Honestly, I wish I was as smart and cool as I feel when I write sometimes.

The truth is, no matter how smart and savvy I try to make myself look with all the money I save, and all the good decisions I try to make; I am absolutely lost  in life without God and the values, morals, and feeling of purpose that guides me daily to make those decisions.

The most important question to ask yourself when you’re contemplating how to be more successful, is not what you need to do to get more money?  I believe the most important question that should be asked is what personal values and sense of purpose do you need to develop to propel you toward the success you seek?  Your values, motivations, and purpose are ultimately the things that will guide you and define who you are and where you will go in life.  In the long run, these things will be much more valuable to your journey than your money ever will be.  Money can only help you fund your journey to find your purpose in life.  Money can never create the journey for you.

At least in my life, the only way I am able to continually make the right decisions in life, is because I realize I don’t have to be a perfect, brilliant person to reach the success I dream of.  I just have to believe that there is a God who wants to see me reach my dreams, and try to follow the journey God wants me to go on.

I am convinced that wealth-building (Read the difference between being rich and wealthy here) is just as much of a spiritual journey to seek God and discover yourself along the way, as it is a financial strategy full of statistics and choosing the right investments.

If you feel stressed out because you think that wealth-building takes perfection and brilliant decisions all the time, take a break.  Go for a walk.  Relax a little bit.  Remember, your success is not all up to you.  God wants to go with you on this journey, and help you.  But you have to God, and build a relationship with him, and then become obedient to the mission he put you on this earth to complete.  The truth about wealth is that the journey to becoming wealthy isn’t all about being greedy and collecting all the money you can get.  Becoming wealthy is all about using the resources that are available to you, to become the person you’re supposed to become, and go on the journey God wants you to go on.

I believe that becoming wealthy, and executing your purpose in life is very close to being the same thing.  Because the wealthiest people in this world, are really the ones filled with the most purpose.  Once you have a lot of money, you realize that it’s not money that makes you happy.  What makes you happy and wealthy is the way you feel about your life.  Once you commit to the journey to discover your purpose in life, you realize wealth really is the spiritual force and inspiration that pushes you to go out and accomplish the goals that you dream about in life.    Success and wealth, simply originate, in the actions to do what God is calling you to in your life.

Here are Five reasons why God is the core of all of my success:

Finding God and Success Tip #1:  Learn to Never Stop Trying!

There has been so many times where I have felt so discouraged and rejected, that I just wanted to give up on my dreams and life.  Seriously, if the decision was up to me during these moments, I would have just thrown in the towel when I failed at trying to succeed at something difficult and went and done something easy and below my potential instead.

But because I am living to complete God’s purpose in my life, I can hear a voice in my soul during these challenging times that’s keeps telling me that doing the easy things in life will never lead me to accomplish the great dreams that I have.  Without that voice in my soul pushing me to never give up, I am sure I would have given up on my dreams a long time ago.  But that internal will, that voice of God, is there, telling me to keep going and trying even when I don’t think I can do it on my own.

The only way I can explain that voice in my soul is by believing it is God speaking to me.  It is a voice that is bigger, stronger, and more powerful than my challenges when life gets hard.  I’ll be honest:  Every ounce of purpose and wealth I have ever created has come from listening to this voice telling me to keep going even when I want to give up.

Finding God and Success Tip #2: Seek to See God in your life!

Sometimes I just have to take a step back and evaluate the big picture of my life to see where all of my success has come from.  Has it really been me all along?  Or has there been bigger powers at work, that have helped lift me up to the journey I want to be on?  It’s easy to shrug success off, and say it’s just luck, or a coincidence, but when I look at the big picture of my life, I realize I’ve experienced too many “good luck coincidences” to believe I’ve done this all on my own.

For example, a few months ago I felt a stirring in my soul to donate to a charity.  The frugal side of my personality liked the idea, but didn’t want to actually write the check.  But I just kept feeling my soul telling me it was the right thing to do.  So I finally wrote a check and mailed it off.

The next week, I got a letter in the mail from the charity saying thank you for the donation and saying that their prayer team was going to pray for my family’s financial well-being.  A couple days later, an ice storm hit some property I own that I really didn’t care about.  At first I was disappointed, but then I saw it was insured, and the insurance settlement for the damage turned out to be much more than the donation I made to the charity.

