The Ramsey Show - App - Straight Talk About Disability Insurance (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Grace is with us in Annapolis, Maryland. Hi, Grace.

How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm doing well. Great. How can I help? Well, I'm a 45-year-old self-employed graphic designer, and my husband and I are out of debt except for our house,

and we have an emergency fund, and we're just trying to work our way through all the insurances that we need, so we have life insurance and all that stuff, and I'm applying for disability insurance policy, and the company that's offering me a policy wants to permanently exclude my hands, which I clearly use my hands a lot for everything that I do, which is related to graphic design. So I'm wondering, I know you recommend disability insurance,

but is there ever a time when it wouldn't be worth it, like in this case? Well, it could be, yeah. Most of the policies now are what are called own-oc policies, meaning if you can't do your own occupation that you are disabled. But they don't pay, you know, until 65. They just pay five years or ten years or two years or whatever. This one would pay until I was 65. Okay.

And they're offering me, for total disability, they're offering me $3,250 a month and for partial $1,625 a month. But I would have to pay $2,177 a year. And I'm just trying to figure out, does it feel like gambling? That's steep. It feels a lot of money. All insurance is kind of gambling. All insurance is you're transferring the risk of something happening.

And you're gambling your house is going to burn down when you have homeowners insurance. That's what you're doing. That's true, too. That's true, too. Yeah, so are you dealing with an insurance broker? Yes. That shops several different places, and this is the best thing they can find for you Right

This one was the lowest one They put me in class 4A And so that was good But then they said You know Based on I had been having some nerve pains in my fingers And my doctor without even running any tests

She was just like Oh it's probably arthritis Because you're 45 And that happens when you get older Oh so that showed up on your medical then. Which is why they wanted to exclude my hands. Of course they want to exclude your hands. You've already got problems with them.

That makes a difference. It wasn't so random after all. No, I didn't think it was random. It's just like I'm not, you know, I run marathons, I'm fine, I'm fit but, you know. But you might not be able to be a graphic artist,

and that would make you declared disabled and you'd collect from them. So, yeah, they're wanting to exclude that. That would be normal given that they found this on a medical transcript. So, yeah, that would be normal. Now, the only other way you could go, I'm not sure it's worth it. It sounds like it's awfully expensive um and you know uh you're you're if you became disabled um you're married your husband has an income you would be supported that way i assume right yes okay so uh i'd like for you to have disability

insurance this is awfully expensive and um for no more coverage than you're getting and given this exclusion, yeah, I probably would walk from it. Now, maybe a way to beat it is, are you a member of any kind of professional association? No, but I could be. The Graphic Artists of America Association or whatever you call it. They have a guild. They have a guild.

I'm not actively a member right now, but I was. Depending on how expensive it is to be an active member of the guild, they very well may offer a group policy through that that is much cheaper and might not even look at the medical. Oh, that would be great, yeah. So if you're a home builder and you join the National Home Builders Association, you probably can get disability through there a lot cheaper than you could if you just went to your insurance broker. So that's one way to, another way to beat this.

But, yeah, I'm with you. I think with, you know, given that you have this medical transcript and it says problems with your hands, so they say we're going to exclude that, and yet you every day use your hands to do graphics on the computer. And so, you know, you're not really getting much coverage, and you're paying a lot for it. So I'm probably with you. I probably wouldn't buy it. Thanks for the call.

John is in Detroit, Michigan. Hi, John. How are you? Mr. Ramsey, I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, it's an honor to talk to you.

You too. I just received a large commission check, and I wanted to kind of see what to do with it. Congratulations. How much is it? Thank you. It's in the six-figure range. What's that mean? You made over $100,000 in one check?

I did, yes. I'm a real estate agent, and so and purchased a nice building and got a nice commission out of it. Very nice. Good for you. Congratulations. Okay. Thank you. I use any money that comes into my hands on the Baby Steps until I am at Baby Step 7, at which point all I have left to do is build wealth and give, right?

