Elite Series
The money arrived.
Maybe it was the signing bonus. Maybe the NIL deal. Maybe the contract you worked toward for years. However it came, it came — and in the weeks that followed, it started revealing things about you that the game never required you to know.
Money is one of the most honest diagnostic tools available. Not because of what it gives you. Because of what it brings out.
Read this passage slowly.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
1 Timothy 6:10 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Paul is not saying money is evil. He is identifying a specific orientation toward money — the love of it, the making of it the central organizing principle — as the thing that produces the damage. The money itself is neutral. What the person does with it, what identity they build around it, what they are willing to do to get more of it — those things are not neutral.
The athlete who receives significant money for the first time is in a formation moment whether they recognize it as one or not. The decisions made in the first year of financial elevation tend to establish patterns that are very hard to change later. The generosity or the hoarding. The lifestyle inflation that outpaces even the significant income. The relational changes as the money changes who shows up and why. The identity shift that comes when you become someone that other people see primarily through the lens of what you have.
Here is the question worth asking honestly: what did the arrival of the money reveal about what you actually believe? Not what you say you believe. What the decisions demonstrated. The way you responded to the first person who asked for something. The first purchase you made when you didn’t have to justify it to anyone. The first financial decision you made when the discipline that scarcity enforced was no longer required.
Those responses are a diagnostic. Pay attention to what they are telling you.
The decisions made in the first year of financial elevation establish patterns that are very hard to change later. What did the arrival of the money reveal about what you actually believe?
What is the first significant financial decision you made after the money arrived? What did that decision reveal about your values that you might not have known before?
The honest answer is the useful one. Create safety before asking.
Pay attention to what the money is revealing. Formation is happening whether you are paying attention to it or not.
This devotional addresses financial formation at a significant life moment. It works best in a trusted relationship context rather than a large group setting.