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Larry O'Nan: Some of the things we do get out of God's resources is money. I've had people that were very generous with their resources that I knew quite well, and I know one guy.

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Stephen Licciardello: Are you confused by the amount of charities and organizations competing for your cash?

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Sharlene Licciardello: Or perhaps you would like to be able to give more, but just don't have the finances to do so.

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Stephen Licciardello: In today's episode, we have a chat with Larry O'Nan, author of Intentional Living and Giving, where he simplifies being intentional with your resources.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Larry brings a biblical perspective to being a steward of what you have now and in the future.

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Stephen Licciardello: Stay to the end to hear how being an intentional steward impacts generations. Let's dive in.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Welcome to Rewrite Your Story, the podcast where change begins with you.

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Stephen Licciardello: We're your hosts, Stephen and Sharlene.

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Sharlene Licciardello: As professional coaches and mentors trained in various modalities, we have helped hundreds of people.

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Stephen Licciardello: Bridge the gap between the person they are.

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Sharlene Licciardello: And the person they want to be.

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Stephen Licciardello: We bring you conversations with real people who have overcome real setbacks.

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Sharlene Licciardello: You will walk away with practical steps to find more clarity, alignment, and success in any area you want to improve.

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Stephen Licciardello: So join us and discover how you have the power to overcome, to change, and to rewrite your story.

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Sharlene Licciardello: So pick up the pen. Your new chapter starts now. Larry, what what is the biggest misconception that people have about living generously?

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Larry O'Nan: I think the world wants you to believe the stewardship means money. In fact, most of the Christendom around the world, even pastors say, well, I need to speak on stewardship 3 or 4 times a year. What do they speak on? They try to come up with a tie. They kind of come up with money, money, money, and people say, oh, those are the 3 weeks I'm gonna skip because I don't wanna hear that message. If they're teaching lifestyle stewardship, they could be teaching that probably 3 fourths of the year of how are you wisely doing what God's leading you to do. That is your stewardship. And we're gonna give you the chance to give money because that's a very tangible way to also participate in God's stewardship. But I think, too often generosity is thought about money.

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Larry O'Nan: When I mentioned a guy that can get 48,000,000, I knew another guy that gave over $200,000,000 in 20 years. Now they would all call him a really good steward. Well, he may not call himself as good as that because he he's they had a different view of stewardship and he knew that God placed him on earth to make resources. And he was then he said, now my resources, I gotta make sure it's spent where I think God wants me to put it. So yes, he was generous, but you would also call him pretty stingy because the people wanted to get to that money. And he said, no, I'm not into what you're going for. I'm not, that's not my mission in life. So I think a lot of times the word generosity and be as generous as you can.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, yes. Be generous, but maybe what you gotta do yesterday I was shopping in, in the United States. We have Costco.

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Stephen Licciardello: We have it here today.

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Larry O'Nan: Okay. Well, I was in Costco yesterday and I saw a lady over by one section and I thought, if I don't keep on moving, I need to go talk to her. I hadn't seen her in about 4 weeks. And I thought, Larry, you will, I'm telling you to go talk to her. And her husband is not a believer. She he's not well at this particular time. There's a lot that's on her mind. She's had COVID, she's had all kinds of issues herself.

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Larry O'Nan: And the day I saw her was the 1st day in 6 weeks she'd been in, in Costco. And she said, I had to come over here because we're just getting so low on so much. And I went over and my time there of 15 or 20 minutes was ministering to her spiritual need of just being encouraged. And I was giving myself away and I didn't give her a nickel, but she said, oh, thanks so much. I'm so glad you stopped me. I didn't even know you were here. This is made by day. I needed to hear what you had to say.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, I wasn't out on my mission to go to Costco to find somebody to minister to. I was just doing what God wanted me to do. When I saw her, I knew I had to she was gonna take 15 minutes of my time. I knew that when I walked over to her, I thought I could get something else done and I'm gonna spend 15 minutes with her. That was intentionally giving my time and word of encouragement. We didn't pray for each other in front of the freezer department. We didn't do those kinds of things, but what you know, sudden she gave me a hug and she said, you don't know how much this has meant to me. I haven't seen you for a while, but I know that God planned for us to meet here in Costco.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, that was a spiritual experience in Costco and Costco never knows it happened. So are you willing to be what God wants you to be? You know, are you thinking about how you've got something that somebody else needs? How are you going to give that away? And then as you give that away, God's gonna say, I've got a way of meeting another need that you didn't know you had. And you may be saying, oh, but God, I need that money. Well, God says in, in, in providence of time, you may get that money, but it's not about money. In fact, Deuteronomy tells them, this is interesting I think, he's talking about the tithe in Deuteronomy. And God said, I don't need your money, but I need you to give because I need you to always learn to put me first in all things. Yeah. So when we give, we are realizing we're tangibly in a very real sense, giving something from us so we can let God fill us.

