160 | What Your Childhood Taught You About Finances: The Money Blueprint You Never Chose

Find the full episode here: LivingOnPurposeInChrist.com/blog and The Covenant Money Blueprint (Bootcamp) here: PaulaBehrens.com/finances

Your stomach tightens the second money comes up, and then you feel guilty for feeling that way. We get it and we go straight to the root: for many Christians, finances aren’t just practical, they’re spiritually confusing. Scripture says “don’t worry,” yet the hum of financial anxiety still sits under the surface, especially when bills, budgeting, and giving collide with real life.

We talk through the hidden “money blueprint” that gets built long before your first paycheck, shaped by what you heard at home, what you watched in culture, and even what you may have absorbed in church. That blueprint shows up as fast, embodied reactions like tensing at a price tag, avoiding hard conversations, or feeling undeserving when help arrives. Once we name it, we can actually disciple it. Money becomes a place where renewing the mind is not theoretical, it’s personal and practical.

Then we make a major shift that changes everything: covenant versus contract thinking. If you’ve been relating to God’s provision like a contract (perform well, then you’ll be okay), it makes sense that you feel pressure and fear. Covenant thinking rests in God’s settled commitment, secured before you could ever “get it right.” We also share how a guided, session-by-session process can help truth move from head knowledge into the gut-level places where anxiety lives, including reflection practices, devotions, biblical encouragement, and aromatherapy with essential oils to help you slow down and tune in to your feelings. It's called The Covenant Money Blueprint (Bootcamp): Partnering With God To Reset Your Finances

If you’re ready for a faith-based reset, you can find the self-guided video course at PaulaBehrens.com/finances 

Subscribe to the show now and share with a friend who may feel stuck. Then leave a review so more listeners can find real peace around personal finance while receiveing biblical encouragement in the matter.

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Transcript

Why Money Conversations Trigger Tension

Paula Behrens 0:01

Have you ever noticed how quickly your stomach tightens the moment a financial conversation starts? Maybe it's a bill arriving in the mailbox, or your spouse bringing up the budget over dinner, or a stirring in your heart that you're supposed to give more generously, but something in you quietly resists? If you've ever felt that tension, that strange mixture of faith and fear living in the same chest, well, this episode is for you. You're carrying something most of us were never taught to name, and today we're going to name it together. Stick around to the very end of this episode because I'm going to open the door for you to a self-guided video course I've been praying over and preparing for months called "The Covenant Money Blueprint: Partnering With God To Reset Your Finances." If you've ever felt torn between wanting to trust God with your finances and feeling like a mess every time money enters the conversation, you're going to want to hear what I have for you at the end of this episode.

Spiritual Disciplines And Aromas For Clarity

Paula Behrens 1:01

In my personal faith walk, I've wrestled with the challenge of carving out consistent time for God. Some days, the line blurred between hearing his voice and my own thoughts echoing back at me. But through life's ups and downs, I've discovered an amazing truth. Spiritual disciplines paired with the God-given gift of natural aromas can create a profound space for clarity and connection. They help us slow down and tune in to God's quiet whispers. Let's talk about what this podcast has to offer. Each week, we delve into meaningful scripture, highlighting memory versus enriched with Greek word studies. If your spirit needs refreshing, you can start with daily devotionals that accompany your morning prayer, and you'll find that many of our episodes are infused with essential oil tips to enhance your focus so you can hear God's voice more clearly as you seek to clarify your unique calling.

Faith Coaching Invite And How To Book

Paula Behrens 2:01

Hey friend, I want to personally invite you to check out our faith coaching service. If you've been feeling spiritually dry, this is your opportunity to reignite your love for time with God. It isn't just another program, it's a deeply intentional one-on-one session focused on Christian empowerment where you'll experience a rhythm that truly fits your life, all while engaging your senses through aroma therapy devotions. We'll partner together to design a peaceful Christ-centered rhythm that helps you breathe again spiritually and emotionally. You'll walk away with clarity, focus, and a renewed connection to the Holy Spirit. Go right now to PaulaBehrens.com /coaching to book your session. That's Paula Behrens B-E-H R E N S .com /coaching (no spaces). It's time to stop trying to figure it out alone and start connecting with God in a way that finally feels like refreshment for your soul. Check the show notes to save your spot while the peace reset is still on the table.