And that is baby step seven. So are you debt-free? We have a small credit card payment of like $7,000. We have a couple leases that I wanted to ask you about, if I should turn in early and purchase a used vehicle? What's the buyout on the leases? We have three leases. Two of them are worth less than $1,000 for both of them,

and then the other one is around the $4,000 range. No, I'm talking about to buy the car. The early buyout on the lease and you buy the car. I don't really want to buy them. I'd rather purchase a used truck we'll use this money to to dump these leases and get into the cars in cash that you want to own okay okay and and use the money to pay off the credit card debt and is there any other debt other than your home uh no that would be it okay so we got the vehicles we're completely clean now we have zero debt except

your house now we put an emergency fund in place of three to six months of household expenses. Yep. And you're in a commission situation, which is highly volatile. And so what that means is you're going to move to the six-month side of that equation. Okay. So you want six months of expenses set aside. And once you've got that and you're completely debt-free, then we'll make sure you're putting 15% of your income into retirement.

Do you have children? Yes, we have two children. You got college done? We're working towards that. I just started listening to you maybe six months ago, and we were doing things a little backwards. Good. We've been putting money towards a kids' education for two years,

but we weren't debt-free. Good. Okay, so let's clear up the debt. And I think you're going to have enough to finish the emergency fund, get your cars in place, and still chunk some on the kids' college, right? Yeah, I agree. So we're really dealing with baby steps two, three, four, five. You may have enough to throw with some at the house,

but I think you're going to use up almost all of it by the time you get through five. Yeah, that's the plan. I'd love to put a little bit towards the house and try and start paying that off. Yeah, but let's get the kids' college wrapped up and let's be debt-free, have an emergency fund in place, make sure you're putting 15% of your income aside for retirement. Once you're doing all those things, then baby step six is pay off the house. So hold on, I'm going to send you a copy of the book,

The Total Money Makeover which walks you through the exact steps, exactly why to do them, exactly how to do them and all the little nuances and questions that people have. It's like the FAQ of the baby steps.

That's what The Total Money Makeover is. Baby steps on steroids. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that if you combine the data breaches that have occurred in the past 12 months, almost every American has had their personal info compromised or hacked. Over 50% of our listeners and viewers tell us that they or someone in their family has been a victim. And 70% of those folks have had it happen more than once. See, this is unbelievable.

Once thieves get your info, the risk never goes away, and they can use it whenever and however they choose. It truly has become an issue of not if, but when. That's why the only plan I've ever recommended is through Zander Insurance. I actually sat down with them and we put together a plan that I felt provided the best protection, but didn't waste dollars on things you could easily do yourself or were just gimmicks. The key is getting protected before you're a victim and it's too late. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282 we are all at risk and it doesn't make sense to wait numbers don't lie that's zander.com or 800-356-4282 Coming up at the bottom of the hour, my friend Emerson Egrich is joining us.

Emerson is the author of many books, but his bestseller is Love and Respect, one of my favorite marriage books. So if you have any marriage questions, especially if you love Emerson, love the book Love and Respect, love, love, love, love, a lot of loves in there. Anyway, you can jump in right now. We'll leave a couple lines open, and we'll take some calls for Emerson. We're going to do a couple segments with him starting at the bottom of the hour. The phone number is 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Aaron is here.

Hey, Aaron, how are you? Dave, I'm well. How are you? Better than I deserve, man. Welcome. Where do you live? I live in Suwannee, Georgia. Oh, cool.

Yeah, just northeast of Atlanta. Love it. Love it. Yeah. And all the way up here to do a debt-free screen. Absolutely. And how much have you paid off? $112,000.

Love it. How long did that take? Just over three years. Okay. And your range of income during that time? I started out about $45,000 and ended about $70,000. Okay, cool. What do you do for a living?

I'm actually a production manager for a small father-son business, Homecraft Gutter Protection. Very cool. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. That's fun. So what was the $112,000? So it was a little bit of credit card debt.

