Tithing Update

After posting my God Story about tithing yesterday, a friend asked me to share about our more recent experience, so here goes.  (Kelly, this one's for you!)

Earlier this year, my husband, Kevin found himself unemployed.  (How that came about is another God Story, but I'll stick to the tithing part of it today.)  Not only was he unemployed, but he was not able to draw unemployment and we were suddenly uninsured.  He had his part time job as a musician at the church and I had my part time babysitting job, but our income literally went from making in a week what he had been making in a day.

We had no way of knowing how long this season of really low income would last.  Several times over the next 7 months, we thought he was being hired and for reasons we may never understand, the opportunity would just slip right through our fingers.  We had faith that God was doing a mighty work in our lives, we just weren't sure what that might be.

Up until his job termination, we had been tithing online via an automatic payment plan and didn't have to give it much thought.  We have been married 27 years and tithing has become a healthy habit, much like brushing our teeth or praying. But since we didn't know what income we might have each week, we stopped the autopayments and set up our "Blessings Journal" instead.  Each week, as any money came into our hands, we'd write it down. 

On Saturday, we would add it all up and praise God from whom all blessings flow.  We called it counting our blessings.  Then, we'd calculate our tithe for the week and post it.  I remember the first week, our tithe was $12.  It seemed almost too small to fool with, but we wanted to be faithful, so with a big bite of humble pie, we gave.

This continued week after week.  One week there was no money in checking to pay the tithe, but we had been paid in cash, so we gave cash.  It was a scary feeling to not have any money in the checking account and I must admit, I did panic. I tried to sell everything that wasn't nailed down and applied for entry level positions all over town.

  But, God is good.  All the time.  Over what would be the next 7 months, we never went hungry, never were without electricity or even got behind on payments.

Yes, we did defer some loan payments.  Yes, we did sell some personal property.  Yes, we did any work we could find, including temp. work, housecleaning and babysitting.  No job was too small or too dirty.  Kev likes to say that God gives every little bird his food, but He doesn't throw it into the nest!  Whatever opportunities God brought our way, we took them and were very grateful. 

Once Kevin had a new job, he mentioned that it sure would be nice to know how much money would be coming in each month and to be able to go back to automatic tithe payments. When we talked about how much our tithe would be, it set me to thinking.  What had we averaged during our season of unemployment?

Are you sitting down?  This is hard to believe, but true.  For all those weeks of unemployment, our AVERAGE weekly tithe was MORE than our tithe had been when Kev was working full time?! (plus his part time church job and my part time babysitting job)  It's crazy, I know! 

All I can say, is to God be the glory!  Great things He has done and continues to do! 

God Stories: Tithing

Recently, our church asked us to send in our God Stories.  I have so many stories about how God has worked in my life and is continuing to work, that I think I could fill my own book!  You know, I just might do that!  I might write enough blogs that I can put them together for a book of my own one day. 

I'm one of those slightly OCD people that loves lists!  I like to make lists of chores that need to be done, of things that need to be bought, people I need to touch base with, things I've accomplished today, this week, whenever ..... the possibilities are endless.  I even like books of lists.  I have a collection of "Lists to Live By" books and can read them over and over.

So, my thinking today is, why not bring together some of my favorite things on my blog?  I can make a list of God stories, share the stories and try to bring God Glory in some small way, all at the same time.  Also, I love to talk, so I get to talk all I want all at the same time!

Hope you enjoy!  Comments are welcome, either way.

Once upon a time, Kev and I were very young, newly weds.  He was 21 and I was 20.  We thought we were so grown up at the time, but really, we were just babes!  We attended a church and gave a little bit of money every week, but hadn't really experienced tithing on a regular basis.

One Sunday, this "rich" guy who was one of the leaders in our church, stood up and shared about tithing.  He said tithing was the only thing in the Bible that God said we could test Him on.  He went on to share that it was a spiritual exercise, a form of worship and we would see how God takes care of us and that there is no way you can outgive God.  This all sounded well and good to me, but a little voice in my head was saying,"sure that's pretty easy for you rich folks, but some of us are doing good to keep the lights on", you know?

Well, the guy took his talk one step further and actually challenged us to give our tithe for one year.  If at the end of the year, we were not better off financially and spiritually, he would personally give us our money back?!  Can you believe that?  I saw dollar signs in my head and started thinking about how nice it would be to give our tithe all year (and thus feel so good about our giving) and then get it all back this time next year!  Win/Win, right? Wow!  I could buy a used car with that money or pay off some debt or take a vacation ... my "list" went on and on!

So, long story short, we began tithing that week and somehow God made our money stretch further than it ever had and we were never without anyhing we needed and most of what we wanted.

 It was supernatural and can only be explained by God keeps His promises.

 He simply outgives us every time. 

So, we didn't need to hit the guy up for a refund after all.  Blew my mind! 

We have tried to tithe consistently ever since and would highly recommend this act of worship to anyone who has never tried it.