I am sure you would agree that if you talk with ten people regarding any subject, you’re liable to get ten differing opinions from those people.

Opinions are everywhere and I believe they are the #1 reason most people live their entire lives thinking a lot of things are true when they are actually false.

Most of these things are trivial and are not going to change the trajectory of someone’s life, but there are some things that we hold onto as truth that can influence how we live our life.

Being able to discern what is truth and what is opinion is critical in this world of 24/7 news cycles, social media, podcasts and Google.

The threat of being misguided by opinions masked as truth is real and none of us are immune to it.  Bad information can be passed along to us much like a virus infecting anyone who is not filtering what they are learning.

Here is the thing, if you could narrow down the most confusing and divisive topics you can think of, it would suggest that any confusion and divisiveness you have is rooted in opinions.

Of course, being in the business of working with money, I know first hand that there is no shortage of opinions and misconceptions of the truth when it comes to managing money.  Financial opinions are tossed around as facts all the time with little consideration for the truth.

It is quite fascinating from my vantage point because I have counseled thousands of people over the years and I can tell you that there is a lot of bad information that people carry as the truth.

But I am just as susceptible to falling victim to other people’s opinions in other areas of my life as easily as someone could be with money.

I became a Christian in November of 1998, I was operating my financial business and raising kids while learning as much as I could about my new faith as a Christian.

What I learned fairly quickly is that Christians have some pretty strong opinions about a lot of things and money is definitely on that list.

I know this because as people would find out that I was in finance they would approach me and freely share their views and opinions about what they thought a Christian should think about and do with money.

This was an interesting period in my life and was a bit tricky to navigate because with all of the opinions coming at me confusion set in.

I had two worlds colliding and they seemed to contradict each other at the time.  Not necessarily because of what the bible taught about money (I still hadn’t figured that out yet) but because of the opinions of those around me influencing my way of thinking at the time.

It was all confusing and I found myself questioning whether having wealth and being a believer of the bible were in direct conflict.

I later came to realize that money, wealth and the bible are not in conflict at all.  In fact, when you shut out all of the opinion and just study the bible, you may very well find the opposite to be true, as I did.

What I have learned over time was that the bible references money in different ways and in different terms over a thousand times throughout more than 2,500 verses.

And as I began learning more about what these verses said, I realized that there are a lot of conversations centered on money, mindset and priorities that are often taken out of context.

And here is the thing…When you consider that God himself chose Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Job, Joseph, David, Solomon…all arguably the wealthiest people in the world at the time…to carry out his plans, we realize that He didn’t have an issue with their wealth and leaned on their influence and resources to carry his plans forward.

This was one of the truths that I learned along the way that lead me to realize that having wealth was not the issue, rather it is the attitude about it.

Christian or not, when something becomes all-consuming in your life and has you narrowly in pursuit of it, you are going to have a problem within your relationships.

Setting priorities and having proper balance are required. This applies to all things, not just money and wealth.  Wealth is an easy target but this can be said about anything that takes priority in your life.

If you have a significant other and you spend all your time with friends or focus solely on your kids, career or sports then there is going to be a problem in that relationship. And if you understand the Christian faith at all, you know that it is all about a relationship with God.

Now, if you not familiar with the bible, I ask that you hang in there.  This is an often asked about topic that needs some airing out and I think there is a lot to take away from today’s conversation regardless of your background.

So, there are some personal truths that are the foundation for why I believe what I believe and I thought it would be helpful to share them with you as we dig into this topic.

First of all, if you don’t know, the bible is a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors, written in three different languages, on three different continents over 1,600 years.

That is amazing to me considering the bible was assembled back in the 4th century in 325 AD.

Another point I think helps keep all of as believers in check is one simple fact, and that is that Jesus is the only person that has walked the earth, died and then came back to life.

As crazy as this is to wrap our minds around, that in and of itself is enough of a reason for me to pay attention to whatever he has to say.

So with that, today’s podcast is going to be a little different.  I had the opportunity to sit down with my pastor Kenny Qualls recently and have a real life conversation about wealth and the bible.

If you have never heard Kenny speak, one thing I really appreciate about him is that he is grounded in the bible.

He really doesn’t pull punches and it’s why I thought of him when I was putting this together and am really looking forward to sharing the conversation with you.