I had a credit card with rooms too much, as you like to call it. Rooms, there they went. There they went. But a lot of it was what I affectionately like to call the twins. It was Sallie Mae loans. It was about $37,000 and $30,000. Sallie Mae and her ugly sister, Sallie Mae? Oh, yes.

Yep, yep, yep. And unfortunately, over some time, those twins turned into triplets. Oh. Oh, yeah. So it was about $30,000 in interest on there, too. Yeah, she does put on weight if you don't get rid of her. She really does. She'll just sit there in the corner.

She's like an 800-pound gorilla. It's pretty nuts. Oh, man. That's so bad. Yeah, it's bad news. So what happened three years ago? What's the wake-up call that starts this journey? So my girlfriend, Nina, when I met her several years ago, you know, she kind of inspired me.

She was driving the 1997 Dodge Neon. Oh. Fifty shades of red. Hardcore. Oh, my gosh. Held together with duct tape and ratchet straps. It was crazy. But she introduced me to you.

I signed up for the class. And from there, it really taught me to get the budget and get under control. Cool. And really start looking toward, you know, future family. Gotcha. Good for you, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just knocking it down.

Three years. Yeah. So you're just knocking knocking it down three years so you're doing about 35 000 36 000 a year and your income went up dramatically during that time how'd your income go up so much you changed jobs i switched yeah i went from i went from kind of an hourly position and got you know some promotions and bumps and switches yeah which usually happens when you start looking like i need more money money. Yeah, exactly. You need more money. And I'll be honest with you, Dave. The thing that really kind of got it going for me, I had a little bit of a backslide. I had saved up about $27,000 in cash.

And I'm driving a 2001 Grand Am that I've had to rebuild several times to keep her going. 300,000 miles on her. And so I had $27,000 and wanted to buy a truck. And so I called Nina up. We went for a test drive. I said, I'm buying this truck. And when I called her to tell her I was doing it, I heard over the phone. And I knew that that meant bad news.

And so she said, that's just not a good idea. She says, it's not a good idea. You've got to start tackling this big gorilla in the room. Otherwise, it's never going to go away. And I made a phone call that afternoon to them. Said, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I really just want to settle it out. Will you settle?

And they said, absolutely. And some back and forth went on. And ultimately, she came back saying, if you could do this for $27,000, we'll settle it all out today. Settle out what? I'm sorry. The $97,000 student loan. Oh, really? Yes.

So it wasn't Sally Mae? It was Sally Mae. It was some kind of a weird signature private loan. Oh, it was a private thing. Something like that that they had at the time 18 years ago. Well, that really was a home run then. Yeah. That's a better buy than a truck.

That's what I said. So if I'm going to spend the money, I might as well just get this gorilla out of the room. Yeah, really. Yeah, but it was fantastic. It was a good thing to do. So taking your advice, making sure that I had some pennies saved up so I could do a lump sum type thing. It was good. Very cool.

Congratulations. How does it feel now? The grill is gone. It feels great. I mean, yeah, everything is. You have money now. Yeah, I do. I've got money.

I'm able to get my emergency fund put together. I'm able to start saving for a house, pay, you know, hopefully house and cash. You need to save for a car. We're working on that one. We're working on it. Get your emergency fund done. Then it's time to save for a car. We're working on that one. We're working on it. Get your emergency fund done. Then it's time to save for a car. You've got to get up out of this $100 car you're driving. That's right.

Congratulations. Thanks. Thank you very much. Well done. Very proud of you. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? Nina was definitely the biggest one. My parents, my family, too. I had some co-workers, too, that were really kind of rallying behind me when I told them that I had paid it off. They were all really ecstatic.

