Thank you Lauren for the sweet post. I am touched that you read my journal.
I haven’t ever written about this before and it may cause some to shake their heads, but everything I am about to write is total truth so here goes…..
Back in October, when we banned from the casino we had been really trying to change our lives. We were listening to a lot of pastors and doing devotions as a family. I was listening to Tony Evans on the radio (he is an amazing champion of the family). One of his series was on stewardship. I listened to David Pratt as well. His series is called Radical.
I was strongly convicted about my gambling and the waste of our money and decided that I wanted to change. I wanted God to help me and so we went before the church and I even fasted for a day. I had never fasted before and read up on it first. Two weeks later we banned.
So all that lead to this, we started titheing. I am in charge of the finances and have been all our marriage. I usually gave about $100/ week to church, sometimes less, but usually around that amount. It seemed like a lot and a nice round number to keep my guilt at bay. We even gave if it meant being overdrawn because I had thrown our money away gambling and couldn’t stand not to help our little church.
In October, at the time we banned, I told my husband I wanted to get serious about titheing. He was all for it. I started giving 10% of our gross income every week. When I got the transfer in December, the raise in pay equalled the difference between $100/ week and the amount I had started to give. It was as if God gave me the money to tithe. I had the exact amount of money left over as if I was still giving $100. Since then, we have been faithful, even the bonus money, I gave 10% of the gross. The tax on a bonus is higher than a regular wage, so this was a big amount from the net I received. The thing is, I wasn’t expecting a bonus, I hadn’t got one all year for 2014. I cried when I got that money!!! It was a true miracle. Out of the clear blue and it was a lot of money! My husband got a $300 bonus a month before that. He has never gotten bonus of more than $50 in the seven years he has worked for his company. We tithed before we gambled on those three occasions that I have given in to my urges, since Oct. I have been receiving the most amazing financial blessings of my life since Oct. Of course we have been dead broke at times, you can read that in my posts, but we paid our tithes first. It was laid on my heart that God gives us our money. Everything I make is because of His generosity. It is all His money, so how can I justify not giving Him back the first fruits of my labor? I have paid off a huge amount of debt all while still being less than clean. I still have a lot to go, but I write that check out first every week. I am happy to do it. I am not preaching here or trying to convince anyone to do the same, but I was so convicted to do this, I felt I had no choice.
God is good to me and my family and I want to honor that.