line.

Linda Lotich:
And I'm curious if you have ever experienced something like this. I know I certainly have, but where you saw how bad it was going to be, you saw how bad it was, and you went to the Lord, He asked you to do something maybe that seemed like ridiculous, and you did it and saw the supernatural happen, because what happens after that? You probably told a whole bunch of people about it, right? Because you couldn't believe what was actually going on.
And I believe that in the supernatural, that is where God gets the glory. It's where we can't take any credit, but I think that's why we have to do both together. We have to take the natural step, take the step that says, “OK, I'm just going to obey what God is asking me to do, even though it doesn't make sense necessarily, I'm going to pray and I'm going to believe that He's going to do the thing that He says He’s going to do.” And then we see Him get the glory because something crazy happens that we can't even believe is happening, right?

Bob Lotich:
Yeah. I think that's the thing, that's where the power is. So the battle is His, but we need to show up. We have a part to play. And so I want to tie this to our finances now and see what this looks like in our money. Because like I said, I've been talking to Christians, I've made this unique perspective about talking about money specifically to Christians for 15 years or so now. And I've come to realize that most Christians are a big part of the church, are making one of three key mistakes with their money when they're facing obstacles. And so tying back to the story of Jehoshaphat and how that could have played out, the first mistake is that you do nothing. There's a big financial obstacle that comes, or a financial goal you're trying to reach and you just do nothing.

You pretend like the debt isn't there. You pretend you didn't lose all of your clients in 2020 when everything dried up or you pretend that you didn't lose your job, or whatever the situation might be. You just put your hands over ears, la, la, la. Pretend like it's not happening. Of which I am definitely guilty of …

Linda Lotich:
Me too.

Bob Lotich:
… doing a whole lot of that in my younger years. So that's the first mistake that way too many people in the church are actually making. The second mistake, which isn't bad or isn't nearly as bad, but it's only doing the practical things. So it's all right, we have this big pile of debt, but we're going to do our best to make a plan. We're going to try to spend less than we earn. So using common sense, using wisdom, of which the Bible actually has a lot. There's tons of financial wisdom all throughout Proverbs and other places.

And so in the world as non-believers, this is the best it gets. And so this is the best that you can do. But for us as believers, this is a mistake if this is all we are doing. And then the third possible mistake here is if we're only doing the spiritual thing. So this would be if we're in a situation and we pray, we pray to God to help us get this debt paid off, but we're not going to do any of the practical. It's like, "I'm not going to actually try to spend less money. I'm not going to try to make a plan. I'm just going to pray. Let God do the work. I'm not going to be involved in that at all."

Linda Lotich:
Which, what's funny about this one is this is definitely what I was guilty of. But since the Bible is full of so much wisdom, we're not as spiritual as we think we are. If we're like, "I'm just going to let God take care of it." But it's like He's told us what to do in the Bible and we're not going to do it. So we're not as spiritual as we really think we are.

Bob Lotich:
And one of the examples, I love talking about is this idea of if you've ever heard of a situation where somebody's praying to lose weight, you probably haven't heard of someone wake up the next day being 20 pounds lighter. Maybe it has happened, God probably can do it.

Linda Lotich:
Of course He can.

Bob Lotich:
The point is that you don't hear stories like that very often, but you do hear stories of people beginning to exercise and to, while praying, then seeing God kind of move. And I think oftentimes with their finances, it's a similar type of thing. And so the key that we have discovered with our finances is to do both, is to do spiritual side of things where we are praying and fasting and believing God for a miracle in our finances, believing the Ephesians 3:20 where He can do exceedingly, above and beyond all we can ask, think or imagine, like it says in the amplified; believing Him for the miracle, but then doing our part and actually doing the practical step with Him where we're partnering with God, we're co-laboring and this is a thing that we are after, when we can kind of connect these dots. And this is where those crazy miracles happen, where it's like you can't take the glory because it's just too big. It's too big of a thing that there's no way anyone would believe it.

Linda Lotich:
I mean, that's honestly why Bob and I are here. I am not great at finances. If you saw me do math, try to teach our third grader math, it is not good guys. We homeschool. And it's not my natural inclination. So when I started teaching people about finances, it's pretty laughable for almost anyone who knows me a little bit. But I have seen God do too many things in our finances for me to shut up about it. I can't just stand by and watch Him do these miracles and not make sure that He gets the glory for it and not tell people that there is something here to tap into. This is our job as Christians, to point people back to Jesus. And that's pointing ourselves back to Jesus because we need reminders all the time. I know I do. Pointing other people back to Jesus, other Christians, and then also the world, that needs to know Him. And when we have these stories of this is something that only God could have done, I don't know, there's no other way for me to explain it than people are just drawn to that.