Kenny is from a rural part of southern Missouri where he began his ministry 30 years ago as senior pastor of Springhill Baptist Church in Springfield, Missouri.

He has served as President and Associate Executive Director for the Missouri Baptist Convention, Executive Committee member for The Southern Baptist Convention, President of the National Large Church Roundtable and Ambassador to Missouri for The North American Mission Board.

He is heavily involved in global missions, is a mentor to young pastors and is a well-respected leader within our community here in St Louis.

For the last 15 years, he has served as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Arnold where my family has attended for the last 20+ years.

Here is the interview.

Brian: Hey, Kenny how are you doing?

Kenny: I’m doing great, Brian, so great to be with you today.

Brian: I really, really appreciate you joining us. And I’d just like to be the first to welcome you to the Common Sense Financial Podcast.

Kenny: Well, thank you. It’s great to be with you and all your listeners. I’m really looking forward to our time together today.

Brian: It’s going to be awesome. You know, we’ve known each other for a pretty long time and never collaborated like this with anything. So it’s kind of surprising. But I’m glad we’re finally doing it.

Kenny: Yes. Same on my end when I thought about us never collaborating before, I thought, “Wow!” so this is going to be a good time. I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Brian: Yeah. Looking forward to it. Before we jump in, if you don’t mind, maybe just share your story and tell us a little bit about how you became a pastor.

Kenny: Yeah, sure. You know, we’ve all got a story. I was born and raised in the Ozarks and really had kind of an interesting path as a pastor. I was not raised in church, never owned a Bible. I remember distinctly as a kid, always believing that there was a god. It’s kind of funny, but when I saw lightning bugs, I thought, “Oh come on, there’s got to be a God.” By that time I was a freshman in college I started having this emptiness in my life about, you know, what’s all this about… where really is life heading? Where is it going? And that’s when I heard the good news of Jesus and what He did on the cross and His death and resurrection. And as a freshman in college, I became a follower of Christ. You know, it really, really changed my life. I was a zookeeper for ten years and my educational background was in zoology and wildlife conservation. And then around the age of twenty-eight, I really had a sense of God calling me into the ministry. And it can sound a little funny sometimes, but I describe it like this really intense tug on my heart. It was inescapable. I just knew this is what God wanted me to do. So, yeah, once I placed my faith in Christ and I’ve just been trying to grow as a believer ever since then. I went back to school, did some seminary, was in a school of theology in some different places, and now thirty years in the ministry, time flies. But I’m very grateful to be serving the role of a pastor.

Brian: You know, we’re thankful that you are doing that because you’ve been a blessing to our family. And your background shows us that God uses all of us in different ways. And it’s all about his timing. And our background really doesn’t matter, does it?

Kenny: Yeah. You know, I was sharing with people that even some of the things we may be going through today, it’s amazing how a lot of times in hindsight, you’ll see those mattered. It was preparing even the independent research I was doing as a zookeeper and some of the animals we had in genetics and all those sort of things, it really taught me kind of the art of independent study. And now as a pastor, I do that all the time. So it’s neat how you can look back. I gave zoo tours then and now I speak publicly. So my first public speaking was giving tours of the zoo.

Brian: That’s awesome…He was preparing you one way or the other, right?

Kenny: Yeah, absolutely.

Brian: Well, you know, when it comes to money and again, just appreciate your insight on all this stuff, because I know from my standpoint and maybe even from your standpoint, there’s so much confusion and misinformation about money in general. But when you add the Bible into it, it really just complicates things from how people perceive things. And so what I have found is that, you know, the relationship with money itself is is more of a scarcity mindset. When people don’t have it, they’re trying to figure out how to get it. And that could be out of survival or greed or whatever. But they’re trying to figure out how to get it. And when they have it, they’re worried about losing it. And so it’s just this weird relationship. There’s no contentment or joy, really. And just having money, there may be some comforts, but you’re always worried one way or the other. Right. So I’d really be interested to know what your take is on what the Bible actually says and how God actually views money. Could you elaborate on that?