I could be prideful with the money I save and invest, and brag that I’ve done it all myself.  But the truth is, it’s more fun to be humble in life, and realize that there’s no way you can create success in this life on your own.  My only explanation is that God is with me every step of the way, and without him leading me to make the right decisions, and blessing me when I make the right decisions, I wouldn’t have half of the success I have right now

Finding God and Success Tip #3:  Be Inspired to Be Great at Who You are!

I must admit that I believe it’s God that inspires me to make the decision to live a frugal lifestyle below my means.  It’s God that inspires me to pursue a greater purpose in life than debt and consumption.   It has to be God that inspires me to find pleasure in sacrificing my short-term pleasures, for long-term goals for my life.

Once I committed to prioritizing my spiritual beliefs as the primary force that drives my decisions in life, I stopped seeing life as a place where my only purpose is to buy big, expensive things.  God has inspired my life views to have a spiritual perspective.  I used to see life as a party where I could be as crazy as I wanted to be, and consume as much pleasure as I could.  But I now see life as a mission that I am on to positively impact as many people as I can.  I no longer feel the need to waste my money buying expensive stuff because all that stuff will only slow my adventure down.

God inspires me to want a life full of friendships, adventures, purpose, meaning, and the ability to create my art with my life and talents.  God has inspired me to realize that the best things in life are really free, and all you have to do is work for them, so I really no longer waste my money on the expensive stuff that only slows my mission down.

Finding God and Success Tip #4:  Your Feelings Toward Life are What Make You Wealthy!

The more money I save, the more I have realized that wealth is found more in the feelings I create toward life than in the numbers in my bank account.  Really, the only thing that the numbers in my bank account do for me, is tell me that I don’t have to worry about fulfilling my essential needs such as food, water, shelter, and having the resources to make the right decisions.   The numbers in my bank accounts also help reduce the fear that I have to sacrifice my time being happy and pursuing my purpose, for a job I hate just because I need the paycheck.

The majority of my wealth comes from the feelings and attitude I create toward my life.  Every time I get closer to living the life I want to live, the wealthier I feel.  Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me how big the pile of money I save is, as long as I am able to pay my bills and live the life God is prompting me to live.  Wealth is found in our feelings of finding purpose.  Not in expensive things that force us to work in jobs that steal us from the mission we are supposed to go on.

Finding God and Success Tip #5:  Be Inspired to Be Great at Who You are!

In the last six years, I’ve realized I have a sixth sense for comprehending value and finding ways to invest my energy in the right activities.  I credit this sixth sense for how I went from a few thousand dollars to a couple hundred thousand net-worth in under five years while never making 100K a year.

It’s not because I am smarter than everyone else.  It’s that I’ve developed my relationship with God that has really become my sixth sense.  Before I make any decision, I talk to God about it and pray for an answer on what I should do with my life.  I always meditate deeply about the answers I get, and then I do my best to execute those plans.  When I live with a humble, servant attitude to do God’s work with my life, I am usually blessed with incredible feelings that help me feel wealthy in my life.

Finding God and Success Tip #6:  Your Relationship with God is all that Matters.

I am extremely blessed that my self-worth is no longer found in my career, bank account, or in the expensive things that I own.

Therefore, if I lost everything tomorrow, it wouldn’t change how I view life, and my thoughts about myself.  Having my faith in God, rather than in myself and my success, is a very liberating position to be in, because I don’t feel the pressure to make more money, or to always need new things to prove myself.  I simply need to live my life for God’s purpose and I can feel as wealthy as I’d like.  I have faith that if I am doing that, God will bless me with everything I need.

I have let go of so many negative behaviors in my life, including drug use and a party lifestyle, because I found more fun finding God and going on a mission to fulfilling my purpose in life.  It takes work, sacrifice, and dedication, but the feelings I get from trying my hardest at life far surpass any feeling I’ve ever got from partying.

Years ago, I stopped watching TV and movies.  I quit spending time with people who wanted to waste their time.  I replaced these behaviors with activities that helped me grow like reading, exercising, learning, meeting new people, and talking with God every chance I got.

Maybe not so surprisingly, when I avoided wasting my time, and instead focused on building the life God wanted me to live, I started to find the wealthy life I always dreamed about no matter how much money I was making.

In conclusion, I’m not trying to say that believing in God will make you rich.  I wrote this article to say that God’s ultimate dream for you is to see you become the person you are supposed to become.   If you spend less money than you make, and save and invest the rest, and use the money you have to fund the adventure to find God and your purpose in life, you will find your path to all of the happiness, contentment, and wealth that you dream about.

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