Bob Lotich:
So yeah, let's bring this really real practical … and tell them one of those stories from our early marriage where we started to experience this.

Linda Lotich:
So when we first got married, Bob had put together the pie charts and the spreadsheets.

Bob Lotich:
We had all debt we were trying to pay off.

Linda Lotich:
So he puts together a plan on how to pay off this debt. This is a good place to start. And we were both going, “OK, we’re going to work on this together.” It was a great place to start, honestly, it was.

Bob Lotich:
Yeah, we had a plan. It was going to take us three and a half, four years to pay off our debt. We were making some forward progress.

Linda Lotich:
We were making some forward progress, but it was taken a long time. It was a hard battle to fight in the natural, but we were praying, We were like, "OK, Lord, we're doing what we can." Well, one day I feel like I was driving around and I just got this, it was like I got hit by lightning and I got real feisty. And I tell Bob, "All right, I feel like it's almost like we've been afraid of this debt. We've held this fear of being in debt so tight that it's kind of become an idol in our lives." And I don't think either of us realized it until this moment where it was like, we've kind of put this in the number one place in our lives, and I don't think it's supposed to be there, so we need to knock that down. And I said, "Bob, I think we are supposed to give an extra 10%." Now, we had been tithing at the time, and so to give an extra 10% is now 20% of our very small incomes. And Bob's the one driving, and I can see his knuckles getting whiter and whiter as he's gripping the steering wheel because he was the one with the spreadsheet and the plan. And I'm coming in there just trying to ...

Bob Lotich:
Derailing the plan.

Linda Lotich:
I said, "Bob, I really think we're supposed to do this." And he goes, "OK." It freaked him out a little bit, but he said, "Let's just go look. Let's just go look at what we've got and see if this is actually possible. Let's just start there." So we go home and he starts looking at all the things and he says, "OK, we can do this. But what this means is that we're not paying extra towards our debt anymore. We're just giving this to the Lord." And so we're like, "OK, let's just take a minute. Let's pray. Let's figure it out."

Bob Lotich:
Kind of felt like marching down to the battle line.

Linda Lotich:
So we think, OK, well we felt like the Lord was asking us to do this. So we went, "All right, we'll just do it. We'll just give it a try." So we start giving an extra 10%. And what ends up happening …

Bob Lotich:
I mean it was years faster than it should have been paid off. It was one of those things where God just started showing up, extra money was coming in, got raises, got promotions. One thing after another after another, God just began showing up. And it was absolutely one of those things where we could not take the glory because it was going to take so much longer in our own strength. And then we did the opposite. We gave away so much of the money that we were paying towards our debt, like the worst financial advice in the natural. And yet God came through and did the miracle.

Linda Lotich:
Yeah, because God's math is not the same as our math. And it did not add up to us. It didn't add up, but we watched God do it. So there's no way we could explain it.

Bob Lotich:
And we were doing both parts of this equation. And I think it was the first time that we might have done that. We were actually praying, we were actually believing for a miracle, and we were actually taking the natural steps and obeying God when He led us to do something that seemed crazy. And so I want to just end with one other illustration here that I found to be really powerful and kind of helped me. So this is 1 Kings 18:46 in the message version, and probably heard this story before, but it says, "And GOD strengthened Elijah mightily. Pulling up his robe and tying it around his waist, Elijah ran in front of Ahab's chariot until they reached Jezreel." (MSG)
So if you miss that, this guy outruns a chariot, so presumably he's running 35-40 miles an hour.

Linda Lotich:
That's crazy.

Bob Lotich:
Real, real fast. And the question that I have for you that I've always been fascinated, I love that it mentions this detail, why does it say that he pulled up his robe and tied it around his waist? And I've concluded that the answer here is that he had to do that simple, small natural thing to allow God to do this supernatural through him and to do it unhindered, because if you're a woman and you've ever worn a wedding dress and tried to run real fast in the dress, you probably know in a dress, it's hard enough just to run, let alone running 35-40 miles an hour with a big long thing draping down. And so he had to do this simple natural thing in order to allow the supernatural to flow unhindered.

Linda Lotich:
And I mean, basically what this looks like is we are removing any obstacle from God's path so that when He comes in, He can do His stuff unhindered. So for me, what I needed to do was I needed to quit spending 150% of my paycheck so that if God was going to come in and do a miracle and I'm spending way more than I'm making, then I'm not really going to know what He's doing. I can't see it because I was getting in His way. So I think wrapping this up, our question is what are some natural things that God might be asking you to do, even if it doesn't make sense that you can do to get out of His way so that He can do the supernatural in your life?

