Safeguarding Your Legacy

In the fifth lesson of The Legacy Journey, Dave Ramsey and his daughter team up to talk about the importance of safeguarding your legacy.  In order to protect your future legacy you have to safeguard your life today in four key relationships:

1. Personal
2. Marriage
3. Children
4. Others (Friends/Extended Family)

Dave and Rachel took each of these key relationship and focused on three areas of each one:

1. Ownership - remembering that God owns everything
2. Magnification - whatever you are will be magnified as you build wealth
3. Community - the importance of Godly counsel 

In this post I will summarize each of the three areas using the four key relationships. 

Personal:

1. Ownership - Everything we own belongs to God, we are just his managers. 
2. Magnification - We need to have fanatical integrity in all areas of our lives.  The more money we make the more of what we are in our core will show up. 
3. Community - Each of us should have a mentor, a student and Godly friends. 

Marriage:

1. Ownership - Marriage is a team sport.  As a couple work together to manage God's resources as a team. Anna and I work together in all areas of finances as a team.
2. Magnification - Whatever is wrong in your marriage will be magnified as your wealth increases.  Take care of your marriage and work on areas of weakness. 
3. Community - You will become more like the people who you hangout with.  Make sure to be nurturing healthy relationships with other Godly couples.  Anna and I are happy that we have found a small group in our church of strong Christian couples.

Children:

1. Ownership - It is very important to teach the next generation how to use their financial blessings and your legacy to further the Kingdom of God.  They must know they are God's managers as well.  Parents are the primary mentors for their children and we must take this responsibility seriously by modeling the behaviors we want our kids to learn.  More is caught by our children than is directly taught. Another thing Rachel focused on was making sure to include kids in family giving.  We used FPU, Jr. with William and he loved it.  William already understands way more than I did and will have a bright future. 
2. Magnification - Parents - know your kids.  Know how your kids are wired because as they grow their strengths and struggles will be magnified as well. 
3. Community - It is important for parents to know who their children's friends are.  They will become more like the people they hangout with.  Help them get connected in environments that have good influences like church youth groups.  Don't forget to make sure that your friends are the kind of influences you want for your children.  Also, remember to use teachable moments in life to help your children grow in their knowledge and understandings of life.  I know that we want William to have the best influences we can around him and at times that means that we have to make some hard decisions.

Others:

1. Ownership - Knowing that God owns everything in your life, we should think about how God would want his money to be used in situations that involve family and friends.  You may have to deal with issues of entitlement.  Make sure not to enable the bad behavior of your family or friends with God's money. 
2. Magnification - Your success can reveal the true character of your friends and family.  Their character will be magnified as well. 
3. Community - Make sure to be seeking Godly counsel.  Quality relationships with others will help you make good decisions. 

This was a great lesson that dealt with how building a legacy will impact the relationships in your life.  It is important to realize how money can impact these areas so you can safeguard your relationships and legacy against these threats.

What key relationships do you need to work on safeguarding? My focus will be Anna, William and then other friends and family!