I just finished reading a great post by James about how tithing can increase your income.
And it got me thinking about my own personal story of when I started tithing and the things that followed.
Starting to tithe
I don’t exactly remember when I started to tithe – probably about 7-8 years ago. But I do remember getting a new job that was nearly double my previous income and thinking, “Wow, so this is the result of tithing.”
It was a helpful lesson to me since I was, like most, skeptical about the whole thing. I had heard about all the scandals with TV preachers and kind of grew up with a cynical attitude towards giving to the church.
Somewhere along the line I decided to “take a chance” and try it out.
We have had a couple times over the years where God has wanted us to stretch our giving. The times were faith-tests that have proved extremely valuable to us.
I remember a time when we realized, due to an error on my part, that we hadn’t been tithing the correct amount.
Once I finally figured it out how much it was supposed to be, I quickly realized that if we did that our expenses would be greater than our income. That’s never a good thing 😉
I remember praying with my wife and telling God that if He really can do what His word says, then it will all work out. We went ahead and started tithing the correct amount, not knowing where the rest of the money was going to come from to pay the bills. I am not exaggerating at all when I say that the NEXT DAY, my boss called me into her office to tell me about a completely unexpected raise that she was giving me. The raises normally only came once a year and this was way off the schedule. Guess how much it was for. Yep, it was almost the exact amount of the difference. I must say that experience was a strong encouragement for my faith.
