“Test me in this.”
One night during family devotions when I was seven or eight years old, my father read a passage about tithing. While I don’t remember the exact Scripture, we may have been reading in Micah, where the Lord challenges the Israelites to, “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.” (Micah 3:10) The Holy Spirit worked in my young spirit so right then and there I determined to be faithful in my tithe to the Lord. I started tithing on my allowance. When I was fifteen, I started my first job as a cashier at a meat and produce market; every paycheck the first money I took out of the bank was for my tithe. Through high school and college, even when I was walking in rebellion in other areas of my life, I was always sure to tithe.
Committing the first fruits of my income to the Lord is not a difficult thing for me now, I have trained myself since I was child to be obedient in that area and I have definitely seen that God’s Word is true. Through scholarships, grants, and working jobs at school; God fully provided my tuition for an undergraduate degree, two master’s degrees and a doctorate. He allowed me to graduate with each degree, debt free!
While graduating without debt is a huge testimony of His faithfulness, I have also seen it expressed in many other ways from providing me with good cars that do not require excessive maintenance, to extending the life of clothes, shoes, furniture and other things that can be a drain on a budget. Of course, God works differently in each person’s life so His faithfulness to you may not be the same, but it is still the Lord who is providing.
By Jodie Chiricosta
Host, Her God Story