Kenny: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to do that. You know, it really comes down to even a foundational core worldview. I believe there is a God and if I believe that God is for me, loves me, wants to speak into my life, has a plan for me, and then see if I believe which I do, that the Bible reveals God’s plan. For me, it was obvious that something as important as this, I mean, the way God created a world and created us is how we support our families, finance all that we do wrap around money. So I would want to know his plan. And, you know, what does he have to say about his plan?  And it really is, you’re right there. It’s probably the number one topic. Ii it’s not number one, it’s way up there that there is a lot of confusion about if we just think of the time we spend. Making money, spending money, worrying about money. Sadly, even some marriage is fighting about money. To think that God would not want to speak into that just isn’t even logical and doesn’t make sense. And I love to share some of the facts about the Bible, because this kind of opens up eyes for people. The word ‘believe’ is in the Bible 285 times.  ‘Prayer’ is in the Bible 387 times, and ‘love’ is in the Bible 799 times. Heaven would think, of course, the Bible talks about faith and prayer and love. The words ‘give’ or ‘gift’ are in the Bible 2,299 times. . The words ‘gift’ and ‘giving’ are in the Bible more almost twice as much as faith, love and prayer combined. That in of itself lets us know that God’s obviously got something to say about this and then you go down to Jesus himself. If I had a book called  “The Direct Teachings of Jesus,” and it was 100-page book and I was going to give it to you or someone else, and I said, “Wait a minute, I’ll give it to you. But let me tear out 15 pages.” You’re probably wondering why, if this is the direct teachings of Jesus what was on those 15 pages? I’m not getting 15 percent of the direct teachings of Jesus where he dealt with money and possessions. 16 of his 38 parables deal with money and possessions. So God has something to say about this very important subject in our life. And again, He’s for us. He loves us. He has a plan for us. And it really is important to God and therefore it’s got to be important to us.

Brian: Yeah, and I think a lot of times, at least, speaking from my experiences and my perception of things and how I’ve viewed things and interact with people out of that 15 percent that you’re talking about there. I think a lot of Christians have the mindset that a lot of it is negative and is looking down on money. And so they kind of have this paradigm that wealth…having wealth is evil, because if you have a lot of wealth, you’re not practicing true faith right now. So we’re supposed to rely on God every day with everything. And while that is foundationally true. Right. I think that there’s some misinterpretation there on how that really should be viewed. What’s your take on that?

Kenny: Yeah, it’s interesting that how people have that view, that money is evil, that wealth is evil. Of course, I’m sure you have shared this. You look at some of the people in the Bible that God used in a great way. Some of them, yes were the poor widow who only had two coins and gave it all. But some of them were Solomon and Abraham, people of wealth. So to have that view. Very lovingly, that’s not truly biblical. That’s not what the Bible teaches at all. Basically, God’s plan for our finances is really pretty straightforward. It comes with the title. It starts or I would say with knowing him, you know, the thing that God revealed himself to us and he wants us to know him and worship him and glorify him through a relationship with Christ. It’s that God owns everything. The bible tells us that the Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. And so if God owns everything that really takes a lot of stress off of us as people of saying  now we can follow his plan. We manage what is God’s we use what is his according to his plan. Then we believe that plan is in the Bible and God’s plan is simply that were to work hard and do our best were to give to him first. And an act of worship to support his work we’re to bless other people in order to provide for our family, not only now, but for the future. And even in providing that the Bible says and for Timothy 5:8, that if we don’t provide for our own family, we’ve denied the faith, which is very, very strong. And I mean, there’s so much there. The Bible talks about having a budget, the Bible talks about investing, the Bible talks about saving, and the Bible talks about a financial plan. All those things are totally biblical. So they come from not this is a bad thing you shouldn’t do. This is something that it’s OK to have wealth, but wealth should not have you. Wealth should not be the title of the priority of your life. But using it according to God’s plan to bless other people, to provide for our families is a good thing.

Brian: So the idea of being more spiritual by being in poverty is not congruent with the Bible. Having a wealth is really OK. 

Kenny: One of the dangers of the one and temptations of having wealth is a person can see themselves as being self-sufficient, being greedy and being proud. The exact same temptations can come in poverty. Some people use their poverty as a sign of spirituality or their poverty as a sign of being closer to God and can actually use that as a sense of pride. Some people can look at money and be very greedy and wanting to hang on to what they’ve got. Someone in poverty can have just as much greed and always thinking about trying to get what they don’t have. So that argument that you’re more spiritual if you don’t have it, it’s really about a person’s heart, not how much money is in the bank. And either poverty or riches can both lead to pride in that or it can be used in a God honoring way. 

