I was privileged to hear a wealthy man speaking with some service men and women who were wounded in combat. He was talking about possessing the courage to take risks. Interestingly, He spoke about financial courage as being different than other kinds of courage. When stating that he had the confidence to take the multi-million dollar financial risks he often did; he qualified that statement by saying it would be difficult for him to risk his life on a battlefield like these war veterans had done. He said he did not possess “that kind” of courage. I learned something that day. There are different types of courage.

It is fascinating to me that you could have so much courage in one area but not in another. But this is really true. A construction worker can have the courage to balance himself on a six inch I-beam, hundreds of feet above the ground, but at the same time not have the courage to stand up in front of a group of 40 people and give a speech or walk into the bank to meet with the bank manager to talk about financing a project. Likewise, a salesman who has the courage to knock on a dozen doors a day making sales calls might not have the financial courage to buy a single share of stock.

There are different kinds of courage. We need courage in the financial area. With God’s help we can obtain the financial courage and strategy that we need to walk in the prosperity that He has for us. There are specific things we can do to help us become more comfortable in the financial world. We must learn to overcome the misconceptions we have about the financial world and how it functions.

In order for us to develop some financial courage we will have to get over the idea that it is not spiritual to talk about money. People afflicted by the spirit of poverty find it difficult to talk about money. A lot of churches struggle to communicate financial needs or even take a biblical offering for a need or vision the church is undertaking. Jesus spoke about money a lot. There are over 3,000 references to money in the Bible. People with a poverty spirit don’t like to talk about money. On the other hand, prosperous people enjoy talking about money.

But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today (Deuteronomy 8:18).

So let’s take a closer look at this. You mean God gives us the power and creativity to get wealth, but we are not supposed to talk about it? No…it is OK to talk about money. Certainly we need to keep money in its proper perspective. To prosperous people money is important and interesting. They enjoy talking about and learning about money. They are unashamed to have a good conversation with their children and friends about the ins and outs of money. How are we going to learn about managing money without talking about it?