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. Linda, that was a great way to summarize this because something that you said that I want to go back and highlight was, “we aren't as spiritual as we think we are.” It was whenever you talked about the mistakes we make with our money, and I was like, Ooh, that kind of hurts. Because it's like Wendy and I spend 40 hours a week here at Proverbs, and sometimes that makes me feel very spiritual when I can assume that I am, but I'm not. Or I think as believers, a lot of times we can get in trouble by compartmentalizing our devotional time and keeping it separate from the everyday, but what I'm getting from this teaching is, yes, it applies to finances, but just in general, this is a reminder for me to take everything to the Lord and be mindful of everything that I'm doing and to invite God into it because I can't only take the things that might be glaring struggles to the Lord and just assume that everything else is all cylinders running. And if it is, that's wonderful, but that's me assuming on my part and not taking it to the Lord. And there might be something that He wants to do that I'm not offering an opening up for correction.
But something that you guys said about your story and how you increased your giving from 10% to 20%, I do want to highlight here the way that you stewarded your finances and went and took a look at what you were able to do with that, because I think sometimes we think like, "Oh, well, I've got to just give everything." And God gives you wisdom to be smart with what He's given you and you looked at your money and you looked at your budget and you saw where you could make room in that to do that.

It didn't put you in more debt to give more to God. And I want to highlight, because that's really important, we're not saying that, but I think to the world, you said, this is something that we can invite God into. And it reminded me of the verse from 1 Corinthians 1:27 that says, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise ..." and how He is going to ask us to do things that don't seem cool. You could have taken that 10% and invested in something else or planned your family vacation or whatever, but He asked you to take what you could use for something else while still being responsible and paying what you needed to pay for as mature adults, but He asked you to do something specific with that, and then He blessed that. So that was really, really helpful for me to take away. Wendy, I know that you had something that you wrote down earlier and you wanted to kind of expand on that. So I'm going to turn the mic over to you for you to share a little bit about that.

Wendy Blight:
One question I was thinking our audience may have before I say that, Linda, that is when you say the Lord told you or you heard that 10% extra, can you sort of explain how? We know you probably didn't hear an audible voice from God, although a few people have, but I'm guessing you didn't. So can you share with us? Because I know some people say, “How do I know it's the voice of God? How do I know He gave me that percent?”

Kaley Olson:
That's a great question.

Linda Lotich:
Yes. So yeah, I think the Lord talks to us, we talk to ourselves, but I think it's often ideas that we are not cool enough to come up with. And so it was sort of just this idea that rose up, but I think because I could sense His presence on it, does that make sense?
I was just thinking through and then all of a sudden it was like, bam, that's the one. That's it right there was, for this instance, that's how it was for me. It was just this strong sense of, “Oh my gosh, we've been afraid of this debt. Why have we felt afraid of this debt when we are serving the living God? We are serving the Provider. He is our provider.” And so when I got that, it was like a revelation from the Lord and seeing things in a completely new perspective, but it was not an audible voice. It was just really highlighted and I just sensed His presence all over it.

Wendy Blight:
I was just going to say, I appreciate the way you describe that because I've had that same experience. So it's almost like an impression and it came because you knew the character of God, which was our provider. That's Jehovah-Jireh in the Hebrew, He's our provider. So you knew His character, you knew you could trust it, and the number probably was just more, it just flowed from what you were experiencing personally because you were spiritually listening more to the Lord. So thank you for that. And then the other thing I wanted to share is this is one of my favorite stories to teach on. So it was so much fun to hear you teach on it. I want to back us up to 2 Chronicle 17, because that's where we see King Jehoshaphat not making such good choices. He sided with his enemies, really bad things happened to him, but three chapters later in 2 Chronicles 20, when he hears the news, that you so really did a great job teaching on that, it says that he was alarmed and he resolved to inquire of the Lord. (2 Chronicles 20:3, NIV)

Kaley Olson:
I love that.

Wendy Blight:
And so I think that when we share this story, we can say, even if you've messed up before, even if your finances are this complete mess, so was King Jehoshaphat in Chapter 17, so if you just bump forward three chapters when he made an intentional decision to humble himself and his heart toward God, to resolve to inquire of the Lord, and then you walked us right into those four things that he did about fasting and praying and listening and obeying. So thank you for just ... I love that you ground your teachings in Scripture because that is the living and active Word of God, and that is where everything is going to flow from. So thank you so much.

