The Rachel Cruze Show - Christine Caine: The Faith to Flourish

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.   On today’s episode, I had the honor of sitting down with Christine Caine to discuss how your spiritual roots affect how you handle money and how you can have the faith to flourish. Next Steps:  🎥 Watch my video What Happy People Know About Money (With Dr. Arthur Brooks). 📖 Check out Christine Caine’s book The Faith to Flourish. 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!   Connect With Our Sponsors: Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 🎙️ The Ramsey Show  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, today I am so excited because Christine Kane is on the show. So Christine is someone I've known for about 10 years, and she's incredible, you guys. She travels the world. She teaches, she preaches. She also runs an organization called A-21, which is all about rescuing people out of human trafficking, and they rescue them, they do rehabilitation on the other end. They go in and change laws and governments. The work that she does is incredible, but even her depth of knowledge when it comes to

how our spirituality really interjects into every part of our life, including our money. And that's what we're going to talk about. And also her new book, Faith to Flourish, God's Design for a Rooted, Resilient, and Fruitful Life. Cannot wait for you to hear this conversation because she is amazing. Chris, thanks for being here. Man, it is such a joy, Rachel, truly. Okay, so we were like prepping right before you walked in.

And Jen and my producer was like, well, last time Christine was on, it was like via sat-it. Like, it was via Zoom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, oh, yeah, like you weren't even in person. We've come a long way. And I love, I mean, I've been here. I hadn't been up to your live event center.

That was beautiful. And I mean, I just love being here in person. The problem with you and I is we've got a million things to talk about. I know. I know. We try to catch up real quick. I know. Well, I really am so grateful that you came by because you're, you know, one of the big parts of you

is when you're talking spirituality, right? And so you love the Lord. You love Jesus. So here at Ramsey, we talk money, obviously. And so we talk about the emotional side of it a lot, obviously the tactical, how to do it all. So from a spiritual perspective, how do you see spirituality weaving into our money, whether maybe you're a person of faith or you're not? Yeah, well, totally.

I think that's such a powerful question because at the end of the day, even the scripture says that money answers everything. So it's up to me. And it really does. You know, I'll kick in. But you know that we rescue the victims of human trafficking. Well, you know, if I don't raise $20 million a year. that it doesn't matter how much I pray or fast or you actually pragmatically need money to be able to represent someone in a court or to be able to help a survivor have all of their needs met,

whether they're medical, emotional, psychological, physical. So the fact is money does answer everything. And I think what our spirituality does, it helps keep our heart right in our attitude towards money. So therefore, you know, we could be people that are generous, people that understand that we serve money, money, yes, in the sense that money is our servant, not our master. And I think it helps keep those things in order. So people that are scared of money, I don't think have got a really well-developed spirituality because God talks a lot about money. Jesus spoke a lot about money. Money is there from Genesis to Revelation because we live in a world and it's the currency that makes the world go around. So people that think it's super spiritual not to talk about money,

I'm like, I'm not sure if they're reading the Bible. And I don't know how they're operating on this earth. Now, money is not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. So you can have no money and love money. So having a lot of money doesn't mean you love money. And so to me, that's like a nonsensical argument. So I think the closer I am to the Lord and the heart of God for a lost world,

the more I need to understand about money, we brought our children up on everything you have. because I knew, you know, our eldest now is 24 and working for us, well, she has to understand how money works in order to understand how to help the fight against trafficking because trafficking is predicated entirely for money. That's it. That's what I'm doing it. That's right.

It's like it's not out of just anything else. So the trafficker understands money. Why wouldn't I understand money? So to me, it really is at the heart of everything. but then obviously being rooted and grounded in Christ hopefully should mean that my heart attitude towards money is right, that I don't love money, but I love what money can do to help people. Yes, exactly, yes. And that's what's interesting is it is a tool and it could be used for good or even like to that point.

I'm like, it could help literally help people be out of trafficking or it helps the traffic or do what they're doing. Money in my hands is going to rescue people. Money in a trafficker's hand is going to put people in bondage. And I think in lots of ways, even when I was writing the faith to flourish, I thought we need to start talking about this again in practical ways. So flourishing is not just a spiritual thing. It affects the material world. And, you know, you kind of have Christians that deal with money every single day, but then want to pretend that money doesn't have a spiritual component. And I'm like, you'll, that's why we get into the mess that we're in.

Money in and of itself is immoral, amoral. It doesn't. It's in my hands, it could do good. In a trafficker's hand, it's doing a lot of that. That's right, yeah. Well, you just mentioned it, but the Fates of Flourish, Renewbook, which I'm so excited about. You know, you even kind of mention a lot about fruitfulness. And I feel like what would you see is the difference of someone who has a life that is flourishing, that is fruitful versus just successful?