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Larry O'Nan: And God says, that's the reason I'm giving you the opportunity to give. I don't need the money. I mean, we think that God's got to have it. No. God says, I need to have you remember to keep me first in all things. And so what you see over and over again is I give, I'm realizing the joy I have of giving and the thriving is watching God work through me at Costco of all places. And then tomorrow I'm gonna go to a men's breakfast at a church meeting. Okay.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, that's a very different mix. I don't know what's gonna happen there, but I've got an opportunity to bless and encourage somebody else with something else. Because I'm gifted, it's my responsibility to use my giftings.

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Stephen Licciardello: This is so good.

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Larry O'Nan: So I want people you know, my whole goal here of even thinking this way for the 2 of you is I just want people to realize the magnitude of how God's created us is blessing. And can we just enjoy being what He wants us to be? Being the authorized wealth distributor, being available and sensitive. The book is called Intentional Living and Giving, and the word intentional is probably more important than the word living and giving, because I want you to become intentional in your life. I don't want you to just making if you're not intentional, you're going to make some really stupid mistakes. And I think that's when we get guilty And then we realize, oh, we're so inadequate. How could God love me? I blew it over here. A lot of times, the reason you blew it is you weren't being intentional in following God's direction for your life in the first place. And they were wanting God to kind of, you know, do the whiteboard routine and wipe off the markers.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, he does that because when God looks at us, he doesn't see all of what we see. He says, I'm choosing to see you in light of my son. So there's a biblical story of Jesus comes into play there. But when we look at ourselves, we see all the knots and the ugliness and we sometimes can't get over that. I think, you know, in our culture today, the word like depression is viewed as a medical issue. Well, I'm sure there's medical imbalance. I'm not arguing that point, but in depression in and of itself is sin. I'm falling short.

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Larry O'Nan: So can I come to grips with the fact that I've got depression and I'm, I'm probably not living trusting you? Help me overcome that so I can begin to trust you more. And it's a journey and there's nobody that's gonna read my book and come away as a saint. You're not gonna have another mother Teresa coming out of the book just because she read a few chapters. But I think people can walk away saying, oh my gosh, there's more out here that I could be. And my story, if I've blown it, I remember a pastor's wife. She was probably 60 years old. She was not married at the time and she was in tears in her eyes and she said, I'd never known. I could never figure out in my life what my purpose for before God was and a pastor's wife.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, she was looking for something else than what God had in store for her, but she was almost living in misery and defeat because she didn't believe God could use her. And I'm just saying, you know, God has already yes. But even at 60 years of age, if you change your mindset and become intentional, God can use you for the next 10 or 15 years. No matter what age you are, you can this could be a dramatic change. It occurred to me initially when I was in college, when I got into theology, it radically changed my wife's and my view of a lot of things that set us on a whole different course. And I spent 40 years consulting and working with many people in that because of that. But I never knew those things were gonna happen. When you talk about rewriting your story, sometimes we think I'm gonna sit down and rewrite the story.

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Larry O'Nan: Maybe God is saying, would you just sit down and be quiet and trust me? And I've got a new story for you. Amen. And that's what we really got to go for is letting people find what God's story is for them. Because I think we're, if anything, we could go to the other side is I'm working so hard on one more thing, trying to rewrite this. And I'm saying, no, why don't you just relax a little bit and let God do that? But you've got to know what God expected out of you in the first place. And when you do that, I mean, God's got some real fun stuff coming at you.

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Stephen Licciardello: So, Larry, when working with people and when people started giving or or finding the causes to give to, obviously, they've contacted a consultant because they were confused, not knowing what to do. What is the first step to breaking free from confusion and really finding that purpose?

