My Review of Dave Ramsey's "The Legacy Journey"

Life is funny.

You don’t have to live very many years to understand this, but the older you get, the truer it is every day. Life is funny.

If you know me at all and know my story these last six years or so, you know how almost surreal it is that I am sitting at my kitchen table, in Lynchburg Virginia, writing a review of Dave Ramsey’s latest book.

Just that sentence alone is chock full of miracles. I’m sitting in my kitchen. At my table. In Lynchburg Virginia. Writing a review of Dave Ramsey’s latest book. For the uninitiated let’s review why this is so many answers to prayer all in one line of type.

For the last six years I have been homeless. I slept in my 1996 Yukon, parked on a friend’s property in Franklin TN. Before that, I slept in my 1995 Volvo 850, until it died at the 250,000 mile mark. That was the car I had when I lost my entire career, my home, and for the six years that ensued…my hope. When I first became homeless I would hide it behind the Oak Hill Assembly of God on Franklin Road in Nashville TN, where I lived the past seventeen years.

So my having a kitchen -with a table- is nothing short of a miracle to me. My kitchen is in my little townhouse in Lynchburg, Virginia. I’m here because I work for my alma mater, Liberty University. So I have a job, a home, a kitchen with a table, a new (to me) car, and best of all…I have hope.

I also have this friend in Nashville. Maybe you’ve heard of the guy. His name is Dave Ramsey.

Now, that line right there made some of you chuckle. Or it made you “LOL” as we say these days. If it made you laugh, then you know why. If it didn’t, here is a link to the recent history with Dave and myself. This explains most of it.

http://shinnyandshavings.blogspot.com/2014/05/my-dinner-with-dave-and-sharon.html

There is a lot more to this, of course but this isn’t a story about me and Dave. It’s about his new book. However, in the spirit of full disclosure I wanted to get these things on the table because I know…let me emphasize…I know, that I am going to get slammed for writing this review. I got slammed for merely having dinner with the guy, so I expect a few torpedoes here. But honestly...I don’t care.

So here is my review of Dave Ramsey’s newest book: “The Legacy Journey”

And for the record, Dave did not approach me at all about reviewing this book. He doesn’t even know I am doing this.

The Legacy Journey

Dave Ramsey

Copyright 2014 Lampo Licensing LLC

Published by Ramsey Press, The Lampo Group, Inc.

Brentwood TN

236 Pages

      First of all, let me say I simply love books. I love all kinds of books. I love the way they look and the way they smell and the way they feel in your hands. I will probably never own a Kindle version of anything, because a book is simply something you hold in your hands and feel the pages between your fingers. So the first thing I would say is, as a product, The Legacy Journey is beautiful. It looks like a journal. And in many ways it is. Half a lifetime has gone into the development of this particular chapter of Dave Ramsey’s life.

     But a book review is not about the outside. It’s about the content.
Right up front, you need to know that if you think this book is simply "Okay, I've followed the steps of Financial Peace, I'm rich...now what?" You are in for a surprise. This book isn't just about what to do once you've accumulated those "piles of cash," Ramsey frequently references. It's about something far more important.

This book taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about Dave Ramsey that I simply did not know before. Living in Nashville for seventeen years, where everyone claims Christianity, it’s easy to simply assume that everyone there was born a Believer and has had a faith-walk all their lives. This book explains that Dave came to Faith in Christ as an adult. When you put this in perspective, you begin to understand that he was maturing as a Christian at the same time God was taking him down a path he had not planned on. A path that challenged him at every turn but also blessed him beyond what he had imagined.

It’s hard to mature as a believer when you are having success. That’s just human nature. The more you have, the more doors seem to open for you and the easier it is to be caught up in your own hype and read too many of your own newspaper clippings. Dave Ramsey had to intentionally cultivate his spiritual growth even while his financial and professional life was exploding exponentially. That takes discipline. We’ve seen the other side of this with the rock stars and celebrities who come to Christ and are thrust in the evangelical limelight before they have a chance to put down roots. Ramsey had to make it a point to avoid this sort of pitfall. That’s simply not easy.

But it explained a lot as I read it, knowing that the Dave Ramsey I heard on the airwaves in Nashville when I first got to town in 1997, was in many ways not the same radio host I heard on my last day there this past May. Ramsey has grown as a believer. That’s obvious, and much like those members of the Sanhedrin in Acts 4 who saw the dramatic change in Peter and John and could only attribute it to their having spent much time in the presence of Jesus. Jesus will work off your rough edges if you let him and it is evident through this book that Dave is at his most reflective, and the imprint of his years with Jesus are showing more boldly than ever.

      There was one troubling section of this book that I need to address. It’s chapter two.

The chapter is called “The War on Success” and to be honest…I hate it. I hate that it had to be written. I hate that in this country, the day has come when successful people –particularly successful people of faith- have to literally hide their success for fear they will be run-through by the acid tongued both outside the church and, sadly, within.