Leave A Review And Get Started

Paula Behrens 3:05

Before we dive in, I have a quick favor to ask. If this podcast has been a blessing to you or helped you grow in your walk with Christ, would you take a moment to leave a review? It only takes a minute, and your words help more women discover this space and be encouraged in their faith as well. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate your support. All right, it's time to get started. Grab your Bible, dust off your journal, and cozy up to your favorite beverage and let's dive in.

The Hidden Money Blueprint Behind Anxiety

Paula Behrens 3:36

I want to start with something that might surprise you. For a lot of faithful believers, money is one of the most spiritually confusing areas of life. We know scripture tells us not to worry, that our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask. We know it tells us to be content in all circumstances, to store up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. And yet so many of us walk around with a low hum of financial anxiety underneath everything else, and then we feel guilty for feeling anxious, because shouldn't a person of faith be more settled about this than we are? That guilt on top of guilt is exhausting, and I don't believe it's what God intended for us to carry.

Uncovering Your Invisible Money Blueprint

Paula Behrens 4:19

Here's what I've come to understand while walking alongside people in this exact struggle. Long before you ever opened a bank account or paid your first bill, something was already being built inside you, a kind of invisible architecture shaped by what you heard your parents say about money, what you watched them do with it, what you overheard in arguments you weren't supposed to hear, and what your culture quietly modeled for you through television, through the people around you, even through church itself. It's called your money blueprint. It's the inner template that tells you, often without your permission, how much you're allowed to have, how much you deserve, whether money is safe or dangerous, and whether wanting more makes you greedy or simply faithful and wise. Here's the tricky part. The blueprint runs quietly in the background almost all the time. You don't consciously think about it in the way you think about a decision you're actively making. It shows up instead as a gut reaction. You see a price tag and your body tenses before your mind even does the math. You think about asking for a raise and something in you shrinks back before you've even opened your mouth. You receive an unexpected gift, and instead of gratitude, you feel a strange discomfort, almost as if you don't quite deserve it. None of that is really about the actual number on the price tag or the actual gift in your hands. It's about the blueprint underneath, quietly narrating the moment before truth even gets a chance to speak.

Why Money Is A Discipleship Issue

Paula Behrens 5:53

And this is where I want to bring something theological into the conversation, because I don't think this is simply a psychology problem to be managed. I believe it's a discipleship issue, a place where our hearts need the same kind of renewing that Paul describes in Romans when he tells us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Money is one of the most tender, most avoided places where that renewing needs to happen. Because so much of what shapes our money blueprint was never actually rooted in God's truth about us. It was rooted in fear, in scarcity, in wounds, in things we absorbed as children long before we were capable of testing whether they were actually true. Jesus wasn't silent about money; it's honestly striking once you start paying attention. He told the story of the servants entrusted with talents, each one given differently. Each one expected to steward faithfully rather than bury out of fear what they received. He watched a widow put in two small coins and told his disciples she had given more than all the wealthy people combined because she gave out of her poverty rather than her surplus. He warned against building bigger and bigger barns while forgetting that our lives are not our own. Jesus wasn't silent about money. He was remarkably vocal about it because how we relate to money reveals so much about where our hearts actually rest, whether they rest in the abundance from above or in our own grip on what we can control.

Covenant Versus Contract Thinking: Diathēkē (διαθήκη)

Paula Behrens 7:34

I want to take a few minutes here and go a little deeper into one particular word. The word is in the Greek diathēkē (διαθήκη) , and it's most often translated into English as covenant, though sometimes as testament. In the ancient world, this word carried far more weight than our modern English word, contract, could ever carry. You see, a contract is a mutual agreement between two relatively equal parties, and either side can walk away if the other one fails to hold up their end. A covenant, especially the kind of covenant God enters into with his people, is something entirely different. It's a binding, often blood-sealed commitment, frequently initiated by the stronger party on behalf of the weaker one, and it carries an unbreakable weight precisely because it doesn't depend on the weaker party's performance to remain valid. You see this word used throughout the New Testament in some of its most sacred moments. When Jesus lifted the cup at the Last Supper and told his disciples, This is the new covenant in my blood, he was using this exact word, diathēkē (διαθήκη), and he was deliberately connecting himself back to the covenants God had already made with Abraham, with Moses, and with David. The book of Hebrews leans on this word repeatedly, describing Jesus as the mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises, one that doesn't depend on our ability to keep our end of the bargain perfectly, because he's already kept it on our behalf.