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Larry O'Nan: Well, I think there's there's a couple of things. I I've done this numerous times when I'm working with corporate leadership. You know, do they wanna make a change and are they teachable to change? There's a lot of people wanna make a change, but they're not teachable while going through it. And, then I ask them often, I said, now if you're inte if you're teachable, are you also gonna be intentional? Because, in fact, I'm working with 1 international organization right now, and I've been putting them off for timing because I wanna make sure they're ready for what is facing them ahead of them. They they have some very definite needs and I can help them do that. But the issue has not been so much, can we do it? But are they ready to do it? And I think a lot of times, people say, well, we need to do x, but they don't wanna count the cost to the reality of what that means. I wanna get out of trouble. I don't like my marriage.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, the answer is not a divorce. There may be some other things because if you just take the divorce as an example of that, you're just gonna create another problem with another relationship. So it's really a matter of are you teachable? I know when I joined a ministry years ago, they were looking for people with a teachable spirit and a heart for God. Are you really serious about it? Are you just hurting and you wanna get out of where you're at right now? Because there's there is a little bit of work no matter which way you go. You know, even thinking about Moses and the children of Israel, I was reading the story the other night. I mean, you talk about an intentional scary experience. There have been a walk in the middle of the Red Sea with the water going up on both sides of them, And they had to there was 2,000,000 people doing that together. That was a pretty intentional plan that says this doesn't make sense, but they were obedient to what Moses was leading them to do.

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Larry O'Nan: And they walked across in dry land, but it I don't think everybody really wanted to take off down into the Red Sea.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. I

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Larry O'Nan: mean, I think, do you have a teachable spirit? Do you have a heart for God? And are you willing to be intentional in the way we're gonna take these steps together? Yeah. So I I I'm kind of a lot of times looking before I would dive into helping somebody or are they just wanting to be bailed out of a bad situation? I want them to come to grips with that before I try to start helping them.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Yeah. That's great. Larry, just wanted to find out, you talk about having someone teachable. What does that look like and what makes someone teachable? And also have you what are some powerful stories of people who have applied your principles?

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Larry O'Nan: Well, there's a whole story about how I got into the principles of stewardship, but I had developed seminars for executives years ago, and I was teaching them the content of the book that is out right now called Intentional Living and Giving, but this was back a number of years ago. I was all excited about it. It was changing my wife's and my life considerably. We were all of a sudden thriving. We had a purpose in life we didn't know we had. And I had a, I was teaching weekend seminars for maybe 25 to 50 executive couples would come together, and we would walk them through the content. And I remember 1 guy came to this, and he was so excited. He had just sold his business, and he wanted to go into full time ministry.

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Larry O'Nan: And he said, this has been an earth shaking experience for me because I came here thinking I was out of business. And, in 5 hours, I know I'm supposed to go back and start a business. And I said, why are you doing that? He said, well, I know how to make money, and I know how to be generous. And I think God wants me to do it again so I can give more of what God gives to me to others. And he said, maybe down the way, I'll still get to do what I'd like to do in going into ministry and helping executives in a more ministry sense. He went back to his open his business opened within 3 or 4 months. And at the next 10 years, she gave over 3 to $5,000,000 away from the proceeds of that business. He sold it and then he, after that, said, now I wanna still do something else.

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Larry O'Nan: I wanna go into ministry for a decade. And he did before he died. He went into full time ministry for a decade, but he knew God was leading him to do something that he thought at first was, oh, dear. Here I go again. But in the principles he was learning, he'd say, I'm a steward, and I know how to resource, and I know how to manage, and I know how to make things happen. God wants me to use my giftings that he's already given me, and I think I better go back and do this. And so he literally retired, sold it all, went back and restarted, and then was generous again for another decade before he now said, now I'm gonna go play. So I'm going to ministry.

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Larry O'Nan: I think sometimes if you're listening to what God leads you to do and see that you're being guided in a direction, everybody's unique. There's nobody out that's there's no cookie cutters in this business. And I think of that guy quite often. He didn't have to do what he did. He was he'd done well. But he decided that he should do well again because that was a gifting that God gave him. And it was amazing how within a year and a half of him starting that business, he was generously, not only helping others, he was helping other business people learn how to be generous. And his story was all over the place in his home area and the region of the world that he was in because nobody retires and goes back in the business just to be a good steward.

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Larry O'Nan: Yeah. In his case, he knew that part of that was money, but part of it, it was the management and the ability to create. And God made him that way.

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Stephen Licciardello: No. That's helpful. You know, that just when when you were saying that story, I was like, what I'm wondering then what would your definition be? Because there's a lot of talk now about marketplace ministry and and, you know, your business being that ministry and reaching out people through the ministry. And a lot of organizations have started ministries called marketplace ministry, teaching other people how to be ministers in the business world.

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Larry O'Nan: So Well, in my mind, when I think of marketplace ministry, I'm thinking of a group of, a target group of people that need to be writ reached that happened to be in the marketplace.

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Stephen Licciardello: Mhmm.