It’s funny…when I was a homeless man, the people who attacked the wealthy could not believe that I didn’t hate them, rage against them for being wealthy, and twist scriptures to condemn them. But I couldn’t. I am a full-on, hard core capitalist. I have no problem with people being wealthy. Heck I want to be wealthy. I know as many mean-spirited, unkind, unfriendly “poor” folks as I do rich ones. Money only amplifies what you are. If you’re a jerk at your core…you’re just going to be a jerk with cooler toys. Why people have become so animus toward people who work hard and have success is something I’ll never understand. Dave addresses this in his book and he does it with patience and kindness, explaining it in a way that assumes that perhaps those folks simply never did the numbers. He treats their contempt as an oversight, and a result of their lack of information. The chapter is a perfect rebuttal to those who hold to a mantra that money is somehow akin to evil.

The chapters that follow are some of the best writing I’ve read on the value of being a better, deeper, more whole person. This isn’t a book about money…not really. This is a book about really being rich. Rich in wisdom, rich in integrity, rich in character. Rich in the things that your kids grow teary-eyed when they reminisce about them to your grandchildren one day. When you’re seven years old, you might brag about how much money your dad has, but when you are a little older, you want to be able to brag about the man your dad is.

That is really what this book is about.

Dave Ramsey takes his readers on a journey to a mountain top. Mountains give us the advantage of looking both backward in victory, and forward in expectation. On this particular mountain, Ramsey reflects not only on who he was way down in that valley you can barely see anymore, but who he became along the way, and who he sees himself becoming as he takes on the next leg of the journey.

His regular listeners and readers have made this journey with him, and while their mountain might look a little different, the view is likely just as rewarding. Reading this book you begin to understand that all his talk about stewardship, and being intentional, and setting goals and having plans, is not just for the financial areas of life. In fact that’s the easiest place to learn those traits, because the results are instantly visible, and palpable. No, reading this book you come to understand that the character you develop here with your money, becomes character everywhere else. Tithing is just a dollar figure, but a giving heart is cultivated. Carefully managing your checkbook becomes carefully managing your daily planner. A good steward of his paycheck becomes a good steward of his workday and honors his boss. A person with financial integrity, reflects a person with spiritual integrity. Money problems are really just symptoms. This book is about those who saw the symptoms, diagnosed the problem, took the medicine, got well, and then became stronger than ever. That is the Legacy Journey as Dave Ramsey describes it here.

His chapter on “Safeguarding Your Legacy” moved me deeply. I finished reading this book in the lobby of my church, waiting for my daughter to finish her small groups. On the way home we discussed my legacy, frankly and openly. It was a good conversation and I explained to her why I had asked. This chapter made me renew my vow to God to live my life before her in a manner honoring our Lord. It has been a hard road these last six years and she suffered much along with me. It was good to read Dave’s thoughts on what a legacy really is and how you measure it and how you guard against ruining it. These are great tips I am implementing before I even go to bed tonight.

Dave writes at great length about the value of family, history, integrity and faith in this book. But one story touched me deeply and I’ll close this review with this.

He writes a wonderful story about a man named Clyde Eckles West. To relate the entire story would be to spoil one of the wonderful, sweet moments in this volume. But suffice it to say that I blinked back a few tears as the story unfolded and the legacy of this man came into focus. Legacy really is everything.

In closing, I have to say this is a really great book. Great in its necessity. There is a lot more to this work than “Just another Dave Ramsey book about money.” Far more. A few years ago I read a wonderful book by a fellow Liberty University grad, Mark DeMoss. The book was “The Little Red Book of Wisdom.” It’s one of my favorite books about just plain being a better person. Dave Ramsey’s new book is a similar work. Sure, there is the expected money advice. That’s what he is known for.

But over the years, this is also a man who has been broken, rebuilt, and reshaped many times as God continued to “complete the work he has begun in you.”

The Legacy Journey is about taking a longer than usual pause to reflect, give thanks, reset the compass, and prepare for the rest of the voyage, while carefully leaving the road you travel a little better for the next sojourner.

It’s a wonderful read and I give it five stars.