It was a lot of fun. Anybody saying you're nuts? The guy at the car lot. Yeah, exactly. The guy at the thing. And a lot of my family and parents and things like that too. They said, you know, you need to get a new car. So they were kind of pushing and encouraging

saying finally it's about time you get a new one. And then it's just, uh, I said, you know, Hey, I've got better news. I don't have a new truck, but I've got rid of this debt. So they were, they were ecstatic. That works. Very good. It was very cool. Well, you'll be in a position to drive anything you want to drive later, brother. That's what I'm looking forward to. Got a copy of a Chris Hogan's retireired book for you. That is the next chapter in your story to be a millionaire. Thank you. And you're on your way, and this is a great story. Congratulations.

Thank you so much, Dave. I appreciate it. I'm very proud of you. Well done, sir. Thank you. Aaron from Atlanta, $112,000 paid off in three years, making $45,000 up to $70,000 and settled a big student loan debt. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

All right. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free! That's how it's done right there. Boom, boom, boom. Well done, sir. Well done. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

As I mentioned, we are opening up phone lines for Emerson. Ed Gritch is going to be with us this next two segments. He is the author of a new book called The Four Wills of God. And he wrote the famous book Love and Respect on Marriage, one of my favorite marriage books ever. And so we'll take marriage questions. If you want to jump in, the phone number is 888-825-5225. Candice is in Lansing, Michigan.

Hi, Candice. How are you? I'm well. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? I am calling because we've received a medical bill after insurance of about $7,000, of which we cannot pay in full by the due date. I did contact the hospital to see if we could work out payment

plans, but they said the payment plan has to be on a six-month thing, which makes it a little over a grand a month, which is not something that we can do. They did say if we don't have it paid in full by the due date or set up on a payment plan, they're sending us to collections. So my question is, do we start making payments that we can afford now and hope that that's enough and they decide not to send us to collections or just save that money and hopefully be able to make a settlement with the collection company when that comes down the road?

So how much of that do you have, not counting this? Like $1,000. You have $1,000 in debt not counting this? Yes, not counting this. You'll have that paid off by the end of the year. Gotcha. The end of the year? $1,000?

Well, that's with pain. If we make payments on this, then we would have to stop that. So what is your household income? What's your household income? About $60,000. $60,000. Okay. What's your car's worth?

What's our what worth? Your car's. They're a beater, so like $3,000. Okay. All right. All right. um they're a beater so like three grand okay all right all right uh if you don't have any debt except your house um and you make sixty thousand dollars a year you can do a thousand dollars a month it's not gonna be pleasant but you can um yeah i think i think you're gonna pay them off um fast as you can that's what i would do i mean you can start sending them money they're not going to sue you if you've paid them six thousand of the seven thousand dollars by the due date or whatever

but um but the the payment i mean the thing is due in full today that's what it is and that's why you have an emergency fund and that's why we're going to have you get one later as you finish up and get to baby step three but yeah i would uh just pay them as fast as you possibly can it's eight hundred dollars a month thousand dollars a month but i think you can do it It's time to take another look at your budget. That means scouring every expense and making sure you're not leaving any money on the table. One of the biggest expenses is your mortgage payment. I recommend a quick Churchill checkup. In just five minutes, our friends at Churchill Mortgage can tell you if you could save some cash each month.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. The professor's in the house. That's right. My friend Emerson Egrich is with us, Ph.D., Dr. Emerson Egrich. And he wrote the wonderful book, Love and Respect, one of my favorite marriage books ever.

He and his wife, Sarah, do love and respect conferences all over America. And he has spoken at our SMART conference several times over the years. And was a pastor for 20 years at Trinity Church up in Lansing, Michigan, and has got more degrees than a thermometer when it comes to biblical studies. Really, really knows his stuff. And that's actually how you ended up doing the love and respect book wasn't it it wasn't like you set out and said i'm going to be a marriage expert you were a pastor exactly and you've been a bible you know a bible professor of bible student for you know years and years and years and you just noticed this one thing and off you go huh i did i saw something

that i hadn't seen and then i communicated it and it kind of went viral. So it pulled us into it. But I'm a pastor at heart, and my desire was eventually then to serve couples with this love and respect message. And we've been very grateful for the opportunities, and you're a great support. We have been very blessed by your encouragement of this. Well, it's a wonderful, wonderful message and product and helpful to anyone who's married, including Sharon and me. So I need to love better. She needs to respect better all the time. So we've always got that work to do.