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Larry O'Nan: This guy here was that way. His reputation, he was executive. He knew how to make resources. Marketplace ministry, I think, sometimes has got a bad rap. If people don't realize that before they are in that business, whatever that business is, God's already got them a job description. And that's what I developed for people is the authorized wealth distributor job description. In the book, I go into what that is, an authorized wealth distributor. Why? First of all, you're a part of the family of God And all of God's wealth and resources, he's anxious to give that to his kids.

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Larry O'Nan: But he's not gonna give it to kids that are misusing it. And so whereas God owns it all and we recognize that, now we need to learn how to enjoy the process of giving. That's not just talking about money, although that's one of a 100 things you could give, but the joyfulness of being able to be a cheerful giver. Why that? Well, the word hilaros in Corinthians, Paul talks about God loves a cheerful giver. We all memorized that if you were around Sunday school years ago. Well, the word cheerful there is the word hilaros, which means in the Greek to cause to shine like the sun. Now how in the world does heleros have to do with giving? Because it's talking about the sun. Well, it's talking about the sun's got one purpose in this whole universe, and that's give off heat and give off light.

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Larry O'Nan: And just as it gives off heat and gives off light, God wants us to be giving what he gives to us to the into the hands of others. So, you know, it could be time, it's talent, it's treasure, it's all kinds of things. But you've gotta be sensitive to the what you have that somebody else needs. And it's God to people and people to people. That's the way he created us. And we get into this little story in the garden of Eden, you know, the apple as they call it story. But God really put Adam and Eve into the garden. It was as big as a small state here in the United States.

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Larry O'Nan: It was not a small place, but God said, I'm putting you to be in charge of my stuff. I didn't give it to you. I'm giving you the privilege of acting like you own it, but it's not yours. It's mine. And I just want you to acting like you own it, but it's not yours. It's mine. And I just want you to take care of it. In fact, Adam will go and name all the animals.

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Larry O'Nan: So you what God did was start to say, Adam, I'm putting you to work, and I've got a great job for you. And I love it so much in what you're doing that in the evening, I'm gonna come down and walk and find out how you're doing with your stewardship. Now we know Adam and Eve blew their stewardship, but it was because of the deception that came into the the story when, you know, Satan shows up in the form of the the serpent. And so you find from that point forward that man is at wits with enmity of God because he wants things and God wants him to learn to be generous and give things. So I think there's a whole process that goes into understanding the holistic picture of stewardship. And when God sees that you're ready to do what he wants you to do with his ability to be his authorized wealth distributor, you'll be amazed at what God wants to do through you. But God is not gonna waste his, bounty on people that are not willing to be generous. So people say, oh, I just need more from God.

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Larry O'Nan: No. You need to distribute what you've already got and see what else God wants to give you. God is not obligated to give you anything, but he, in his generosity, he wants you to have a lot.

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Stephen Licciardello: And and Larry, you're not talking about the prosperity gospel where we give to get.

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Larry O'Nan: Oh, no. And, well, if that's the problem with the prosperity, give to get. It's really give to get, to give, to get, to get, to get, to get, to get. It's giving so that we can receive so that we can receive more that we can give away. It's not giving to get. It's not me putting money in with an expectation that the God's gonna come back on me. In fact, God has very creative ways of supplying you, and it's not always gonna come back in the same form you thought it was gonna come in. The prosperity theology says, you give it to me and you're gonna get it back.

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Larry O'Nan: And it's all about me. It's all about how much I can get from God, or I want God to heal me, or I want this from God. I'm gonna do this for God. So it's very selfish thinking, and it's very self serving. And it's very manipulative in the marketplace because people are trying to figure out how they can survive in life, and so they start latching on to very, very distorted theology. It's deceptive theology because they use a lot of the language, but it's not a biblical story. And God's got a biblical story, and then he wants you to live according to his plan. And when you do, you know, I think people say, well, how do you know you're gonna thrive? You know, as if if you're depressed and you're down and you're defeated.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, probably a lot of that self imposed problems. But if you're gonna thrive, you gotta say, okay, God, I wanna do it your way, and you're sovereign, and you're the giver of all things, and I'm gonna learn to give like you give to me. And then I'm gonna learn to ask you, and I'm gonna learn to last ask others, and I'm gonna follow the principles of the harvest. You know, Jesus spent and Paul spent a lot of time in the agricultural culture, and they understood farming. They understood what a ripe harvest was. They understood what tenfold and a 100 fold meant because that's how they made their survival. And so, yes, there is the principles of the harvest, but it's not to manipulate so I can get more. It's operating as a good steward of what God's already given you.