Because you can see someone, and from a financial sense, making a lot, income is high, network, whatever it looks like. But when you put it in this context, being fruitful and being successful, they can be two different things. Well, very much, so I think. And I think ultimately, even if you know, it doesn't matter whether you're a believer in Jesus or not, we are all only going to live for a certain amount of time. And George Bernard Shaw said it beautifully. He said, death is the ultimate statistic. One out of one, will die. Yes. It's going to happen. So a fruitful life is the things that you do that are going to outlast you, so that when you have been buried in your time on this earth is over, whatever you might

believe about the afterlife, is what you have done and accomplished on this earth going to outlive you and have ramifications for good outside of you? So a successful life, there are certain things that we've done, even in our trafficking that could be deemed successful. Wow, you have a Mother Teresa Award, you've got presidential awards. Our films, you know, have gotten London Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival awards. You could go, okay, but at the end of the day, those things are going to die with me. I mean, the trophies are going to disintegrate. Right, right. But the lives that have been changed. Because of those. Yeah. Is the stuff that is the fruitfulness. You go, wow. So was the successful stuff bad? Of course not. It is a good thing. But most of that's going to die with me.

I remember with my girls, we were unpacking a whole lot of stuff when we moved from Australia to America. And I had my high school trophies, my college trophies, you know, and I lifted them up literally in my hands, they just kind of fell apart from the travel and the fact that they're 30 years old. And I did say to the kids, I go, you know, pretty much anything we achieve this side of eternity that's like this, it's really for the moment. And that's success. It's for the moment. It was it great to stand there and receive that award or to hit that goal by that house?

Yes, yes and yes. But at the end of the day, that's not coming with me. But every life that we've rescued, every parent that we've helped put tools in their hands so that their kid doesn't get trafficked, that's the stuff that to me is the fruitful things that remain and outlast me. And I would hope that every successful person wants to have a fruitful life. That would be my goal. And I think when I talked about flourishing, it's like, let's rethink this because

it's been a tough 10 years for a lot of people. And it's almost like for some people, they need permission again to go, it's okay to flourish. Like actually God created us to flourish in every sphere of life, like emotionally, financially, physically, relationally. And for a while, we started to think,

I don't know, that there's something wrong with either flourishing or I need to hide my flourishing or I don't want to flourish. There's been this kind of languishing where people are just like, me, you know, about life in general.

Yeah, as long as I've got enough for me, as long as I can get through. And it's like this existence and I think it's in light of everything that's been happening economically, politically, socially. In our world, I've seen, in 10 years,

I thought, if we didn't snap out of this. Yeah, you felt it. If we don't snap out of this, it's like this languishing of just existing. It's another day, kind of groundhog day. And I'm like, y'all, we were not created to just exist. Sleepwalk through life, basically. No way. We were created to flourish and to thrive.

And I really felt prompted by the Lord to say, okay, let's go. And I want to believe God for more, even, you know, for 821, well, here's the truth. If we have more, we can do more. People go, you know, you're going to start another office in a other part of the world. I go, I would love to. But it doesn't matter how much I fast pray, stand on my head or believe. If I don't have the money, you cannot have, but you've got to pay the bills. You've got to actually put people through programs. So I'm like, actually, I'm not limited by faith, unlimited by money. So therefore, to all of our people in all of our

global offices, I'm like, this is the year. And I wrote this for all of us too. We're going to believe God again, just like we did when we started and say, I want to help more people. Well, then I need more to be able to do that. So let's start. Most of us don't realize how much of our personal information is online. And it's not just your name. It can be your address, your past addresses, your relatives info. I mean, the list goes on. And this is exactly why I use Delete Me.

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Go to joindeletme.com slash Rachel. So how can someone have that mindset of flourishing in a faith and the belief of what God can do when they're in a season of suffering? Whether they're financially, right? They're like literally paycheck to paycheck. They're working three jobs. They're trying.

Relationally, they want to get. married and they don't have someone or they want to have a baby. They're infer- like whatever the suffering is, right, in the new one story, how can someone who's living in that reality find that flourishing seat? What, you know, how do you reconcile those two? Because that's the reality for most of humanity. The whole book's grounded in that because some people- I love your answer to this because you've walked through suffering.