Brian: That’s a great point. Appreciate that perspective. One of the other things, too, that I’ve learned is that a lot of times the focus when we’re applying the Bible to money and financial topics, it’s often related to being in debt. Right. Like how being in debt is not good or the need for budgets. It goes back to that scarcity mindset. Right, trying to work out the cash flow to make sure that it’s pinching pennies at the end of the month. But really, the truth of the matter is that there’s a lot more to it than that. Right? There is some guidance there for people that actually have resources and don’t have an issue with wealth. Maybe it could lead us off into materialism and things of that nature. But the idea of having to just deal with debt just to get it paid off or budgets just trying to get by, there’s more to it than that. Right. So what’s some of the foundational truths that you think we should know and take away from what the Bible has to say? 

Kenny: Well, you’re exactly right, because that’s almost saying like something as important as a topic as money and possessions and stuff that God only wants to speak into half of that to have the view of scarcity. It’s only budgeting debts and then that’s it. Probably the number one verse is first Timothy six ten, which says the love of money is the root of all evils. And that’s where a lot of that feeds that money is evil or feeds the fact of scarcity is somehow more spiritual. You know, that Bible does not say money is evil. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. A couple of key words, that word root. And we understand what a root is from the standpoint of it’s under the ground, it’s unseen. It can be if you’re pulling a weed, it can make the thing that’s hard to get rid of. And that’s how the Bible’s warning us that not money, but if you love it becomes what your identity. If my identity as a person is wrapped up in this and the word love there is the word for friend that’s insinuating that you literally can make money your friend more than God is your friend. And why the Bible, I think, speaks so highly of that. And this goes back to why people have sometimes such a negative view is because really the very core evil is pride coveting. You go all the way back. What I believe in the Bible of Adam and Eve wanting what you can’t have and the ultimate evil is wrapped up in that. So there’s a story in the Bible of a rich young ruler, which I think probably addresses. I mean, this guy was living in Matthew, Chapter nine. He was living the American dream. He was young, powerful, had possession, successful religious and the Bible says extremely rich. And Jesus looked into his heart and told him to give away everything you have and give it to the poor, and some people take that out of context, Brian, and they’ll say, well, see, that shows right there that you should give everything away you have. And somehow if you wear burlap and eat birdseed, you’re more spiritual than someone else. But Jesus knew his heart. He knew that his idol was his wealth. He was trusting in his wealth. And it could have been anything. It could have been family, could have been hobby, could be whatever. But in his unique situation, it was his wealth. And he walked away rejecting Jesus because he was unwilling to get rid of as well. So I think the foundational things about wealth is that money is not evil. It’s OK to have wealth, but wealth should not have us. That’s the key. It shouldn’t be our idol. We should work hard, do our best, give to God and worship for his work. Bless other people. And we should provide for our families but the key is that we should be content if we don’t have. We should work hard, plan for the future. And if God chooses to bless us with wealth, great. If he doesn’t, then we should be content in that. So it’s OK to have wealth, but it’s not OK to use wealth only for ourselves. And I would say from my perspective, too, as a pastor, the most important thing to know is what true wealth really is. And the Bible explains true wealth in the book of Ephesians as the riches of Christ, spiritual wealth, of having joy and peace and purpose in your life is the greatest rich of all. And so the Bible even says in Proverbs 11, for that riches are worthless on a day of rest. And so there it’s all about the heart. It’s all about the perspective. It’s not about the issue of wealth. It’s about the heart and how how we would use that. 

Brian: So one of the scriptures that always comes to my mind and you and I have talked about this before, is Matthew 25. And you even helped me understand that this really has more to do with the future and what’s coming, not just in the present, but I’ve always looked at it as a great breakdown of how we should be looking at finances, you know, with the preparation, the management and the giving. Maybe share a little bit about that for us, if you don’t mind. 