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Larry O'Nan: And when God sees you're putting those things to play, then he says, now I've got an abundance of stuff I wanna run through you. And as long as you're distributing what you've already got to others, I'm gonna provide you more and more and more so that you can give more and more and more. And I didn't say money. Some of the things we do get out of God's resources is money. I had people that were very generous with their resources that I knew quite well. And I know one guy he's $48,000,000 away over a 7 year period. And he said, I don't tell anybody in my culture, in my company, in my community, how much I have because God is blessing, but I don't want to become identified as their their gravy train. But, in his own way, he was finding ways to be generous and many, many groups were blessed by he and his wife's careful evaluation of how that money should go.

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Larry O'Nan: But he said, not near everybody I know has got the capacity to even come close to do what I do, but that doesn't mean that I've got to fund them too. I've got to be wise in what I do. In fact, the more financial stewardship you have, often the more responsibility of making wise decisions on it is there. Because there is a I talked to 1 guy some years ago and he says, Larry, the more I make, the more I see that God is putting up responsibility on me to make sure that it's spent right. It's not giving it away and watching it go. It's watching the stewardship go to work. And so there's an evaluation of the steward. It's not about giving it and I'm gone and you've got it and I don't have it.

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Larry O'Nan: It's my stewardship is in your hands. I'm gonna be asking a lot of questions from you as an organization or a church about how you're spending the stewardship that I've invested. That makes people nervous.

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Stephen Licciardello: That is yeah. And that is so good because even, you know, recently I was talking to a friend of mine who's not a Christian, and we were talking about giving. And we were talking about not in a Christian point of view, we're just talking about how do you choose a charity if you wanna give, you know, a monthly donation or something like that. And we were talking about, well, maybe we should have identify our own checklist of what we're going to go through. In your book, do you have a criteria that you go through where people want to give or a checklist that people can have some internal checks on where to give?

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Larry O'Nan: Yes. The book, the book that I wrote is in 2 parts. One part of it is the theology of stewardship. First 9 chapters gets you on board with what God's got in store for you. The latter half of the book, the next 9 chapters deal with practical realities of how you be as good steward. So it's designed for the one who wants to get to the meat fast, understand that. I like to tell stories, so there are stories in there too. But the second half is practical work.

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Larry O'Nan: In other words, how to deal with deception in our Christian culture. How to be I know when you're being deceived and listening to deceivers. Another chapter deals with indifference and how that can creep in on you where you don't listen to what God wants you to do. Another chapter is how do you wisely determine where you put financial stewardship. And it's got about 10 or 12 criteria of how you evaluate where you put money. It's questions to ask your church leadership. It's questions to ask your church board or your pastor. Just because you have resources doesn't mean you're obligated to put it where you're hearing them cry out for money.

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Larry O'Nan: I want people to be very wise in their stewardship because the accountability is not to give it away and forget it. The accountability is to put it to work and God still holds you accountable to making that right decision. So, you know, people say, well, I got to help these 4 people on the streets. Well, maybe that's a good idea, but I wouldn't go help. I wouldn't put up I don't help people on the street. I put money into wise places that are helping people that live in the street, But I don't want to just soothe my conscious by giving them a $5 bill at the on ramp of the freeway. Yeah. Because that's not really helping meet their need.

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Larry O'Nan: But there are groups out there that says, we will help you do what God wants us to do for you, and they need the resources. But even then, you gotta look at accountability and criteria of integrity. So there is a whole chapter on just how you go about giving resources and making wise decisions Because a steward is not required by even God to give it to everybody that walks in front of them and they're just passing out stuff. In my phase of life, I'm not investing the time in my church that I put in for 40 years like I did for 40 years. I know there's younger people that can do that. So I told the pastor, I said, I'm biting my tongue sometimes and I don't volunteer anymore in doing that because I have a few things you still need from me, but there's other people that need to get the blessing. So even then I'm making a decision. Is that bad stewardship? No.

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Larry O'Nan: That's why stewardship. And so as long as you know that you are thriving and in sync with God's plan for your life and you've you're following his job description, In the book, you'll find a steward of the King of Kings job description. I've got it right here in my hand. I give people a covenant that they can sign as a you know, sometimes we have trouble remembering who we are. How do I remember? Well, there's a couple of ways. I've got a sticker. It says authorized wealth distributor. It's on my water bottle.

