Years ago I was a “Sunday Christian.” 

 

“I put that $20 per week in the plate... sometimes $50... while I socked away the rest into savings and felt secure.  

 

Then my world changed.  

 

For reasons that I won't share, my savings and my security were GONE.  I almost lost my house. I got divorced.  I kept trying to recover and run my own life.  

 

Then one day it was put on my heart to tithe.  This happened while we were living in an apartment with ants and cat urine and life was just not what I wanted for my family.  I was flabbergasted to have such a random thought.  I knew I couldn't tithe AND pay all of my bills.  

 

But I wrote a check (yes I'm that old).  I took the check to church.  Instead of putting it into the plate, I tore it up… and my 11 year old son noticed.  Later he asked what I ripped up. I told him that I had written a check to the church but now wasn't the right time.  He cocked his head and his eyebrows creased, and he said "well when is the right time?"  

 

Isn't that the question? 

When is the right time to trust God?  

 

I felt a change in my heart and I wrote the check.  I put the check in the offering the next Sunday and I made sure my son saw it go in.  And then — I tried to decide which bills not to pay.  But then God began to work… and to "wow.”  

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I got my cable bill... they had found an error from two years prior and credited my account.  I wouldn't owe money for two months.  WHAT?  

I found $20 in an old pair of jeans.  My electric bill was way less than normal. And so much more. 

 

I still don't quite know how I made it through the month but I tithed again, and by the next month, I had made adjustments to our budget so we could put God first.  We adapted and thrived. My heart changed in a way that you would have to feel and experience to really appreciate.  

I had to stretch and step out in faith to let go of logic and control and let my heart grow.  Turns out I was the one blocking it from growing.  

 

I tithed for years and things got better and better - Not always easier, but more manageable.  Not always in the budget I wrote... but always in the budget God wrote for me.   

 

Now if we DON’T FEEL A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE with what we’re giving — we give more.  We want to keep stretching our faith through giving.  That release of control is the key, or it was for me. To never take God's resources and gifts for granted.  To never become too used to or complacent in giving.  To always have that element of trusting God.  

 

It's gotten to the point where when we get a little extra boost financially, we think "oh, a need is going to come up... I wonder what God has in mind for us to do." We have a lot, but it's not ours.  It's God's.  And because we treat it that way it goes further every month.  There are still months where I go "God, I don't know how the math worked out this month, but it did."   

 

Giving is an opportunity to find God's peace that surpasses all understanding.  Giving up control, trusting, it is how my spouse and I find rest in God.