10%

Hey there! Devin here, just had something on my heart that I wanted to write a blog post about. Hope you enjoy it.

10% of something does not seem like a lot when you think about it. Let’s say you have 10 cookies and I asked you to give me 1 of them. You might think, “Sure, I still have 9 cookies and that is plenty for me.” You would have just given me 10% of your cookies and never thought twice about it. Now what if I asked you to give 10% of your paycheck every time you get paid? That 10% certainly seems like a much larger number and a much harder thing for you to do.

Today I would like to tell you a story of 2 people who decided that God has blessed them greatly, and that they should be returning back to God what he gave them. Flashback about 4 and a half years ago, you will find that M and I were living as most people do. When we got paid we would pay our bills and whatever was left we used to buy things that we wanted. One Sunday we heard a sermon at church about giving God his 10% and if I remember right it was about testing God. M felt like this was something we should start doing and that is where our journey began.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! -Malachi 3:10

It was hard at first to give away 10% of our income every 2 weeks. We were not being financially responsible with the money God had entrusted us with. We spent more money than I care to disclose on eating out. Still we did it, and lo and behold, nothing changed! The thing about God is that he wants us to be faithful to him. Sometimes he asks us to take a huge leap off of a cliff (metaphorically) and other times he just wants us to put one foot in front of the other. Taking us down a path that we would not have chosen on our own.

Around the same time that M and I starting tithing (10% of income in biblical terms) I had also applied for a position at Kankakee Valley REMC. At the time both M and I worked for Oregon-Davis Schools, and we both felt that perhaps it was time for one of us (me) to look for another job. We were worried that if the school closed we would both be without a job. So I applied for the position and then heard nothing for almost 3 months. All through this time though we were being faithful with our tithes and making some budgetary adjustments in our life. Finally the call came with a job interview and eventually a job offer. Such a blessing from God!

Now it would be nice if our story ended here and some of you might even think, “Eh that was just luck”. Perhaps you are right so let’s continue on. Fast forward to the time when M felt like it was time to follow God’s call for us to adopt a special needs child. All through this time we had been tithing, but still not being that financially responsible with our money. I remember one embarrassing moment for me. I was at Burger King buying breakfast and our debit card failed. Our checking account was out of money. I guilt-fully handed over our credit card and left with my food. Yikes! We knew some changes had to be made, especially if we were going to be able to afford an adoption.

Shortly after this time I was going through a rough time at my job. M had been praying for me and one day I saw a job for an IT Manager at Marshall Co REMC. M and I talked about it and I applied. I was given an interview and eventually negotiated a job offer! Again you might be thinking this was just luck, but I tell you it was an answer to a prayer. This position came with such a substantial pay raise that M and I started having discussions about her staying home full time. We knew that a special needs child would require this anyways and M wanted more time with J.

Just a reminder that all through this time we had been faithfully giving our 10% to God. I will admit that it was not easy and there were times that I thought we could buy a new car with the money we are giving to God. That did not matter though. We are called to be faithful and we made that choice.

So now I have this awesome new job, the story ends there .. wrong! God was still doing things in our lives because we have been faithful to him. M and I started having weekly budget meetings to go through our finances. We started using a program through Keybank called HelloWallet. Which they have since discontinued and I am extremely unhappy with them! (cough Mom!) We were able to track where every dollar of our money went and it was pretty shocking to see some of the results. We spent some time determining what we actually needed to spend money on and how much that cost. Plus we gave ourselves a small budget to spend on eating out, entertainment, etc. Just like people who cheat on their diet, we knew without a little leeway that we would not follow this. Time went on and there were times we had to make tough choices when it came to money. We had to tell people we could not go out for their birthday because it did not fit in our budget. Embarrassing? Absolutely, but I am not here to impress you. We are doing our best to follow God. Time continued on and we started to realize how much of a fool we had been with our money. We were saving money like it was growing on the trees in our backyard. We were able to pay off both of our cars in 1 year, partly thanks to our tax return, but mostly due to us being responsible. We still were able to go on vacations and remain within our budget.

Fast forward to today and M is now at home full time. She actually got a job working for an amazing company and she gets to do it from home! If you have been following our blog you will know that we have had quite a few hiccups along this journey, but due to our tithing and trusting God we have been able to pay for it. There have been several times that something has come up and all of a sudden we have a check in the mail. Whether it was a repayment from the hospital, tax return, insurance payout, God was always there providing when we felt like we were not sure what to do next. So as I finish this post out I would like to challenge you to the tithe test. If you are not giving God his 10%, let’s face the truth, it all belongs to him and if he decides to take it all away from you he can and will, then I invite you to try it. Give 10% of your next 4 paychecks and see what God does in your life. There is a catch here though. You cannot do this while grumbling. God wants a cheerful giver. I think if you stop and truly think about it, you know that we (those of us in 1st world countries) live such a blessed life.

If you want learn more of our story or learn how we budget I would be happy to share more. Sometimes all you have to do is ask that first question. We are no Dave Ramsey, but would be happy to help out in any way!