So I feel like you're a great, yes, you're a great person. That's what I think in my own personal life and where we go through cycles, you come through cycles of in and out. But I based the whole book on Psalm 52-8, where David was being, he was going, talk about suffering. Saul was trying to kill him. He didn't have anything. He's hiding in a cave in probably what scholars say, the most depressed season of his life. A season of darkness, a lot of people know, anxiety, darkness, here. And he said these words, Psalm 528, the whole book is based on this, that, but I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God, trusting in the faithful love of God forever. In that, you go, if I look, if I look,

looks at his life. He's depressed. He's anxious. He has nothing. They're trying to kill him. He's being falsely accused, betrayed all the things that can happen. And yet he understood the root and the seed of my flourishing is actually that I'm rooted and grounded in Christ. That's the beginning to go, okay, my external circumstances right now might not be what I want them to be. And I think a lot of us face that is, man, I'm trying to pay the bills, trying to get the kids through school, trying to hold my marriage together. I'd love to get married. I mean, like, Everyone tick your thing. And I think that even when I was coming out of, you know, 10 years of sexual abuse,

I found out in my 30s that I was adopted, which is really shocking to not know. And then you think your brothers are your biological brothers and they're not. And you've all come from separate parents and grown up in the same house. So there was abandonment. There was rejection. There was abuse. A lot of that was my soil and the reality of the brokenness of that, the shame, the pain. But when I found my faith in Christ, then there became a positional change.

Not externally nothing changed yet, but internally everything changed. That suddenly my identity wasn't in what happened to me, what people said about me or what was going on around me. I started to discover, hang on a minute, I am a daughter of the King of King. So then my mindset would begin to change. And when your mind begins to change, your actions begin to change. So rather than acting like an abandoned, abused, adopted girl, so many patterns of destructive behavior because of that.

When I started to believe, so before anything changed externally, I am a daughter of the king, I am who God says I am, some of those bad patterns of behavior dropped off because that's not what a daughter of a king would do. You know, like I wouldn't. So even then, we'll talk even about money, how I spent my money began to change a bit because why would I do destructive things if I'm a daughter of the king? So why don't I pay off that debt instead of spending here because I'm no longer trying to get my significance or security

from what I own, what people think about me, even so much how I look, what I'm wearing? So, I mean, I'm trying to be as simple as possible. It changes even down to your habits. Because I love what you're saying. It starts with the root. It starts even, I mean, the word mindset, if I'll just thrown around so much these days,

but genuinely, your belief, regardless of external circumstances, What is the beginning point? Totally. And out of that, where some circumstances may not change, right? There may be a part of your story that is the story, right? That is, but how you interact with that part of your story, how you see, how your perspective changes. And it changes all of our actions, and that affects the generations. Because now you look at, you know, my daughters that are 24 and 20, and by the grace of God, I haven't repeated that pattern down into that cycle.

You know, my marriage should never have made it with my kind of background. But because of the inner healing and wholeness that I found, I wasn't making Nick pay for something someone else did to me 30 years ago. You know what I mean? It's just so many of our patterns of destructive behavior are because we haven't dealt and we haven't allowed the Holy Spirit. Again, this is the spirituality aspect for me to allow the Spirit of God to come deep into those areas. I was masking it for a long time, achieving a couple. accomplishing, but that wasn't going very far because I always needed more. That's right.

And then, but when I found my identity in Christ, it was hard. Like, I had padlocked God out of a lot of places in my heart because I was so full of shame and brokenness. But then to allow him into those areas and then I would start to get stronger and more whole, of course, based on his word. I started to flourish before I ever flourished outside. So now by the grace of God, my man. marriage, my girls, our home, our ministry. But before you ever saw any of that externally,

I was beginning to live like it internally. That was where the change happened. And I think this is it going, if we're way, Rachel, here's the truth. The world is a mess. You know, you know, Nick and I travel, we have offices around the world. There's not a country in the world that's not messed up. Yeah. And if you're waiting, when that government changes, when this, you know, when the stock market changes, when this change. Everyone. Everyone. is waiting for... The housing market. Yeah.

When that thing changes, then it's all... When I get married, then this. When I am no longer married, it's like I just sit here and go, wow, everyone's thinking, if this certain thing changes externally, I'm going to flourish. And I guess I've written a whole premise to go, no, no, no, no. Actually, you need the faith to flourish right where you are, because you're never going to be anywhere than where you are right now because we're only ever here. You go, when I get there, but when you get there, you're here.

You know, that's right, that's right. The present follows you. The present, you are always only ever in the present moment. Now, that present moment will look different. Hopefully if I make the right choices in this present moment to be there. But a lot of us, and I hear it everywhere, I travel, people are kind of like, man, if we could just get a new government, if we could just, if things just change, you know, in the economy. If things, and I'm like, and if they don't, does that mean you can't flourish? Well, you can.