Kenny: Yeah, absolutely. You know that, Matthew 25 Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross. He gives this great lesson. He speaks in parables. And of course, all a parable is an everyday common earthly story that teaches us spiritual truth. And I do believe the main teaching in that verse is about the future and God’s future for us in the end times and those things. But as all throughout scripture, the truth it teaches speaks to truth in everyday life, not taking at all out of context. Those three parables. The first one really talks about these young bridesmaids who were not ready for the bride and groom to come and they didn’t have oil in their laps. And the whole teaching there is about preparedness and being ready. And you can put that in all areas of life, family, including finances, that we should recognize what our priorities are. And we should make preparations in advance for those priorities. The second parable is about the unprofitable servant. And it’s a great again, I believe it’s talking about preparedness. The first parables about preparedness is once more about faithfulness, but it’s a picture of the master. He owns everything and he gives what is his to these servants. He gives one talent is about 20 years worth of wages. He gives five talents to one individual, three to another and one to the other. The one with the five talents. The three talents are faithful. There’s even risk involved. But they take what God is entrusted to them and try to do their best with it for him, not for themselves ultimately, but for him and his benefit. It’s the Masters, the one hid it in the ground, hid his talent and didn’t anything with it. And Jesus really condemned him and called it evil and said you should have at least put it in a bank for me so that there is, I think, some great lessons there about investing that. Again, the master entrusted to us. What he expects us to use what he’s given to us in the wisest way possible. The ultimate goal in that shouldn’t be greed. It should be how can I bless others? How can I provide for my family? How can I provide for the future, etc.? It’s just there’s an urgency. They immediately didn’t wait. They immediately took what God gave them the way it’s worded there and put it to work. They just didn’t sit on it, hide it and do nothing with it. And whatever we do, we should be faithful for the kingdom. And that includes our finances. It’s just about being prepared and being faithful. And then the last parable is Jesus said, as you’ve done into the least of these, you’ve done him to me. And he talks about meeting the needs of the sick, meeting the needs of the hungry, the hurting, etc.. Again, the main teaching is that he’s saying, if you know God, these things don’t make you right with God, but if you’re right with God, you have these traits in your life of caring for other people, wanting to be generous. And it’s just a great, great lesson about generosity, about how God’s people give, how we want to give. We know Jesus said in twenty, thirty five it is more blessed to give and to receive. Hey, I love receiving. If you want to give me something, I’ll take it when there’s greater joy and blessing in giving. And so yeah, that’s just one example of one chapter. Be ready. Be faithful with. What you have and be generous, you just can’t escape from cover to cover the Bible, how God loves us speaks into all areas of life, including the area of possessions and finances in general. 

Brian: One of the things that I teach is that, unless you’re given a silver spoon when you’re young, when you’re in your 20’s and early 30’s, you’re trying to survive. Right. And then you’re raising kids and then you hit your 40’s and you’re more stabilized. And then you kind of move into your 50’s and 60’s and hopefully you’ve done well for yourself and have accumulated some wealth for yourself. But then it goes beyond just, you know, trying to take care of yourself. It’s taking care of those around you. I challenge should be trying to do that at all times, all the time. But when you’re moving from survival to more independence financially and it goes into that generational aspect and that legacy planning. So, you know, there’s a huge, I think responsibility that comes out of Matthew. Twenty five that I’ve always taken to heart that we do have a responsibility to carry forward our wisdom. Right. Carry forward our wealth. And so given to the church, given to the communities, given to the poor and instill foundational truths into our kids and then creating and perpetuating wealth for the future. And any type of thumbprint we can leave on the future, I think is what we’re supposed to do. So I don’t know about you, but and I think about this a lot of times, you know, who is a good example? I don’t like trying to reinvent the wheel. If there’s an example out there that I can take from somebody else, maybe I don’t want to do everything exactly how they’ve done it. Right. But maybe there’s some lessons to be learned, you know, either from the Bible or in real life, people you’ve known or people that we see from afar. Is there anybody you can think of or any examples you have who have done things right and maybe something that we should look at as a respectful thing, not looking down on their wealth or having too much. 

