Now I'm not a scholar of biblical understanding and I'm not one to sit down and break down the understanding of tithing and giving. I will say we pray quite often about every area of our lives and we make conscious choices about what we give and how we give -- especially now as we're actively paying down debt.
From a real desire to be a good steward of our money as well as our time and effort I would love to tell you we're giving 10% of our income to God's house or to a charity in which we believe in, but that wouldn't be the truth. We've never been able to afford to give 10% of our income, whether its before or after marriage. Chris and I are were both two poor single people who got married because we loved one another and we felt God was calling us to be together. It was this almost instant connection and understanding. It was a pretty cool thing. But, there's no way we'd be able to get out of debt with any sense of a realistic goal and timeline if we were tithing 10% and I got to be honest in all of my prayers to The Lord I don't see Him asking us to do that right now. Does He want us to be there one day to do that? Yeah, of course! He wants all His children to give and give generously but He's not going to be put us in the poor house as we work hard to get us there.
If we were to give 10% most likely we wouldn't get out of debt until President Donald Trump was out of office -- and he's just being sworn in today! Seriously, it just wouldn't happen.
As many of you know, our income is not normal. We no longer work but instead have an annuity payment every month. This annuity payment is as much as most people salaries or perhaps two salaries combined, so we're doing okay financially, but still...lots of debt... and we're not gettin' any younger! I have to tell you, this annuity was hell for me and I remember when I realized Chris was starting to fall in love with me I sat down with him and explained the annuity in very blunt terms. I told him I'd probably have to work for the rest of my life, until the day I died just to pay the taxes on this annuity. He said we were in it together and stupidily he still wanted to marry me only weeks later.
Before being fixed in 2016 for all of my adult life I paid more than $20,000 a year in taxes because of how it was structured. Year after year, doling out another 20K and another, and another... (and there were some years where it almost reached $30,000) This was my hell. I never thought it would change. I was wrong. Oh God blessed us mightily and changed our life, and that part of my testimony still leaves me speechless and thankful, but God put a new fork in the road and like that, literally overnight, we no longer had work like dogs to pay taxes. I really believe this prayer being answered meant Chris and I had to be intentional about what we did with this income from here on out. Hence, our desire to get out of debt and give generously. That is our goal.
What does it look like to us "give generously"? Well, I have a child's name on my heart. Ruby Grace. This little girl is my daughter. I know it to the core of my being. I know that The Lord gave me her name in 2007 on a snowy winter day in November and I hated that name at first. The name didn't come from me but there it is Ruby is waiting for us to adopt her. I have no idea who she is or where she lives. I don't know if she has the strawberry blonde hair I keep picturing that she has. I don't know if she's a 3 year old little girl that I keep seeing or she's in fact older... Regardless, this is how we wish to "give generously".
In order to do that we can't tithe 10% right now. We've made that very conscious decision to not tithe and we agreed to that because our intentions are still honorable towards God's future for us. Right now, to be honest, we're "tithing", ten dollars a month. We are still giving something because believe that $10 bill represents what we plan to give of our 10% one day. We have also discussed increasing that amount after every individual debt is paid off. For example, once the 2016 taxes are paid off in April, as of May 1st we will be tithing 2% of our income and from there we will continue to increase our tithes by 1% until all debt is paid off, After all debt is paid off, squeals of joy, we plan to increase our giving by 1% annually until reaching 10% in full. Our most important part in our giving, is to give joyfully and we are! We're are so thankful to be on this journey and have the ability to give anything at this point.
We know this is not a subject of whether we have salvation. We already do, thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is a subject of where our heart is. We are being very purposeful in our spending and I have to tell you guys most days we don't spend much money, if any. We're living as frugally as we can without going completely insane, (we've come close the insanity brink a few times already this winter) but we're doing it for the glory of God.... and to give a home to our future daughter Ruby, who will be our biggest moment of stewardship we could ever offer God. We hope to open our home and heart to our forever daughter.
So, with a prayer and understanding of how sensitive this topic is, I encourage you to pray about your own debt-free journey and tithing or giving. Is it at 1% or perhaps giving of your time is all you can do? Even an meager amount of effort, no matter how small is something God can work with. Just consider whatever you do decide to do, do it with intentional purpose and God's blessing. Remember, today we "live like no one else so later we can live and give like no one else." (Dave Ramsey)
No comments:
Post a Comment