But you have to renew your mind to go, what does it mean? And how, there's one thing I can control, me. Yeah. And so how about I start here? Yes. And I'm like, we need the faith again to believe that God wants us to flourish because I think we have a lot of unbelieving believers. Deep down, we've just thought, this is how it's going to be.

This is how it is, yes. It's always been like this in my family. So it's always going to be like this. And I'm like, you know, I think we need some faith again to flourish. Yes. Well, there is. I mean, even my dad with his story. Yes.

Well, he just talks about, I remember him saying over and over again, he's like literally everyone I was around growing up. Neighbors, my friends' parents, my, you know, they would always just say like, oh, well, that's success, that's for the people in that part of town. We can't get ahead. I mean, like, you know what I mean? So even from a financial perspective.

Yes. And those beliefs, right, they can run deep. And if you let that take you and go, okay, I'm going to just boldly ask you. I just want to go, yes, yes, yes, because it was your dad, that whole mentality is what brought us to a place where we could lead a ministry like we would. Because if I didn't, because I grew up in the poorest zip code in my state. And everybody, I knew exactly this.

Literally, my next door neighbors was some of the biggest drug dealers in the state I grew up in. And so it was everyone, I didn't know anyone that would have been. And you kind of thought that were those people on TV. Yes, that's right. Yes, totally. And then though, and here is the reality. This is why I think, I think this whole ministry, this whole business is based on, we're teaching you how to flourish because it doesn't, you don't have to start.

where you want to end up. You start where you are. Yes, yes. The flourishing actually begins then. And that's where I think I learned that mindset because Nick and I could never run a global organization like we do. Without the flourishing of, honestly, other individuals that help allow, right? The support of it.

Absolutely. Because how else would it go? Okay, how do you, this is going to sound like pretty like just bold. I can't. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase it well. How, with a flourishing message, especially in the Christian space. where does that bump against like prosperity gospel? Like what's your like, give me your theological.

Yeah, no, I love that you're saying that because that's why a lot of people are scared to talk about money because it's been so misused and abused and I understand that. I am 100% in agreement that there has been great misuse and abuse. But the misuse and the abuse of something doesn't mean that that thing is wrong. Yes. So let's say I was abused for 10 years. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. Someone used me for a purpose for which I was not designed.

And so that made their action wrong, not me wrong. So then when it comes to money, because of the hyper-prosperity gospel, so the misuse and abuse of money in the Christian space doesn't make money wrong. It makes those people wrong with what they did about it or what they said about it. So this sort of like, God is a genie in a bottle, and if you give this, you get that. And like, I mean, what are we even talking about it? It is like, yeah, it is like, oh, people just exploiting and manipulating people for their own gain. I am so sad about that because it has robbed a lot of people of flourishing because finances are a very key aspect of.

We live in this world. In heaven, we might not need it. I don't know how it's going to work, but we're on earth right now. Right. And so we need it. So there is a direct correlation between material flourishing. Now, it doesn't mean your love more. Now, I work with the poorest of the poor and the most marginalized and the most disenfranchised.

but here's how much I love them. I'm not just leaving them, I'm giving them tools on how to flourish. So we will give them Ramsey financial tools. Because the fact is, just because I found you in that state, doesn't mean you actually have the ability. And it's got to work for if you're in a township in South Africa to the same as if you're in Bel Air in California. And I'm like, that's the key that I want to show people. It's like wherever you are, you can flourish. And actually God's designed it to be that.

look different and it might look different for a chicken farmer in the back of Africa than it does if you're living here in Tennessee. But it doesn't mean that you can't flourish. Now, because that's been exploited and people are trying to really use, it's more magic than it is any sort of discipline. And you think about even this whole business. There's not like magic pill you take. It's a discipline pill you take. That's what I'm not a genie. To your point, yes. He is not a genie in a bottle and most of scripture is obedience and discipline and being faithful day in and day out. And that's why the Bible says if you're faithful in small, so if you can't be faithful with $5 and you can't manage $5 and you're praying for $5,000, why would God give you $5,000

to mismanage if you're already mismanaging five? So I always go, okay, the biblical principle of if I'm faithful in small, I'll be faithful in much. It's not like I'm going to get more to misuse more. No, but the character's built. That's what the thing is. I will be able. So when we started with A-21, God trusted us to manage this much money. Well, then as we prove faithful with that, he goes, well, now I can trust you to manage this