Before we jump into the new book, though, let's revisit that for a second. You said you noticed one thing. And let's do the two-minute, three-minute riff on love and respect, where that came from, and what the essence of it is, the thesis of the book. Right. Well, those who are familiar with a little bit of the Bible, Ephesians 5 deals with marriage, that topic. Ephesians is a book in the Bible in the New Testament. There's the Old and the New Testament. In the New Testament, the first century, there is this book, Ephesians,

and that fifth chapter deals with marriage. And verse 33 is the summary of that portion, which is a husband must love his wife and a wife must respect her husband and there was no debate about the first part I mean most wives will say yes please love me but when you talk about respecting your husband gag me I don't feel any respect for him he hasn't earned it he doesn't deserve it I mean come on Emerson he needs to be more loving like me and so I realized there were a lot of landmines out there. But I knew that you and I as men serve and die for honor. We live by an honor code.

It's huge. Honor is a huge issue to us. And I was very excited about this, but realized that I needed to help women understand that we're not trying to be dismissive of them, but to give them tools and insight that can actually motivate him. Because what happens, though we all need love and respect equally, she needs respect, he needs love. The felt need differs during conflict. He tends to be assured of her love.

So what happens is that when she reacts, he personalizes a disrespect. He knows she loves him, but I don't think she likes me right now. And usually when he reacts negatively, even though she can feel disrespected, eventually she'll say, how can you tell me you love me and treat me disrespectfully? But they get on a crazy cycle. Without love, she reacts without respect. Without respect, he reacts without love. Then without love, she reacts without respect.

And this baby starts to spin. And couples of goodwill get on this crazy cycle because she's not intending to be disrespectful. She's usually seeking reassurance of his love. and he's not trying to be unloving. He would die for her if she didn't kill him first, right? But he's feeling disrespected. So that's the essence of the message, and we kind of got it out there, and it kind of exploded on us. Yeah.

To say the least. The book has sold a bazillion copies, and for good reason. Yeah, the crazy cycle, unplugging the crazy cycle and getting off of that is a good thing. It's a good thing. I remember hearing you teach that, and I remember reading that, and then Sharon is reading the book, and she's looking at me like, did you learn anything? Did you learn anything? Here we go again.

Yes, we're off and running. Crazy cycle. All right, the new book is called the four wills of god the way he directs our steps and frees us to direct our own now there's all kinds of doctrinal stances and nuances across all kinds of different versions of Christianity or doctrinal positions in Christianity, finding the will of God all the way from fatalism all the way to you just do whatever you want. People are all over the map on this.

And so when I picked this up, I thought, okay, he's going to try to show us what God wants me to do. What's he want me to do today? What do you want me to do today, God? What's your will today? And it was a lot different than that. It kind of, as I was going through the book, I thought, okay, these are like the basics. And the thing that I liked about it as a Christian, and those of you that are out there that are believers,

is that there's only four times in the Bible, right? Let's talk about that. That's where these four wills come from. Right. Well, we've thrown the audience a curve. We've gone from marriage now to where did we come from on the will of God issue. But I'm a pastor who studied the Bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years. And, you know, people would come to me.

Pastor, I want to know God's will for my life. This is a very near and dear issue to almost all of us. You know, what does God want in my life? If you believe he's there and you believe he's your heavenly father, then you say, okay, what's he want? Exactly. And even I wasn't raised in the church. I didn't come to Christ until a little bit later.

