Last Sunday we kicked off the Deal Or No Deal series, which is our annual money series. I love teaching about money – not because it makes the offerings go up, but because of the freedom that people experience when they apply God’s word in this vital area of their lives. That’s a freedom that Susan and I have enjoyed and lived in now for over 30 years. But our story doesn’t start out that way.
In 1977 I closed the doors on a failed business that left us $20,000 in personal debt. Now $20k is a lot of cash no matter how you look at it, but keep in mind that was $20k in 1977. If that were translated into today’s dollars we would be talking about $73,000!!
To make matters worse, Susan and had just found out she was pregnant with Heather. We had no health insurance coverage, which meant we would have to pay the doctor and hospital bills out of pocket. And now I have no business and no job. All we had was Susan’s income as a legal secretary.
It was crunch time. We had some serious decisions to make and we had to make them quickly. Let me share them with you…
1. We decided to put God first in our finances
Susan and I have always tithed. From the beginning of our marriage and with our first paychecks we honored God with a full 10%. We had honored God and even given more than a tithe all during the time my business was failing. You might say, “Wait a minute, Dave, I thought God promises to bless tithers. If he blesses us why did your business fail?” There are so many answers I could give to that question, but I’ll leave it at this: God knew what was best for us and the business I was in was not his plan for our lives. Why he thought it best for the business to fail, I’m not sure I can answer.
But I will say that in spite of the business failure Susan and I always had our needs met. We never missed a meal and never missed a payment. We had a roof over our heads and clothes to wear. God took care of our needs and I fully believe it was because we honored him with the tithe. That is one of the reasons why I teach it as strongly as I do. I BELIEVE IN IT AND I PRACTICE IT!!
Tithing is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you. Tithing does not guarantee that you won’t lose a business or a job. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get a discount on gas prices (wouldn’t that be a great selling point!). However, God DOES promise to bless those who honor him.
For us the blessing for a while was just having our needs met. God took care of that. Being blessed meant that our marriage got healthier. Being blessed meant our faith in God just got stronger during that time. Being blessed meant we had a healthy baby. Being blessed meant I had a series of jobs that got us through that rough spell. Being blessed meant we learned some incredible spiritual and financial lessons that we couldn’t have learned any other way. I can honestly look back and say we were living in the incredible zone of God’s unimaginable blessing!
Oh yeah, and we paid the doctor and hospital bills IN CASH!
I am firmly convinced and there’s no way you can ever get me to back away from this one – when you honor God and put him first, the blessing follows. It may not always look the same, but the blessing comes. So start wherever you are and put God first and see what he does in your heart, in your life and in your financial world!
More decisions tomorrow…
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