Kenny: Yeah. You know, Jesus taught us in Matthew 16, if you want to gain your life, you lose it. And the people who have wealth in it even says, if you could, the wealthiest person would be if you own the whole world. the Bible says, what prophet would again you if you had all the if you own the entire world, everything in the world, but you forfeit your soul. So the spiritual side of it, of giving your life away and true joy. I mean, I have some dear friends of mine. One owns the second largest window washing company in the world. And I have another friend of mine who just went home to heaven here recently. He was in the chemical business. And God had you know, the Bible doesn’t promise us as believers today, health, wealth or success. He promises us spiritual blessings and we lay our treasures up in heaven. But it’s also true that God doesn’t trust some people with health, wealth and success. And those two individuals in my own personal life, Brian, I have seen it never making a big splash. Look at me. I have seen how they use their wealth to change lives, to change communities, to bless people, to build schools in areas where there is no education in all their heart. Behind it all was ultimately for God’s glory to point people to Jesus. You can go back in history. I love the story of Henry Kraul. Who Quaker Oats, who hasn’t had a bowl of votes. You know, now as a child, he had tuberculosis and the preaching of the great deal Moody. He came to know crisis, his savior, and he basically lived his life giving 60 to 70 percent of what he owed, a way to help further God’s work, to help blessed communities, to help others. There’s modern day examples. Probably two of the most well known, I would say today is Chick fil A and the Cathy family. As Cathy, he wrote a book called The Generosity Factor. Discover the joy of giving away your time, your talents and your treasure. I mean, he put down on paper the importance of how you can have wealth, that you can really use it to make a difference in other people’s lives. Now, there’s joy in that Hobby Lobby. David Greene, he wrote another book called Giving It All Away. And again, these are people that. Wealth is not evil. They had wealth in their life, they follow God’s plan in their life of worshipping God through it, blessing others, providing for their family, caring for their communities. And I’m like you examples like that really just bless bless me to you. 

Brian: I kind of look at it like, you know, it’s not that God can’t do all things but if there wasn’t any wealth, not much would get done at the end of the day because of the fact that taking care of the poor, building schools, to your point, just doing different things requires resources.  It’s good to see that there are examples of solid Christian people that are willing to take their wealth and give it away, like you said. And so we’re not meant to be greedy and hoard it for ourselves, because at the end of the day, what point does that really have if we have stacks of hundred dollar bills all around us? At what point is it just hoarding? 

Kenny: You know, if there wasn’t people of wealth and there wasn’t wealth, then God wouldn’t speak into it. God gives direct instructions to the wealthy. I think probably the number one versus first, Timothy, six, 17 and 18 that says command those who are rich in this present world to not be arrogant nor put hope and wealth, which is so uncertain who put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. So just in that one verse, it tells those who have wealth is first of all, don’t be arrogant. Work hard. No, you’ve worked hard, do your best. But realize in Deuteronomy 18 it says, Remember the Lord, your God. He gives you the ability to produce wealth. If we didn’t have gravity and oxygen and sunshine and all that sort of thing, no one would produce. Well, you don’t put your hope in wealth. You know, there’s got to be hope beyond that in the Lord, be rich in good deeds and be generous and willing to share. So that one verse again, if there was if there was not people that had wealth. And in Timothy, he’s speaking into the church, these are people who say, yeah, Jesus is my savior. I’m following the Lord. He gave very specific instructions for that to the wealth, just as he gives instructions to those who are poor the same way. 

Brian: I think there’s a lot to take away from the conversation for sure. I know this can be kind of a touchy subject for some. It can be tricky to try to navigate. But that’s what I love about you, is that you don’t pull punches. You’re just talking about what the Bible says. At the end of the day. It’s not necessarily about our opinion. It’s about what God has to say. And I really appreciate that about you. And I appreciate you taking time to provide some great insight into all of this. I mean, this really could be an entire series But I think we did hit the key points of everything and hopefully the listeners take some good points away from that. So with time and I know you’re busy and we don’t want to keep people too long. I just want to say thank you again. Really appreciate you and what you do for the church, what you’ve done. Just taking time with the podcast. I just really appreciate you and your family. So thank you. 

Kenny: You know, I appreciate it. And again, to all your listeners, thank you. It’s been fun through this means of communication to hang out with each other for a while. You know, to me, when it comes to wealth and riches and possessions, is that ultimately it’s about a generous God to us and being generous people like God. And ultimately, generosity is love because it says for God so loved the world. He gave his only begotten son.  And yeah, I’m a lifelong learner like everyone else. I’ve enjoyed this. It’s been good for me to review and look at this.  I appreciate you and your family a lot, Brian, and what you’re doing for your customers and your heart behind how you care for those people you work with. And so just it’s been fun to hang out together. 

Brian: All right, cool. Thanks again, Kenny. 

Kenny: Thank you.