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Larry O'Nan: Well, when you drink out of your water bottle, I'm reminded periodically that today and this next hour, my job is to do what an authorized wealth distributor does. I just gotta remind myself over and over, and I'm the one that worked on the theme of it. So there's gotta be ways where you say, how do I trigger my response? Because to be intentional, you gotta be thinking about it a lot.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. Larry, that is so powerful. And I I think, you know, we could end it there, but I just have a few more questions I wanna ask.

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Larry O'Nan: Oh, that's Go ahead.

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Stephen Licciardello: What would be one simple habit that could transform someone's approach to stewardship? Like what would you suggest be the first habit someone can develop?

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Larry O'Nan: Get up every morning and say, okay, God, you're the one in charge. My job is to follow you. What do you want me to do today? And you may not have a spiritual amen. God's not going to come down on a lightning bolt. He may give you a passage. I'm 1 when it comes to my daily thinking, I work off of a passage or 2. I don't, I'm not a heavy, I don't go and read 3 or 4 chapters a day and see how fast I can read through the Bible. What today is God wanting you to know? And, you can get into different places in scripture.

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Larry O'Nan: I use a book on my desk here, Hope For Each Day. It was written years ago by Billy Graham. It just was a thought, it's a verse and a thought for the day. I don't use that all the time, but I, I, I thrive off of a bit I can chew on to survive through the day. If I take too much in, and I know there's a value in 15 or 20 minutes of discipline, but sometimes the act of the discipline becomes your negative experience. And I wish people would just start to relax, but take a bite, you know, a cow chews its cud. It eats the same food over and over again, but it doesn't take in a lot of food. It eats for a little bit and then it starts, that's the whole system of cow stomach is to bring it back up so they can chew it again.

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Larry O'Nan: And I think we've gotta become a little bit more on the cow side where we take what God gives us. Let's just take John 3 16. If you just took that one verse, this is a famous one, and start to just meditate all day long on what John 3 16 means to me and how I apply that in my life and how I can apply what I read in John 3 16 into life of my neighbor, my friend, my coworker, you would have a transformed day by just keeping going back to saying, how does John 3 16 apply to the next encounter I've got, the next visit I've got, the next you know, how does John 3 16 and the context of going to Costco work? Keep it simple. God did not give Adam and Eve a lot of scripture verses when he began this journey with them. But he said, I want you to trust me. This is your job. I'm going to come down and walk with you. And I think if we just learn how to take those simple steps, to me, we would be far, we would be growing and feeling ourselves growing to where we would want to get into the discipline of more meat.

[00:30:40]

Larry O'Nan: Now I'm, I'm not taking anything away from the value of being in scripture. I don't mean that. But I'm just saying sometimes we make it too difficult. And I want people to be able to just say, I'm gonna take one thing I know, you know, you know, I've, a lot of times I come back, faithful is He who has called you and He will also bring it to pass. It's a little verse in the middle in chapter 5 of 2nd Thessalonians. Okay. Faithful is He who has called me. That He, who called me? He did.

[00:31:08]

Larry O'Nan: Okay? And He's gonna bring it to pass. Who's gonna make it happen? I'm not. So I can trust the sovereignty of God today to make my day work out the way He wanted it to work. Faithful is He who has called me and He will also bring it to pass. And I just chew on that all day long. Pretty soon you're gonna just start to say, God is really doing something and He's using me and I've gotta be intentional. When I when I sense God telling me to walk across Costco and give her a hug, I better go do it. I believe that there's a lot of joy in the midst of chaos.

[00:31:42]

Larry O'Nan: And so many times churches are full of chaos. Certain times, the culture's full of chaos. That doesn't mean you have to live in the middle of chaos.

[00:31:51]

Stephen Licciardello: You

[00:31:51]

Larry O'Nan: know, there's election going on in the United States. I could get so tied up in that. I would go crazy. It looks quite chaotic. So I used to avoid I avoid most of the news because I discovered that if you're gone a week, the news hasn't changed. So I think it's being intentional on doing what God wants us to do and just take it in bite sized pieces. You do not have to eat everything on the buffet table just because you went to the buffet table.

[00:32:16]

Stephen Licciardello: This is awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Before we got onto this episode, you you were talking about your grandchildren and and your family, and and you are a widow, and and, you know, that's probably a part you've had to rewrite as well. But your grandchildren are now studying theology, and you mentioned before that your father was a preacher. So we're actually talking generations now serving God. Do you believe that is part of your stewardship?