You didn't either. But there was still that sense that, God, if you're there, please lead me. Please, what do you want me to do here? I mean, even that human heart still cries out for that kind of thing. What is it that you want from me? And so this has been a question many have asked,

but I had that privilege of looking at the Bible and I came across four passages, Dave, that are unparalleled. We know like we pray the Lord's prayer, thy will be done, but it doesn't specifically say what that will is. These four passages identify God's will with a specific behavior. They're like highlighted in gold. It's like the Lord is saying, Emerson, start here. Start here. And people say, well, Emerson, there's more to God's will in these four. And I say, absolutely. But I don't know about you, but if I ignore these four, I'll come up with ways to probably

ignore the rest. So I... But what is unique about these four? Well, the fact that they're identified. For instance, 1 Thessalonians 5.18, In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. And as I thought about that one day, I was trying to figure out God's will for my life, and the Lord kind of spoke to my heart, Just start giving me thanks. You're in my will.

You're not missing my will. You're doing my will. Just relax here. Just relax. Even if I didn't know whether I should go through door A or door B, or how am I going to get out of this, in this case, you know, many listening to this financial pressure, can we actually begin to give thanks, believing that God loves us, he's for us, that he's going to work everything together for good, or are we going to shake our fist at him? Are we going to get mad at him, or are we going to say, Lord, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this, but instead of being resentful, bitter, instead of comparing myself to other people, I'm going to be grateful for what I do

have. There are many things I don't have. I'm going to thank you that you're going to help me through this. I'm just going to thank you. I'm going to have a positive attitude toward you and just give this over to you. Now, many of us get the idea you thank God for things that are good, but would you thank God for things that haven't yet come? And part of the reason scripture says what it says, it actually is calling us to give thanks in advance. It kind of releases faith. So one of the things I've said to people coming to me through the years in counseling is let's

just give thanks for this. I don't know where this is going to lead, but let's just open our hearts and trust that if God says this is my will and we act on it, do you think he's a cosmic killjoy out to pull the rug out from underneath us at the party and just point a finger at us and laugh, or do you think he really cares? So let's try this out.

Let's do this over the next several weeks, even as a husband and wife, begin to give thanks in the midst of this pain and just give God permission to do something. You're not the worst for the wearer. And I have just found, Dave, the Lord in his kindness has responded because we're acting on his will. And when we do his universal will, it triggers our experience of the unique will.

Let me say that again. This is a universal will of God, give thanks. It applies to all believers down through the generations. And when we follow that, there's this tendency to activate this encounter with God. Now, I don't want to misquote, and when we come back from the break, we can talk about this more. But if I understood what I was reading right, there's four times in the New Testament only, or four times in Scripture, that the Bible clearly says precisely this is the will of God. Yeah, John 6, 40, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3, 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, and 1 Peter 2. That's four times.

There's more to it than that. And they're universal. They're broad things, like give thanks is one of them. Yes, exactly. All right, cool. All right, let's come back and look at the other three, and then we'll talk about unique and how that comes out of those universal pillars as well. The book is The Four Wills of God by Dr. Emerson Egrich,

author of the best-selling book, Love and Respect on Marriage. You will love both of them. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. My guest this half hour is Dr. Emerson Egrich, author of this brand new book called The Four Wills of God. And we just established that the first one is four times in Scripture that the Bible says this is the will of God. And one of them is just gratitude. Be grateful. Just be thankful. Be thankful.

And what are the other three? Well, let's step back for a second. One of the things that's so exciting, if we do these four, if we do these four, if we follow these four, I believe the lord will respond to that i mean most believers know that and this becomes a a relaxing thing because it's not like i am overwhelmed by all this stuff if i just start here if i just start here for instance if i start giving thanks and right where i'm at right now i can enter the will of god there might be someone listening saying i'm trying to find god's will i'm fearful i'm going to miss it. Well, relax.