and manage this. You know, it's funny. It's the same. We get a call on like the Ramsey show and someone has an inheritance and they get, you know, $50,000 from an uncle or something, but they have, you know, $25,000 in credit card debt, two car loans, all of it. And we'll, like, what do I do with this? And the answer is pay off your debt with it. But the danger, and we always say it, the danger is you just got a, you got a clean slate without having to work for the clean slate and there's something about the character building through the process and probably any part right parenting marriage all of it money all of it um that that is what's that's what's going to keep you strong and i've heard you say i think on like instagram or something

christian but you're talking about and i don't even know what the context was in my head i painted it as like i don't know young christian influencers or whatever but you were like if you're not faithful at the at the at doing sunday school at your church you can't be faithful in a huge stage of some like big thing you want to be right even like yeah i just said this a passion there was There was like 45,000 people, and I said to them, you know, everyone wants to like stand here at the baseball stadium, 45,000. I go, are you teaching three-year-olds in Sunday school? No, but somehow you think you can bypass all of that. And the point is, and here is the thing, that is not the reward.

It's the progression. Because if you just try to jump here, you won't know what to do with it. So if I haven't been faithful with $10 and you give me a million, I'm not going to know what to do with it. So as we've seen, and history shows, that's going to squandered to nothing. The stats are there, the data's there, that's going to become nothing. So even with people that come in and are running an office, I'm like, before you can run a region and know how to manage millions of dollars to know what do I do for in the law courts, what am I going to do for prevention and awareness, what am I going to do for survivor care?

You have to be able to run a regional office so that you can manage it. Because if you can't manage that, this is the reward. for that. It's like you won't know what to do when you get there. That's right. That's right. And then that money will be squandered. So I think the flourishing life is to understand it's a progressive approach. And that's why I start with obviously. There's a root. There's trunk. There's branches. There's fruit. I mean, this thing grows over time. But because, and I guess you'd come across this with money all the time, we live in this sort of Instagram generation that we see the end result for someone and we think, I want that tomorrow. And I go, well, honey, I'm 60.

I'm living in this house now, but I'm 60. And it has been, you know, a very big journey of 40 years of working, saving, going without and doing all of that. And even now, because I want to teach our daughters, I want to teach them to flourish. So here's the principles that we did this major renovation. But there are still six rooms in the house that don't have furniture. And the girls are like, Mom, I said, until we can pay cash for every, because I go, your whole life is so blessed.

You've grown up around this. But I want you to see this is how we've done it, that we furnish room by room as we have the money to be able to do it in that kind. Could I get alone and do it? Sure. But that's not. I go, where else am I going to teach them that this doesn't fall out of the sky? Right. It doesn't fall out of the sky.

And flourishing doesn't fall. So I think what we confuse, I think you brought this point up at the outset, which is so important, we confuse success with flourishing. So I'm not promising a successful. life as people see that. But I am saying you can have a flourishing life in Christ because the Bible promises are flourishing life. But what I've discovered, if you want to bypass the process, you don't really want to flourish. You just want short-term success. Yeah. I just want what I want. Yeah, basically. And you don't need God to do that. You can do that on your own. You can do that on your own. Yeah. Oh, amazing. I mean, seriously, every time you speak or talk or something, I'm always like,

oh my gosh, I just wish I was like taking notes. So I appreciate you. And all you do for the world and everything. Where can everyone find you? All the things, but I mostly live on Instagram. Christine Kane, yeah. I love it. Okay. And you guys, again, the faith to flourish, this is out now, so they can get it. Anywhere. Anywhere specific, you want them to go? Wherever they can. Okay, wherever you can buy the book, make sure to get it. But honestly, and for some of you, maybe this is the first step of maybe a journey into faith and into spirituality where you're thinking, okay, maybe there is something bigger to all of this because I think what we see time and time again, we talk about on the show a lot is that end thing, that's not going to be the thing that fulfills.

I just saw a clip of Jim Carrey. He was at the Golden Globes and his whole present, it was so good as he was like introing it. And he was like, I'm two-time winner Jim Carrey. I am go to bed, not like anyone else, but a two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey. And he like, make this whole thing. And then at the end, he's like, and now I get to present a Golden Globe because this is the thing that fixes everything. You know, it's so, it's so sarcastic, but it's so true. And it could be success in awards like you're saying, money, house, whatever.

but at the end of the day, our lives are bigger than that. Oh, yeah, for sure. And God has a plan for it. So you guys, make sure to check out everything Chris is doing and the book, The Faith to Flourge. Thank you. You're awesome. All right, you guys, I hope you enjoyed that conversation.

Remember, life and money can carry so many emotions, and sometimes that can actually be helpful. So be sure to check out what happy people know about money with Dr. Arthur Brooks. You can click right here to check that out or click the link below. All right, remember, to take... control of your money and create a life you love.