A Bit of an Intense Journey and a GREAT Blessing!

On Friday morning, I left the house around 10:00 a.m. I was planning on going to the funeral of a dear friend, Roger Knapp, at Gladewater Methodist Church in Gladewater, TX. Then I was going to travel from there to Texarkana so I would be there and ready for the Maximum Investment Seminar on Saturday morning at Hardy Memorial Methodist Church.

I wasn’t even two miles from my house when I was involved in a fender-bender accident. Fortunately, no one was injured, but I wasn’t going to be able to drive our Highlander on the trip, and I had to come home and get the insurance claim started. I was able to change into some more comfortable clothes, and I left for Texarkana around 1:00 p.m. It is interesting how difficult it can be to drive after just having had an accident. I made it safely to Texarkana around 4:00 p.m., and I had the honor and the blessing of going to dinner with my cousin, Paul Miller. I am so thankful for our friendship and our heart connection.

I got up early on Saturday to do some of my normal devotional activities, and I left the hotel around 7:41. I filled the gas-guzzling Sequoia with gas on my way to Starbucks, where I got some more coffee and something to eat. I arrived at Hardy around 8:10 a.m., and the young people began arriving around 8:15 a.m.

We had eight students and their Sunday school teacher and leader, Billy Witt, who helped organize the whole thing. I so appreciate his efforts. We got started with the seminar around 8:34 a.m. There were eight young people and Billy Witt. It was a great group. Three of the young people were children of my cousins, so I had some family members involved in the seminar. That made it extra fun and interesting.

The oldest student was 24. She was there with her 23-year-old fiancé, and they are well established in their finances and budgeting. There were two other 23-year-olds there. Both of them have graduated from college. This was a significantly older and more mature group than the group I taught in Hot Springs, AR. I enjoy the challenge and the opportunity to meet the group where they are, and I like having a smaller group so that it can be more personal.

Two of the young people who attended yesterday will be freshmen in college this fall. One will be attending Texas Tech, and the other will be going to LeTourneau University in Longview, TX. It was a great group of young people. They were very attentive and engaged, and I pray that the seminar was helpful and beneficial and that they came away with some meaningful takeaways. I will continue to pray for them in the days ahead, and I hope that I may be able to go back next year and meet with this group again. That would be a blast.

Traffic was pretty heavy on I-30 both going and coming back. I had the accident on Friday on my way there, so it wasn’t necessarily an easy trip, but after it is all said and done, I wouldn’t take anything for the privilege and the blessing of the opportunity to teach those young people.

One of my key takeaways is that our young people are not being taught about the joy and the blessing of giving. One of my key motivations for doing these seminars has been to warn young people about the dangers of credit card debt, but as I was preparing and presenting the material to this group, I became aware of how old-fashioned the concept of the 10–10–80 budget is. Even though it may be old-fashioned, it is not obsolete! It is still such a powerful and beneficial way to live!

One of the 23-year-olds said, “I had never considered the giving component.” Wow! I pray that he will give it prayerful consideration and that God will guide him. It is a path of blessing.

One other takeaway for me from the preparations for this seminar came when I asked another one of my Texarkana cousins what her father had taught her about finances. She paused for a second and then said, “One thing I know—my dad was a saver and a giver!” I realized that this is a part of my heritage! My dad was a saver and a giver! I might tend to say that he was a giver and a saver! But I am so thankful to God that this is my heritage, and I pray that I can continue to lean into and live out that heritage as faithfully as possible.

As I reflected on those two moments—the young man saying he had never considered the giving component and my cousin describing her father as "a saver and a giver"—it struck me that this seminar is about much more than budgeting or avoiding debt. It is about passing on a godly legacy. Values like generosity, wise stewardship, contentment, and living within our means are not automatically passed from one generation to the next. Someone has to intentionally teach them and model them. I am deeply grateful that my dad modeled those values for me, and I pray that, in some small way, these seminars will help pass that same legacy on to another generation. If even a few young people choose to become faithful savers and joyful givers, the impact could extend far beyond their own lives and bless their families, their churches, and God's Kingdom for many years to come.

I am so thankful to God for the eight young people, ages 18 to 24, who took the time to be a part of the Maximum Investment Seminar yesterday. I pray God’s richest blessings over their lives and their futures! I pray that they received something yesterday that will help them on their journey. I also pray that God will guide my steps as I seek to do more of these seminars.

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your goodness and grace!