Tithe = Blessing

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." Malachi 3:10

I have a personal testimony to this scripture and I've recently felt led to share it.

Last year when my husband and I truly started living for the Lord and putting Him first, I started feeling convicted about tithing. We would put a little money in the offering plate each Sunday, but we weren't giving 10% of our income to the church. Instead, we were impulsively spending money on many "wants." Even though I was feeling convicted about it, I didn't say anything to my husband because I didn't want to push him into tithing. After all, God wants us to be a cheerful giver, not a giver whose wife guilted him into it. But apparently, God was working on my husband's heart, too. Around the first of this year he came to discuss it with me and we both decided we needed to start tithing. Many churches aren't able to reach out to the community and the world due to inadequate financial support. We don't want to hinder our church from ministering to the world...we want to help our church do this.

Now, let me back up a little. Before this year, we had tried for 3 years to get pregnant. We went to doctors and were told my husband would probably never get me pregnant. We tried IVF, but some of the medications I had to take right before the procedure caused blood clots in my lungs and I almost died. We already had my son from my previous marrage, who my husband adopted, and we finally gave into the idea that he was going to be an only child.

As I mentioned before, around the beginning of the year, we started tithing 10% of our income to our church. We've never seen it as a struggle, or something we HAVE to do. We have always seen it as something we WANT to do. We don't think of that 10% as our money...it belongs to God and we have no right to it. Well, in March of this year I found out that I was pregnant! You can imagine our surprise and delight at the news. Our baby is due in 4 weeks and we are having another son. I truly believe that this baby is a direct result of our obedience to the Lord. He really opened up the floodgates of heaven and poured out the greatest blessing I could have hoped for.

When people tell me they can't affored to tithe, I just tell them I can't afford NOT to.