Money Is Not a Dirty Word: Profit as Stewardship

Money makes a lot of good women nervous.

We will talk about calling all day. We will talk about serving clients, loving our families, and honoring God with our work. But the moment the conversation turns to profit, something tightens. We lower our voices. We change the subject. We joke about it so we never have to say it plainly.

Here is the paradox. Many of us want to build a business that glorifies God, and we are quietly embarrassed by the one thing that keeps that business alive. We pray for provision and then feel guilty when it arrives.

Let’s untangle that.

The Baker Who Was Afraid to Look

Imagine a woman who runs a small custom cake business from her home kitchen. Call her a hypothetical baker, because she is one. She is gifted. Her cakes make brides cry in the good way. She works Tuesday through Saturday, often late into the night, and she has never once sat down to figure out whether the business makes money.

She knows roughly what comes in. She has no idea what goes out. Ingredients, boxes, the second oven she financed, the car miles to deliveries, the software subscription, the booth fee at the spring market. She pays those as they come and hopes there is something left.

When a friend asks how business is going, she says, “Busy!” Busy is her answer because she does not have another one.

Here is the part that matters. She is not avoiding her numbers because she is lazy. She is avoiding them because somewhere she absorbed the idea that caring about profit is unspiritual. She would rather not know than risk becoming someone who cares too much about money.

So she stays tired. Stays anxious. Stays one slow month from panic. And she calls that faithfulness.

It is not. It is fear wearing a modest dress.

What God Actually Says About Provision

Moses, speaking to Israel just before they entered the land, warned them about a specific danger: that they would get comfortable and forget where their ability came from. Then he said this: “Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Read it slowly. The ability to produce wealth is a gift from God. Not a temptation to be avoided. Not a necessary evil. A gift.

The warning in the passage is not against producing wealth. It is against forgetting the Giver. That is a very different concern. The baker’s skill with sugar and structure, the ideas that wake her up at night, the way a client’s face changes when she sees the finished cake: those are entrusted to her. And anything entrusted is something to steward.

Paul writes that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The love of it. Not the earning of it, and not the knowing of it. You can know your numbers cold and love God with your whole heart. In fact, that is the goal.

Profit, then, is not a trophy and not a shame. It is a resource placed in your hands so you can care for your family, serve your clients well, give generously, and build something that outlasts this season. Revenue is one of the four pillars I teach, anchored in Matthew 25:14-30, because a steward is expected to know what she has and put it to work.

Four Marks of a Steward Who Knows Her Numbers

1. She separates revenue from profit, and she can say both out loud.

Revenue is what comes in. Profit is what is left after the business pays for itself. Most women know the first number and have never calculated the second.

Here is a worked example using our baker. Say she sells 12 custom cakes a month at an average of $325. Revenue is $3,900. Now the costs: ingredients and supplies, $780. Boxes, boards, and packaging, $120. Software, website, and payment fees, $160. Delivery miles and gas, $90. Oven loan payment, $150. Market booth and marketing, $100. Total monthly cost to operate, $1,400.

Profit before she pays herself: $2,500.

Now the honest part. She works about 160 hours a month on cakes, consultations, shopping, and cleanup. $2,500 divided by 160 hours is $15.63 an hour. That is the real number she has been avoiding. Not because it is shameful. Because once she sees it, she has to decide what to do with it.

2. She pays herself on purpose, not from leftovers.

A steward treats her own wage as a real cost of the business, the way she treats flour. Our baker decides she needs $2,000 a month for her household. That means the business must produce at least $3,400 in monthly costs plus owner pay before it is healthy, and anything above that is true profit to reinvest, save, or give. Now she knows her floor. Now “busy” has a number attached to it.

3. She builds margin on purpose, because margin is how God protects her rest.

Psalm 127:2 is the faith anchor of everything I teach. God grants sleep to those He loves. A business with zero margin cannot rest. Every slow week is an emergency. Every unexpected expense is a crisis. That panic leaks into your marriage and your sleep and your parenting.

A simple target: set aside 10 percent of revenue every month before you spend anything else. For the baker, that is $390 a month into a separate account. In six months she has a cushion that lets her take a Friday off without checking her phone. Margin is not greed. Margin is how a steward sleeps.

4. She gives from a plan, not from guilt.

Generosity requires something to be generous with. When profit is a known number, giving becomes a line item instead of a surprise. The baker decides on a percentage of profit and gives it first, every month. She stops feeling guilty when money comes in because she already knows where part of it is going.

Profit held loosely and stewarded well is not the enemy of your calling. It is what funds it.

I spent 18 years in business, 13 as an operator and 5 running my own agency. At my worst I was working about 70 hours a week, chasing success, titles, and approval, with a strained marriage and kids who had my body but not my mind. I know what the unhealthy chase looks like. But the answer to an unhealthy chase was never to treat money like it was dirty. The answer was to lay down the chase and put money back in its proper place, as a tool in the hands of a steward.

But What If…

But what if looking at the numbers shows me the business is failing? Then you will finally know, and knowing is the beginning of wisdom. A steward who discovers a problem can fix it. A steward who refuses to look cannot. Most women who do this exercise do not find failure. They find a business that is undercharging or overspending in one or two fixable places.

But what if caring about profit changes me? It might. It might make you calmer, more generous, and more present at dinner. The love of money is a real danger, and the guard against it is not ignorance. It is gratitude, giving, and remembering where the ability came from. Build those three into your monthly rhythm and you will be safe.

But what if my business is too small for this to matter? Then it will take you 20 minutes instead of two hours. Jesus praised the servant who was faithful with little. Small numbers are still numbers, and a woman who stewards $900 a month well is being prepared for more.

Do This Week

Set aside one hour on your CEO day. If you follow the 4-Day Week, that is Monday.

1. Write your revenue (10 minutes). Total what came in over the last 30 days.
2. List every cost (20 minutes). Go through your bank and card statements. Write every business expense, including the ones you forgot were on autopay.
3. Subtract and divide (5 minutes). Revenue minus costs is profit before owner pay. Divide by your honest monthly hours to see your real hourly wage.
4. Set two numbers (15 minutes). What you need to pay yourself monthly, and what percentage you will set aside for margin. Write both down.
5. Pray over the page (10 minutes). Ask God to show you where you have been holding money too tightly, or pushing it away out of fear.

A Tool in Faithful Hands

You do not have to choose between loving God and building a profitable business. You never did. The woman who looks her profit in the eye is not less spiritual than the woman who refuses to. She is simply a better steward of what she was handed.

Money is a tool. In the hands of a woman who knows where it comes from, who gives first and rests on Fridays and pays herself like the worker she is, it can be a beautiful one.

Stop working IN your business. Start working ON it. And let that work include looking at your profit without shame.