I want to share about an ongoing praise report and a testimony to God’s faithfulness.
My husband and I do not come from financially stable homes. Neither of our parents are very good with money and at least in my family I believe it is due to spiritual bondage.
My husband and I got married young and both attended post-secondary using student loans. Unfortunately, student loans only give you so much but the bank was willing to give us more, and more, and more. We racked up about $80,000 in total, not on extravagant things just unchecked living expenses.
My husband grew up in a strong Christian home and he has always understood the call to tithe and the blessings it brings. I did not.
We started attending Northside when we moved to B.C. in 2013. We had finally found a church to call home. We were getting settled in our volunteer positions and community at church when my husband cautiously brought up that he wanted to start tithing. I say cautiously because it was always a debate trigger in our house. I felt that we could not tithe when we were in debt. It seems so counterintuitive to give away what you don’t actually have.
After much debate I told him I would draw up a budget to prove that we did not have enough to tithe. I spent the next couple of weeks pouring over our finances and lo and behold I was able to find a little bit of wiggle room in our budget to start tithing. I had to eat a bit of crow and we agreed to start tithing temporarily. I will admit that I was not tithing with a glad heart at the start.
Then something changed. I cannot say it was a particular moment but over time after many monthly conversations with God when we tithed I started to see a shift in how I perceived our finances. Suddenly, our monthly budget was not something that made me stressed but became a challenge. Could we pay down more debt and still tithe? Every time I have asked this God has come back with a resounding yes.
Over the past five years my husband and I have been blessed with very stable jobs which is a rarity in both our fields. We have had random financial blessings that always seem to happen right when it seems there is more month at the end of a paycheck. We have even been blessed with the ability to do some traveling (a dream of mine) still while paying debt and tithing. We have seen blessings in many aspects of our life but for the sake of keeping on topic our finances have been abundantly blessed.
I say this is an ongoing praise report because we are still in some debt but I actually get excited now to tithe. I am so thankful for God’s faithfulness and his partnership. When we once used to tithe 10% to the penny we now tithe a little more here and there when we feel God has asked us to, joyfully, and that has been the greatest blessing. To know when God asks you of something and you are ready, willing and able to do it joyfully.
I do not know why God has asked me to write this down but I do hope that it helps someone else to find the joy in tithing and the peace he can bring in someone’s financial situation.
After Northside featured this testimony on the website a few years ago, we were contacted by the 700 Club to do a feature. It is both anxiety inducing and a blessing that God has been using our testimony to help others give God control of their finances. It is such a load off to know that God has our finances in His hands.
The 700 club testimony: https://www1.cbn.com/lead684
- Stephanie and Allan
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