Having Done all to Stand

Paul told his beloved friends at Ephesus that one day evil would come. It would be so great that they would be pushed to their limits. He told them to prepare for it, but remain true to the elements of the Faith, particularly the reading of the Bible (such as they had at the time) and prayer. He concluded the charge with "and after this stand firm."
We have a tendency in Christendom to make superheroes out of normal believers and especially out of the early fathers. Paul was heroic, no doubt. But obviously, Paul also knew the heartbreak that went along with the Christian life. We're told on numerous occasions that Paul and Silas sang while in Jail. But we don't know whether they started off their jail experience with a song. I'm sure Paul cried out as the whip fell, or the rods crashed across his back. I'm sure that in the fevered pain of infection from the filthy conditions, and the open wounds on his body, Paul cried out...maybe even in anger.
We've focused on Paul's singing and assumed that's all he did. I can't say for sure, but I have my doubts.
Paul, at times, reveals loneliness in his writings. Sometimes desperation. Sometimes anguish over his chains. His frequent calls to be remembered in prayer tell us that Paul was a man as we all are. He was likely weary from the hard life that his calling demanded. He poured himself out again and again and dealt with heresy, and spiritual divisions, and laziness within the Church...and beatings and threat of death from without. That will break any man. Even Paul.
Ten days ago I was offered a job. I was as excited as I have been in a long time...probably since graduating from college in May 2012. I allowed myself to plan. Morgan and I went to the new high school she is transferring to (once I got a place) and she could barely contain her happiness. My smiling daughter was back.
Monday -just 48 hours ago- I got the call that the company has frozen hiring. The job was withdrawn. This has been the way it has gone for five years now. Five years of hopes deferred.
The last seven months especially have been hard. My Faith has lagged. I force myself to read the Bible. I never pray, at least not for myself. Why? God has known my need for five years now, and has yet to answer those desperate prayers for a restoration of my life, and a home for my daughter.
I have trudged through this wasteland while bearing the whispers -and often the shouts- of ruthless, mean-spirited people who would look me in the eye and tell me that somehow, in some way, this is all my fault. "Everyone who wants a job has one" they say. But that's not true. What is true is they have a job. (Or they no longer need one)  They have one and the few people they actually care about have one so to hell with the rest of us. Write it off as laziness. Chalk it up to failure.
The only words they offer -save those words of hurt and damage- are the same old tripe about "God is in Control" or "When God closes one door He opens another!" Well...God has been shutting door after door and nothing is open. Nothing.
They will tell me to find solace in worship. Yeah...right. Some go so far as to suggest certain songs or artists that help them in some particular way. None of these songs effect me spiritually at all. They do, however trigger my gag reflex. They make me ill. I am angry. I am hurt. I am wondering why. I am scared. I am very alone in this walk. I am frustrated. I am very very sad. I feel like an abysmal failure. I can literally feel time rushing past me like a freight train and I am powerless to stop it. What's far worse...I can't assign any value to the time that rushes by. I can't look at it and say "I filled it with something great". It's just time. Day after day of dreams that die, progress that stalls, and a sweet, wonderful 15 year old young woman who I treasure and haven't been able to offer normalcy to in over five years.
God knows all this already. I need to remind him? Write THAT in a praise and worship song and maybe I'll sing it.
I have come to the point in my faith where I think I know what Paul was really saying to the Ephesians.
He was saying this: "Get ready. Get acquainted with Jesus, and know His words, and the elements of your Faith. Because there will come a day when no more songs will come from your lips. No more prayers will pour from your heart. You will face days when there will be no words, no prayers, no songs, no comfort, no joy. You will face times when God will become an abstract. You will have only your determination to not quit. What you know of God in those darkest hours will only be what you can vaguely recall. You won't see His face shining on you. You will only remember that it once did. That memory will be all you have."
I am there now. I cannot abandon my faith because I still know it to be real. I know God is never caught by surprise. This does not have Him back on His heels. He is not stumbling for a quick fix to my situation. He is the same God He was when things were going well. I am exhausted, out of words and repulsed by even the effort it takes to play the Christian game. I can't bring myself to go through the motions of raising my hands, swaying with glazed eyes, shedding tears of adoration, or "Shouting Deuteronomy at the Devil" as Rich Mullins used to mockingly say. I am beyond broken. I am shattered. The pieces are jagged and I have cut myself time and again trying to hold them together while waiting for the Cavalry.
But having done all to stand...I will still stand.
I can't abandon this faith. I have a daughter watching me and I have yet -in all this hardship- to assign blame of any kind to God. I try my best to tell her that God knows what He is up to. He is working a plan. I want her to remember her dad as a man who refused to quit on anything...including his faith in Jesus Christ. Even when that Faith seemed to be of no effect.
What would I abandon to? Some other faith? Something false and fraudulent, or non-existent altogether?
I can't. I won't. God doesn't owe me explanation. But I, in turn, don't owe the Christian voices a certain behavior when the chips are down.
I have learned, in all this, that faith is sometimes ugly. It's not always glorious and beautiful. Sometimes it's at it's best when it is silently taking just one more halting step forward...and another...and another. Faith is most glorious when the sun rises and the damaged warrior is still there. Having taken no new ground, neither has he ceded any. He did all to stand, and then he simply stood. Fists clenched, spit flying, not pretty and packaged and Tweet-worthy. He's nobody's hero. But he should be. Because he just stood.