[00:32:46]

Larry O'Nan: Absolutely. In fact, one of the things with my grandkids and, you know, I've got a 4th grader and I've got a 23 year old that's, got his eyes on a beautiful little beautiful pair. They're out of school together and they're thinking about when do they take the next move. So I've got 2 extremes. And, one of my challenges in a year is I wanna do something every year with every kid that's uniquely interesting to him. Now I can go to birthday parties. I can do everything else. Sometimes my 23 year old, it's just getting with him and having him help me with technology.

[00:33:20]

Larry O'Nan: And when he's over here and then I get him $20 out of Zelle just because he helped me, that makes him feel good. He paid for his gas. I'm gonna spend 2 hours with my 19 year old grandson that goes to college in Colorado, and I won't see him until Christmas. So it's 2 hours of listening to his story and what God's teaching him at college, And he'll probably end up being a doctorate in theology someplace. He's got that mindset. The other one's too much of a people person. He's gonna do something that is radical in some other way. Both of them are in theology, just different.

[00:33:54]

Larry O'Nan: I've got a grandson that's a senior in high school. Then I got a Down's granddaughter that's a 10th grader, but a Down's child has got limitations accord according to what we call limitations. And how do I do something with her that's uniquely fun for her to be with grandpa on? And I think grandparents have got a huge role to play and it's not preaching. A lot of times, it's being intentional on listening to where they're at. And, listening is where it all begins with them. If I do not know what's on the mindset of my 4th great grandson, I'm gonna miss a lot of joy in him. Now, you know, in another part of my life, I'm into kids books and I've been very involved in marketing a whole series of great books. So I know I was watching him the other day.

[00:34:44]

Larry O'Nan: I was with him last week for a few hours. And I said, you're the same age as a little boy in the books that I've been involved with. He was a 4th grade boy, so I've got a 4th grade boy living. And I thought to myself as I watched him do some stuff and come unglued a few times, yep. That's a 4th grader. He's acting just his age. That's what he is. He is not ready for theology in a master's program.

[00:35:10]

Larry O'Nan: So we got to look, and I think my responsibility started with my kids, but I wasn't a deeply religious I was a faith father, not a religious father. And I gave them a lot of freedom and my wife and I were very committed to seeing our kids. We've been very blessed because both of my son in laws are in the ministry. Their kids are following some of the same characteristics. Whether they're in ministry or not, my job is to help them see what a Christian looks like. And where I have a chance to teach them something, yeah. But, you know, 2 of the boys have, have read my recent book. The other 4 don't even know I've written a book and that's just fine.

[00:35:50]

Larry O'Nan: They'll get there. You know, what I mean? So it's a matter of me being showing up and being a part of their life. And I think anybody that's into the age category, you know, when you say you got 20 more years left, you're thinking, okay, that's getting on the short end of things, but you've got a lot to give to people around you. And it's not time to sit down and become hunkered down on television and contemplating your navel is one of my old friends said. That's just not what life is. And, I believe God's got this all working until the end. And I don't know when the end is, you know, and you talk about a rewrite. My wife died 10 years ago of a glioblastoma brain tumor.

[00:36:32]

Larry O'Nan: I'd never planned on that in my factory in my life. Yeah. And it all happened in 18 months. In fact, the day we're recording this is 11 years ago, the day of her surgery, where we knew that she had a glial blast on. Well, a year later, she was on the end of the journey with a terminal brain disease. You know, that's a that can shake you up. But, you know, when I walked away from that, while there's still an emotional grief that comes with it, I can't live back. I've gotta live forward.

[00:37:05]

Larry O'Nan: And so I can say to her, you know, you go ahead and enjoy eternity. I'll see you later. But in the meantime, God's left me here and he's taken you there. We'll just talk later. And it used to really bug me when people say, I'm so sorry about your loss. And I'd say, I didn't lose anything. I know where she's at. She just changed addresses on me.

[00:37:24]

Larry O'Nan: That's all she did. So I think even the spirit of how we go about approaching things as serious as death and losing loved ones and grieving, that should not slow us down from doing God's plan for our life.

[00:37:37]

Stephen Licciardello: What made you go from ministry into teaching people about stewardship?

[00:37:41]

Larry O'Nan: Well, I'm a preacher's kid, so I always had a little bit of Christianity dropped in on me, but, I was so disgusted by the time I got to college. I was pretty much out of that. So I thought I was gonna go into acting. I was gonna either be in Hollywood or I was gonna be in New York. And I was a junior at the University of Colorado when God just said, I think I got another plan for you. And, you talk about rewriting a book, that was pretty dramatic. Intended to ever acting was my thing. I could be somebody else.

