How Giving First Makes Everything Work

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There was a time early on in my marriage when Terri and I were so poor we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and canned tomato soup almost every single day for dinner. When you are a kid that sounds like heaven. When you are young and married the digestive complications alone are enough to make you cry. We know what it’s like to feel like you don’t have enough. We literally drove a car with a mayonnaise jar for a headlight because we couldn’t afford to get our busted headlight fixed correctly. Giving to anything other than bills was the last thing on our minds.

During that stage of life we tried juggling. We juggled bills to keep things from getting turned off. We juggled hours at work to make sure we could get all that were available. We juggled credit cards just to keep our heads above water. And we juggled what we gave God. If we had something in the bank we would give it. If not, it could wait. We believed in the principle of tithing, but we had a hard time converting that belief into action. We believed it so much that Terri would actually write the check, but she would just keep it in her purse until it would clear. As you can imagine the checks we never gave began stacking up.

Our problem was we weren’t living in the faith that if we trusted God first with our finances he would take care of the rest.

When we made the decision to trust God with our money by tithing ten percent of our income before we did anything else with it, everything changed for us. We certainly didn’t get rich – that ship sailed a long time ago – but things just started to work for us. When we really needed money it was always there. We were able to stop juggling bills and discovered that we even had enough left over to invest in our church’s building fund. The car still broke down, but somehow there was money now to fix it that didn’t require a credit card. The financial pressure we were always under lessened as God gave us peace that he had things under control for us.

Jesus summed up our experience this way:

So don’t worry about these things, saying, “What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?” These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Matthew 6:31-33

Seek first, prioritize, invest in the Kingdom of God above all else and God will take care of the details. It has always been true for me, and I know it is true for you too.

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