How Covenant Thinking Transforms Your Relationship with Provision

Paula Behrens 9:16

Here's why this matters so much for your money blueprint. So many of us, without realizing it, relate to God's provision the way we'd relate to a contract rather than a covenant. We quietly believe that if we perform well enough, pray hard enough, tithe faithfully enough, then provision will come. And if it doesn't come, we assume we must have failed somewhere along the way, broken our end of an unspoken deal. That's contract thinking, dressed up in spiritual language, and it will keep you anxious for the rest of your life because contracts depend entirely on your performance, holding steady. Covenant thinking is different. Covenant thinking rests in the truth that God's commitment to provide for his children was never contingent on our flawless performance in the first place. It was settled, sealed, and secured before we ever did a single thing to earn it. That's the whole heart behind naming the course, "The Covenant Money Blueprint." We're not trying to build a better contract with God through spiritual effort. We're learning to rest in the abundant life God desires for his faithful.

When The Anxious Grip On Money Starts To Loosen

Paula Behrens 10:26

Once the truth starts to settle into a person's heart, something remarkable happens. The anxious grip on money starts to loosen. Not because the person suddenly has more money in their account, but because they're no longer relating to abundance as something they have to earn through perfect performance. They begin to relate to it as something flowing out of a relationship that was already secured on their behalf. Now, understanding a truth like that in your mind is one thing. Actually getting it to settle into your heart, into the place where your gut reactions and your instinctive fears actually live is a different matter entirely. And this is where so many well-meaning teaching series fall short. You can hear a wonderful sermon about God's faithful provision on a Sunday morning, feel genuinely moved by it, and then find yourself right back in that same tight-chested anxiety on Monday morning when the bill arrives. That

How The Course Rebuilds Beliefs And Habits

Paula Behrens 11:24

gap between what we know in our mind and what actually governs our gut reactions is exactly the gap I built this course to address. In "The Covenant Money Blueprint," we don't just talk about these truths from a distance. We walk through a guided process session by session where you actually identify the specific memories and beliefs that built your particular blueprint and then bring them honestly before the Lord, and you receive his truth in exchange for the old lie in a tangible, felt way, rather than just an intellectual one. We use a gentle technique involving essential oils and reflection, something I was trained in directly, that helps the truth actually reach the places where the old beliefs have been quietly living for years, sometimes for decades. It's not a formula, it's not magic. It's simply a tool that helps you slow down enough and become still enough for the Holy Spirit to do what he's already wanting to do in you.

A Seven-Session Course on Money

Paula Behrens 12:24

Across the seven sessions, we walk through where your blueprint came from. We look honestly at where you feel stuck in what I call the cycle of abundance, which is simply the way God designed us to create something of value, offer it, receive fair payment for it, and then steward that provision well. We spend real time on your inner identity because you can only receive as much provision as your inner self of identity will actually allow. And so much of that identity has quietly been shaped by things that were never true. We look at your sense of calling and mission because purpose and provision tend to travel together far more often than we realize. And we build daily sustainable habits for actual walking in the renewed way of thinking. So it doesn't stay a nice idea in your head once, but becomes the actual pattern your life runs on.

Course Link Discount Offer And Closing Reminders

Paula Behrens 13:19

If any part of what I've shared today has stirred something in you, I want to invite you into this. "The Covenant Money Blueprint (Bootcamp)" is available now as a self-guided video course, which means you can move through it at your own pace in your own time, wherever you are right now in your walk with the Lord. You don't need to wait for the perfect season, and you don't need to have your finances already sorted out before you begin. In fact, if your finances already felt sorted out, you probably wouldn't need this course in the first place. And neither would I have needed it myself. You can find it on my website at PaulaBehens.com /finances. That's Paula Behrens B E H R E N S .com /finances (no spaces). I would be honored to walk this journey with you. And I believe with everything in me that on the other side of this course, you're going to relate to your finances and to your Heavenly Father in a new way that finally feels like rest instead of striving. Okay, I've got a special discounted offer going on right now. So head on over to PaulaBehrens.com /finances. That's Paula Behrens B-E-H R E N S .com /finances (no spaces). See you in the training.

Closing Thoughts and Next Steps

Paula Behrens 14:47

Thank you for tuning in today. And remember, just like setting biblical boundaries, it's okay to say no to things that don't serve you well, like that third piece of cake at the church potluck. If you were blessed by this episode, be sure to share it with a friend and leave a review so that we can reach even more listeners' like you. Check the show notes for all the links. Join us next week as we continue to discover how to live on purpose in Christ. Until then, keep leaning into Him and walking in His Wisdom. See you next time.