He may have a unique thing for you over there. But right now, you can do His will by just giving Him thanks in the midst of the stress and even the confusion. I remember that day

that I realized, if I just gave thanks, I'm doing God's will. And that was so freeing for me. In fact, Joy was, my daughter was thinking about moving from L.A. to Portland. And she said,

Dad, I'm trying to figure out whether I should move from L.A. to Portland. And I said, well, I'm trying to figure out whether I should move from L.A. to Portland. I said, well, how are you coming up with that? She said, well, I'm praying, and the Lord seems to be revealing to me that he wants me to go to Portland. I said, on what basis? I see a lot of license plates, Oregon license plates in L.A. And I said, well, honey, let's look for Ohio license plates. Because we tend to see what we look for.

We see what we look for. So I said, hey. And she knew this message a little bit, but hadn't been paying attention to it. So I went through the four as a checklist. I said, are you doing this, this, this, this? Yes. I said, honey, you can move to Portland or stay in LA. You're doing his will.

Just relax. You're not going to miss his will. You just need to rest. So the first one is believe in Jesus Christ, John 6, 40. And this, Jesus, for this is the will of my Father, that you behold the Son and believe in Him and receive eternal life, and I will raise Him up or you up on that last day. And one of the exciting things is even the financial pain you went through, that free fall that you went through brought you to an understanding of the will of God for your life, right?

And then once you trusted Christ in the midst of your pain, things began to happen, didn't they? Absolutely. You know, I mean, a peace came, a sense of forgiveness, a sense of leading. So when we respond to that universal will in this case, trust the heart of Christ, trust Christ, things begin to happen. That happened in my family. We weren't Christians, but I came to Christ at age 16.

Then I went to Wheaton College. My mom came to Christ my freshman year. My sister came to Christ. My dad came to Christ. My brother-in-law's professor came to Christ. All four my freshman year at Wheaton. Our lives changed. That will that we responded to, believe, behold, set in motion all kinds of things.

So your audience, some people may be in this financial stress and strain. They need to follow your example. Turn your heart over to Christ. Say, Lord, I don't know how to trust you. I don't know how to do this fully, but I want to trust you in this. I believe you're trying to get my attention. I want to come to you. And it's a beautiful thing.

Joy said, I trust Christ. That second thing, 1 Thessalonians 5, 18, we already saw give thanks. But there's also 1 Thessalonians 4, 3. This is the will of God, your sanctification. That is that you abstain from sexual immorality or the whole idea of any carnal desire that's going to really hurt us in the long run. So even the person out there listening, God is calling you to abstain from credit cards that are your soothing way, drugs, alcohol. Now, these can be very painful things ultimately, but God is saying, my will for you is to abstain from that because it's going to hurt you.

It's like the country preacher says, when God says no, he's saying, don't hurt yourself. Don't hurt yourself. If you abstain from that thing that you know ultimately is going to bring more pain, good things are going to happen. But in the short haul, that's not an easy thing to do. It's not easy to abstain from the very thing that brings us momentary joy. But all of us come to that point. You might want to make a comment on how you challenge people. You come to a point, you kind of got to just stop some things because it's going to kill you, right?

Yeah. Well, you do. You just reach the point that you're going to hit the wall some things because it's going to kill you, right? Yeah. Well, you do. You just reach the point that you're going to hit the wall. And the question is, are you going to bump into it or are you just going to disintegrate when you hit it? Because you've got the pedal to the metal. I'm just going to do this wide open. And we all do that. You're exactly right.

Okay. The fourth one. And the last one is submit. Peter in 1 Peter 2, verses 13 through 15 says, Submit yourselves for the Lord's sakes to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to a governor sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, or the praise of those who do right.

And then it says, For such is the will of God, that by doing right you silence the ignorance of foolish men. When you put it all together, I say submitting and doing right. And I put this in an acronym called BAGS. Believe in Jesus Christ to be, abstain from anything that's going to really hurt you like we just talked about,

give thanks in everything, and submit in doing right. So your baby steps, the structure you put together, you've got to submit in doing right. You've got to cut up the credit cards, don't cut the corners. And coming to a point where you say, you know what, I'm got to submit and doing right. You've got to cut up the credit cards. Don't cut the corners. And coming to a point where you say, you know what?

