Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A Month of Saving Day 17

Well, I would be pretty surprised if anyone is still reading this by now, but because I am a creature of habit and quite anal about finishing something I start, I will continue with the daily posts until the end of the month.

WARNING: TODAY'S POST WILL ACTUALLY CAUSE YOU TO SPEND MONEY!!!!

I can tell the money is burning a hole in your pocket already! Today, Ryan and I are evaluating where we donate/give to charity. A few years ago, we started tithing to our church during a time in our marriage where we were deep in debt. We have shared this story on occasion with people in our church, but today I am stepping out of my comfort zone a tad and sharing it with... the world. When we got married we purchased a home that we wanted to make some serious changes to before we moved in. We pretty much started from the studs in most of the rooms, along the way accumululating serious balances on our credit cards. Everyone was willing to give us credit, and we pretty much took them up on their offers. Soon, we were around $30,000 in debt. Ryan listened to Howard Dayton's Money Map program on the radio and ordered a brochure leading us through the steps to financial freedom.
Malachai 3:10 says, "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 there will not be room enough to store it."
One of the first decisions we made as we started the journey of getting out from under this financial burden was that we would start tithing to our church. At the time, we occasionally dropped a $20 in the offering plate but figured the church would surely understand that we were a young married couple and we just didn't have any more to spare~the old people could give the big bucks! Well, as backward as it seemed to us at the time, we decided to, for the first time in our marriage, really trust that if we were faithful with our finances that God would supply. We set up our checking account to automatically deduct our tithe and send it to the church each week. I could write a novel on all that transpired in the next year, from making huge payments on credit cards, to receiving a check in the mail at the end for the exact amount we had left to pay; but the moral of the story is: We trusted God with our finances and in less than 1 year our credit card debt was paid off!!!! While we didn't start tithing anticipating to be prosperous, we firmly believe that we were able to pay down our debt because we trusted that God would supply and we were faithful stewards with what He gave. That's it! For us, part of saving money is giving back to the God who has given so freely to us. Case closed.

4 comments:

Deanna said...

Love this post! God is so, so faithful.... and loves to pour His goodness over His children who are faithful, too (NOT always in the form of material blessing.... but sometimes!) ;)

And yes, I am still reading AND loving these posts!!!

Anonymous said...

I have been reading your posts and have enjoyed them so much! Thank you for being so open and sharing. At times in our life, we too did not tithe due to loss of Doug's and me not working, needless to say making the house payment was our #1 priorty and putting some food on the table. However, when again able we have tithe to our church first, then to other missions outside the church and God has never left us down.. No we may not have the new car or other gadgets, but we are doing as the Bible teaches and will NEVER regret it! Darleen

Anonymous said...

I am still reading your post and they have been an absolute God send. Working at camps, I live on a small budget. It is encouraging to read your posts.
Jessica K

Anonymous said...

still reading and enjoying every minute of it! :) thanks for sharing!

Sara Knafel :)