The speaker during the retreat was Pastor “Dai Joe,” he is an excellent servant of God, he carries the attitude of “saying Yes” to serve God and willing to take risk. Dai Joe inspired me and reignited my “dying” fire about serving the Lord. A few years ago, Dai Joe decided to leave his comfortable position, stable income, a well-established church, and his staffs, he was in his early 50s. He was called then plant a youth center “Community of the Mount” out there in the community setting. With zero income, no member, and only a few mentees, the center has a steady growth to a hundred of members; this is the demonstration of “all things is possible with God!”. As I just turned 40 earlier this year, I could not imagine nor have the “guts” to start a career/ministry from nothing, yet, Dai Joe was so faithful and he headed where God called him.
Anyway, during the last sermon in the retreat, Dai Joe was calling brothers and sisters about offering ourselves full time. I lowered my head, kept on praying and thinking hard on how (and what) I can offer myself to God. Like I said before, I didn’t have any expectation of the retreat, but God has used Dai Joe to speak to me. My heart was touched and envisioned what’s next of our lives. I don’t know what it will end up happening, but, at least, J and I are affirmed of the directions of the followings:
#1) Convert our retirement fund into GM (God Ministry) Fund
If you follow my blog, you know that my priority of financial goal is to build up a retirement fund aggressively. Since J and I were married nine years ago, we have maximized the contribution to IRA and 401k as much as possible. With God’s grace, we have built a decent retirement portfolio and we definitely are on track to our financial freedom. About a week ago before the retreat, J asked me that what i will do after we reach our financial freedom, I casually told her that we can do whatever we want to do, but deep down in my heart, I actually have no answer for that... Obviously, we know we have the ability to reach early retirement; we could also make a choice to have a luxury, comfortable lifestyle, travel a lot and enjoy every day as Saturday. But, is that what we really want?
After the retreat, God gave me a new insight about the usage of our retirement fund. I feel that God will be happy that if I willing to give Him what belongs to Him, that includes converting our retirement fund into the GM (God Ministry) fund. God should be the ultimate CEO of using the fund and I'm just an investment manager to handle the wealth and let it grow. This fund will be a long term, passive growth fund; it also means the expense ratio has to be low. J and I are so thankful that we can be in partnership of His picture; we are called upon living a frugal lifestyle. In order to achieve the goal, our daily expense needs to be low and we need practice simplicity. It is one of the key factors on how to maximize the growth rate.
#2) Living a simplified life
Getting a raise? There are definitely moments of life when our income has an increase, like getting an annual raise from your employer or a bonus reward. Once we know we are getting a raise, we normally can relax on our budget, loosen up the “line” on spending money, pamper ourselves maybe with a more luxurious lifestyle and feed ourselves a lot of good food. Guess what, this behavior is called the hyper inflated lifestyle. But then, our jobs can be taken away so does our health! Then, we learn that we are forced to live with a reduced income! (Been there, done that!)
It is truly a great experience that when J and I live in the “simple mode,” our relationship is much sweeter and happier, we know how to appreciate what we have, our needs are satisfied with less and best of all, we know how to count our blessings! On the other hand, when our life become richer, I became pickier, unsatisfied, complaint more, and J can easily overspend on the crafts supplies that she doesn’t need at all!
Let me give you a good illustration – it happened during our road trip to Grand Canyon last year. We stayed in different motels (some are kind of dirty,) ate simple meals during the first 5 days of the trip. Bread, salad, cold cut, and instant noodles were all we consumed. We didn't have nice restaurant meal yet we didn't complaint much about this kind of situation. We had the mindset that we need to “preserve” the good stuffs till the second half of the trip.
The last 5 days of our trip, our lodging was much better! A nice suite with hot tub, clean towels and a golf course view! We even went out for a fancy dinner for our anniversary! Honestly, I really enjoyed the transition from a poor condition to the excellent! But, after a couple of days of luxury lifestyle, I became so picky and complained on little things. I was not satisfied on what I had, I want more luxury even we were already living in a very nice hotel suite! J can tell you what a “mid-age uncle” is like when he is not a friendly man! Haha! So it’s best that we remain in our simple lifestyle.
#3) Train young people to work hard on following this foot path
“Be the change!” I don’t know exactly what I can offer to this vision, but I like chit-chatting with young folks. Whenever I have a chance meeting new friends who are younger than me, I like to challenge them about choosing between a comfy life and financial freedom. This is also why I am writing this blog to share my idea to other folks. I don’t know how effective of this blog writing habit and how long it is going to last. I will try my best write more topics as much as possible. (Your comment is appreciated! Let me know if you are reading this and what life topics you are interested to hear!)
#4) Systematic ways to support
Churches, Christian organizations, missionaries and community worker are my “targets”. The GM fund will be the upside-down funnel to support these targets. We will examine the need of one-time contribution or recurring contribution for those targets. Personally, recurring contribution (monthly, quarters, and annually) with at least a three-year commitment would be benefit for me and targets. Consider “give the man a fish or teach him to fish” which one is better?
"For where your treasure is, there also your heart will be also." Luke 12:34.
Couple years ago, I start to compile a list of target to supports. As I start to financially support them, I pay attention to their newsletter, or events update from their website, Twitter, Facebook. It is very truth statement from Bible. Maybe for our future vacation, we can visit or join one of their events. Our trip will be more fun, and good caught up with brothers and sisters.
Since J and I don't have kids, we are planning to give all GM fund to all those targets when both of us are going home (Heaven.)
Conclusion
I am not 100 percent sure where God is going to lead J and I in the future. At least, it is our goal and direction at this point and we are committing to work on this. Over the past years, J and I have realized that we are capable to do more than what we think. J’s success in her pottery life and good feedback about my blog.
Dear brothers and sisters, do you know where is God leading you at this moment? what is He asking you to participle? Maybe it is a good idea to drop down some visions and points before it fades away.