[00:38:12]

Larry O'Nan: I could escape and be another personality. So I, that was the first time I had God knock on my shoulder, so to speak, and say, I've got something else in plan for you. And I actually moved from that vision for 5 years of going into the theater, to really I wanted to get into ministry as a result of what happened to me in college. And that took me into a thing I thought I was gonna be just working with college students for the rest of my life. But it was, amazing because, you know, God says along the way, you think you're doing this, but I've got something else in mind. And 2 years into that experience, I was put into some management roles and taking creating something from nothing. I was assigned a music group to take, I was working in the Northeastern United States on the Ivy League campus areas, and I was in charge of a music group for a whole month. And little did I know that was gonna change my life dramatically because I had to schedule 30 conference concerts in 30 days.

[00:39:17]

Larry O'Nan: And I started realizing, you know, this business about following God's plan is not laid out on the straight line. It's full of curves. And many times people try to say, I'm going to x y z city, and they draw a straight line to that city, but there's no straight line in this world. You've gotta take the curves all the time. And I I learned to take a curve and I ended up into management and influencing other things, not only creating more groups. I did that for 6 or 7 years, but I got into management and and and that that led me into fund development of all places. And I had absolutely no idea from day 1 what my job was other than can you help me with a problem. And that took me into a journey which ended up being the director of a very large international ministry fundraising department.

[00:40:09]

Larry O'Nan: But even then, I thought fundraising was I didn't like it. I didn't like begging for money. But I thought, well, people want to help, I guess we can ask them to help. But, you know, and I think so I have a combination of business, Ackerman, and I've got the experience from the theater, which was my wife. I got the experience of working with, in my case my case, it was college students. So it was it was a variety of things. So it's a hybrid between ministry and business. And then in my experience in a consultant for 30 years, I was working with very, very high end, people that wanted to give to nonprofit organizations.

[00:40:49]

Larry O'Nan: So I was dealing with the realities of how they fought and, the experiences that they went through and watched God rewrite their story over and over again. And everybody's, you know, they think as long as you think it's going x, it must be that way forever. No. God says that's just a short short term ride. I've got something else in mind. Hold on. We're gonna turn left. Yeah.

[00:41:13]

Sharlene Licciardello: It's really beautiful.

[00:41:15]

Stephen Licciardello: Thank you, Larry. We have gained so much from your wisdom today, and I know our audience would also do so as well and and done in such a spirit of love. So thank you so much, not only to our audience, but also to Sharlene and I because we have gained so much. And if you wanna know more about Larry and his, book, please, check out the show notes, and we'll have a link directly to his book. Larry, would you do us the honor in closing in prayer and praying for our audience that want to live intentionally and be great stewards.

[00:41:51]

Larry O'Nan: Yeah. I'd be glad to. Thank you. Lord, as we come to you, I know there's many thoughts going on in people's heads as they're tuning into this kind of a visit. Lord, I pray that you would give them the freedom to move ahead in life because you've got a lot in store for them. And I pray that you would give them the spirit of desiring to have your fullness work through them and that they would realize they truly are authorized wealth distributors of your great wealth and your resources. And then I prayed that they would learn to begin to apply very simple principles that would help them begin to thrive in life. Thank you, Lord, that you've got a great plan for every one of us.

[00:42:32]

Larry O'Nan: You really want us to be all that you intended for us to be. Probably what hurts your heart as much as anything is when we forget they're even around and we, become operating more by the whim of life's chaos. And you're not living in chaos. You're living in the fullness of who you are. Thank you, Lord, that you will give people that are looking for hope, hope and the capacity to thrive. In your name, I pray. Amen.

[00:43:03]

Stephen Licciardello: Amen. Thank you, Larry.

[00:43:05]

Larry O'Nan: Thank you. Well, it's very good to visit with you all. Blessings on you as you help people figure out how to rewrite their story.

[00:43:14]

Sharlene Licciardello: Thank you for joining us on the Rewrite Your Story podcast.

[00:43:16]

Stephen Licciardello: We hope you found this episode enlightening.

[00:43:19]

Sharlene Licciardello: For more information on the topics discussed, please visit our website at stephenandsharlene.com.

[00:43:24]

Stephen Licciardello: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. Share it with your friends and follow us on social media at stevenand Sharlene.

[00:43:30]

Sharlene Licciardello: Until next time, stay informed and inspired.

[00:43:33]

Stephen Licciardello: This is Steven and Sharlene signing off from the rewrite your story podcast. Thank you, and stay blessed.