"Having" can Hinder

The Lord is so gracious to plant seeds, water, fertilize, and grow His truth into fruit in us! Yesterday's message at Crossway (by Warren Boettcher) was on tithing and giving. If only I could speak of all God has been doing in my heart in this area over the last ___years! Hearing Warren speak of his own hard-pressed financial state at times in his life was so helpful. Knowing that He was still tithing during hard times and yet God did not supernaturally make everything easy breezy because of Warren's faithfulness was especially helpful. With the health, wealth, and prosperity "gospel" so prevalent in our world today, it is refreshing to hear truth that sometimes we are faithful and yet God does not unleash heaps of financial blessing on us.

But that is not the crux of what God has been speaking to my heart. Here are some words from my Oct. 9th journal entry "...Help us to see money through Your eyes, Lord. It is meant to be a tool used to serve. But is also can quickly become an idol. 'If we just had a little more money...' I confess this lack of trust in You, the maker and provider of our income. Will you provide a measure of faith in me? If more discipline is needed, would you move me into that? Stir our hearts to act according to Your will. Instead of seeing dollar signs attached to everything, let me see an opportunity for You to do the humanly impossible."

Then again on Oct. 26th..."Perhaps what You want me to see is that I have a stingy heart towards You, Lord. There is concern in my heart that I have witheld from you. My faith is weak in this area, Lord. Please help me to trust You. I say I am ready to give my life away for you, yet my wallet is hesitant. 'What if I need this money later?' 'We're barely scraping by as it is. God understands. If he expected me to give more, He'd provide more.' These are the thoughts in my heart. I am not making much of You in my finances . Help my unbelief! I have sinful motives of self-preservation. I secretly question God's care for us."

The wonderful thing that was happening in the midst of that "heart monitoring" was that Keith and I did sit down and take a good look at our tithing/giving over the last year. We saw where we'd been deficient. We repented, and implemented a strategy to get back on track with our tithe. So when Warren spoke yesterday, I felt like God was solidifying all He'd been doing in my heart over the last 6 weeks. And it encouraged my heart.

I want to tell of the mercies of God before I end today. I hope it will encourage many. (Even if that's only the five people who read this!) In 2004, we left pastoral ministry. Won't go into the why's of that. But suffice it to say, we had 60 days for my husband to find a new job. If I remember correctly, that year we had a gross income of $18,ooo. This was for a family of five. That is considered poverty level here in America. Now here's the grace of God. In that year we were able to (without incurring ANY debt) 1) Go to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary 2) Purchase our minivan outright 3) Keep up our house payments 4) Pay all our normal bills. Not only that, but amazing gifts of God's people came always at strategic times. Whether our parents, family or friends, We had more than enough for our needs. One person seemed to send a money order for the same amount every month. I'll always wonder who that was! In fact, in just the week of Christmas we had 1) a full holiday meal, complete with frozen turkey, delivered to us. 2) Our furnace serviced for free and the man who serviced it (also a friend) gave us $400 for Christmas! 3) "Secret Santas" brought gifts to the house for our children on Christmas Eve, and while they opened them, two more large gift bags were left on our back porch for Keith and me! That night, after the girls were in bed, we stood in our living room recounting all God had done and began literally laughing at the kindness and overflowing generosity of God to us! I will never forget that Christmas. In some ways we felt richer than we'd ever been. We were not striving. God was being Himself....lifting up those who were weak!

You would think that after that year I would never struggle again with trusting God to meet our needs. But I do. I forget. I need fresh grace. You see, having so little, we cast ourselves upon the Lord and cried out to Him to provide for us. But as the years start going by and we are again able (by God's grace) to make a "decent" income, we start leaning on our "own" resources. We think, "OK, God was kind to us, Whew! Now we need to pull ourselves back up by our bootstraps." UGH! Oh that I would cast myself on God, no matter what our income, and look to Him for all provision. Be encouraged friends! He is SO ABLE!! Never doubt Him.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty. "And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Mal. 3:10