I'm going to do what's right. Even though this is painful at this moment, God is calling me to submit because I know that this is the right thing to do. But we come to that moment where we can get away with something and we decide to do it. I've got a friend that had a $2,800

wedding ring that they lost. Told the insurance company and the insurance company said we'll replace it. friend that had a $2,800 wedding ring that they lost, told the insurance company, and the insurance company said, we'll replace it. We'll give you $2,800. But in the event that you find the ring, turn it in to us. Two years later, they found the ring. He thinks, well, I had $2,800, and I've got a $2,800 ring. I'll keep the ring. And the Lord said, you submit and do what's right. So he called his insurance guy who called headquarters and headquarters said,

that's our policy, but no one's ever turned anything in. We don't know what to do with the diamond. But the point I make is this. Every one of us

would say it's more prudent to have two in the hand, right? But you come to a point where you say, I'm going to please Christ. I'm going to trust

him. I'm going to do what's right. And I put myself in a position to be honored. And that person who does that, there is this activation of the unique will of God. And this gentleman that I'm talking about, he began to see God do things in his life that had never happened because he began to pay attention to these little things that the world would say, it's really foolish for you to do that.

It's utterly foolish to turn in, you know, keep it, baby. I know. But the checklist is if I'm trusting Christ actively, walking in moral purity, giving thanks in the midst of some sad times, not bitter or shaking my hand

at God, and submitting and doing what's right when I could get away with doing what's wrong, I believe that individual who does that will begin to encounter God

in tremendous ways. And Dave, I think your life and your testimony is a great example of this, just as it was with Billy Graham and many other people, people who made a decision, I'm going to use this as my checklist. And what's so beautiful about this, it activates God's will. But even if it doesn't, and you don't know whether you should go through door A or door B, and you think, oh, I'm going to miss it.

No, just go to Portland. As long as you're continuing to trust Christ, walk in moral purity, give thanks, submitting to him that's right, you're doing his will. Relax. The thing that sets you so free because people get caught up, Christians do, uniquely, certain ilk of Christians in particular, that get really caught up on, you know, should I buy this car? Is that God's will?

Is that God's will? And, you know, if you're standing on the platform of these four things, then the answer is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's not like God's going to be really angry with you because you bought a green car instead of a red car. Yes.

Come on. Yes. You've got to be kidding me. Yes. Really? That's so fatalistic, and it's so narrowing that it paralyzes people. Their spiritual walk instead of being freedom becomes paralysis because of that, because you get locked into one thing

and, should I take this job? I took this job. God didn't tell me to take that. Maybe, maybe not. But if you've got these four basics as your pillar, as your platform from which you're leaping, then you're going to be in really, really good shape. There's such freedom in that. That's a great message.

Well, and also, that's the freedom teaching in the New Testament. The Jews who are under legalism were now told, you don't have that anymore. You're free. You're free. This was so huge, we don't pay attention to it. And so the only criteria they put on, you're so free, just don't use that freedom as license to

go overboard and sin. Don't compromise the four. You're so free to go left or right, just as long as you continue to do the bags. And that's the godly baggage that we should always carry. Love it. The Four Wills of God. Dr. Emerson Egrich. You can pick it up anywhere great books are sold. Certainly Christian bookstores, you will see it there. Lifeway's got a big promotion going on it. You can catch it at Amazon. Brother, thank you for stopping by. It's good to hang out with you again. Thank you, sir. It's an honor.

Very good stuff. And check out the book Love and Respect while you're at it. It's good to hang out with you again. Thank you, sir. It's an honor. Very good stuff. And check out the book Love and Respect while you're at it. I love it, I love it, I love it. Good times, good times, good information. Yeah, stuff you don't get anywhere else. That's for sure. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Here's a tip.

To keep from missing Dave's classic facial expressions to some of those calls, make sure you watch him live. Just visit DaveRamsey.com slash show each day from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Enjoy.