Kaley Olson:
I agree. And thank you for reminding us too that something as heavy and literally chain binding as debt is not bigger than God. I think for people listening, I know everybody's got their own personal experience with debt. A lot of us might be in college financial debt, there might be car payments that we took on that we might not should have done that, or there's death that we can't control like hospital bills or whatever that is. For some reason, it can just be this thing that we carry that feels embarrassing and I think that that can also be a hindrance to our faith in taking it to God and wanting to just push through on our own.

But God gives us help for everything. There is nothing that we're going through, nothing that we have put ourselves into that he has not said, "I will help you get out of this," and he'll give you a way. So thank you guys for practically reminding us to take everything to the Lord, including our finances, and to do it in a way that we're bringing it to Him every day. This was so, so helpful, guys. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Bob Lotich:
Thank you both. Appreciate it guys.

Kaley Olson:
OkK, guys, we are back before we let you go, hang with us for a few reminders. First, today's podcast with Bob and Linda was so helpful and practical, and so we want to get you connected with them if you're also in a season of needing help with your finances or just want to learn more. First, they wrote a book called Simple Money Rich Life: Achieve True Financial Freedom and Design, a Life of Eternal Impact. We have linked up for you in the show notes @proverbs31.org for you to check out. And second, they also have a podcast, which is really cool. I feel like I could listen to them talk all the time.

Wendy Blight:
Me too.

Kaley Olson:
I would want to hear them talk about finances.

Wendy Blight:
Finances isn't easy to talk about.

Kaley Olson:
I know, right? Absolutely. But their podcast is called SeedTime Money with Bob and Linda Lotich, and you can find them on any podcast platform.

But I want to say it's so fitting that Bob's book includes the line, “Design a Life of Eternal Impact.” And I just want to park on that for a moment. If you are in a position to give back to the work that we're doing here at Proverbs 31 Ministries, I want to invite you to do just that. I think a lot of times kind of at the top of the episode, we were talking about how it is weighty for us to help women know the truth and live the truth of God's Word because we believe that it changes everything. That's a calling that all of us here at Proverbs 31 Ministry steward, but it's something that you guys listening can partner with us to help us be able to do that and have people, like Wendy, on staff to review content from a theological perspective and make sure it's accurate or make things like this podcast happen or make Online Bible Studies happen or the First 5 app, our daily devotions, just everything that we do here is supported by people who want to give back to the ministry and join us in our calling to help women know the Truth of God's Word.
But Wendy, we received a testimony from a gal on social media that I thought was really, really special. And I would love for you to share that with our listeners right now.

Wendy Blight:
It's always one of my favorite things to do. “Every one of the prayers you've posted this week has screamed what my heart is desperately trying to voice. I'm sad, weary, angry, tired, overwhelmed, scared and yet the Lord is faithful. His promises speak loud Truth over my life, and your words allow me to remind myself of that. Thank you for your ministry.”

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. I think, Wendy, like I said, this testimony of this woman saying that the content we put out, which is it's not our content, it's the content that God says, "I want you to share this, and I will take this and multiply it for you," that met her in a way that she needed it so desperately in her life. And I don't know what she was going through, but I so personally resonate with sometimes being sad and weary as a new mom, weary, angry at circumstances, tired, overwhelmed, and scared, but being reminded that the Lord is faithful every day throughout what we do here. And for me, that looks like showing up at Proverbs to work, but for our audience that looks like interacting with us in whatever way they do. So I think that, that's really special.
But as you and I were talking about how to wrap up this episode, we know that talking about finances can be really hard because a lot of you might be struggling with debt. And we understand that. We know that, that's really hard. And some of you might have listened to this teaching and you might kind of like Linda and Wendy were talking about, “How did you hear that God wanted you to take action?” some of you might be feeling that right now. And everybody who is listening is interpreting this in their own way. And so we thought it would be really fitting to just close in prayer and seal our time together. So Wendy's going to do that, and then we're going to wrap up the show.

Wendy Blight:
Heavenly Father, thank You for the time that we've had together here today. We know this is a divine appointment for every person that You brought to us today. And Father, Your name is Jehovah-Jireh, You are God, our provider. And so Lord, we're going to boldly ask You for every person within the hearing of these words, Lord, that You will move in mighty and amazing ways to provide for them and whatever that looks like, Father, we're not limited to financial provision here. We just want You to provide peace and hope and light and wisdom and financial as well, Lord and I'm really boldly asking You that over the next few days, as people seek Your face as to their finances or any other thing that's burdening their heart, You would lift the weight and in very clear and obvious and amazing, miraculous ways You would provide exactly what they need when they need it. And Father, we will give You all the glory and all the honor. In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.

Kaley Olson:
Amen. Thank you so much, Wendy. Well, friends, that is all for today at Proverb 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything. We'll see you next time.