Monday, August 11, 2008
When I Tithe...
| By Lynn Forgy I used to think that I was an anomoly - but since beginning my journey to debt freedom, I have met others with similar experiences. I'm referring to what happens when I tithe. It seems like the more I give, the more I get. I know that "it's more blessed to give than to receive", and that what I get doesn't necessarily always mean money. But it is amazing to me that when I tithe, my budget always works out, I haven't missed a payment, and I can usually put extra towards my debt snowball. When I first began getting serious about not having any debt, I was taking a Crown Financial class. One of the classes had us making a budget for homework. I kept that piece of paper, too, by the way. When I look at it now, I think "How in the world did I even manage to feed my family?" But at that time, I always had money to pay my bills, and there was almost always a little something extra to put towards my debt. The thing was, though, that I gave to God what was his in the first place, and I did this before paying anything else. I was happier with my life, too. To be honest, since I bought my house almost 3 years ago, my tithe hasn't been the 10% that it was in my "poor" days. Oh, it's usually around 5% which I guess isn't bad, but I know I should be giving the full 10%. And I don't think I'm as happy with my life as I was then. Perhaps one could say it's the stress of owning a home, the repairs, knowing that a job is necessary because to miss one paycheck would mean certain disaster. I don't really mean that type of happy, though. It's more of a feeling of knowing that I know the right thing to do, and almost disregarding what I'm supposed to do because I can't trust that God would provide for me. So this, too, is one of my goals: to increase my tithing to 10% again. An example from several years ago, again during my poor era, should illustrate what I mean. I had just spent all the money I had on bills and groceries, and I had one small bill (around $20) that I had to pay within the next couple of days. I wasn't due to receive a paycheck within that time period, and I was stressing about how I was going to pay this small bill. Granted, the amount was small and probably wouldn't have made much difference in the grand scheme of things. But I don't want to ignore my responsibilities, purposefully be late on a payment, etc. I think it was the day before the bill was due, and I was obsessing over this $20 bill. I came home, and per my usual custom got out to get the mail. Guess what was in there! A check to me for $20!! I know that God will take care of me, but sometimes I have a hard time with that. Increasing my tithe to 10% is my goal, as is paying off the remaining $4500 that I owe (student loan). |
posted by Krista at 8:14 PM
