I was gently prodded to share our family’s tithing story with you but this was a journey for us and not something that we did immediately.
Prior to attending church at NHC, we thought we lead an honest and good life. We were good people and always tried to do the right thing. Well, God would soon revealed that it’s not about what WE do but what He has already done for us.
After attending NHC for a couple of months and hearing Pastor Dave telling us the mission of NHC to “Encounter God and Engage in Community” and repeating it over and over again every Sunday (it seemed he was speaking right to us), I finally realized that my next “baby” step was to “engage in community” since God had revealed himself to me.
To tell you the truth, I was very hesitant to engage since that meant that I had to change my ways. Let me tell you, once I engaged and signed up to be in a community group, I realized that was the scariest but best thing I could have done for myself. I could feel God working in me and my group and mentors, Leah and Mike, were encouraging me to become an NHC volunteer. Were they kidding! I wasn’t good enough…they didn’t really know me and all that I had done and been…but they were persistent (which I am thankful that they were) and I once again trusted God and committed to serve a couple of hours a week in the office. I folded bulletins, pasted banners together and put together gift bags…nothing very complicated but you guys won’t believe all the preparation that is required to “do church” on Sundays (and Saturdays now).
It’s the strangest thing but after giving my time and how rewarding it was to me, I wanted to serve more! Leah suggested that I try out as a “greeter”. OMG! Was she kidding? The old tape started playing in my head again…not good enough…they don’t really know me…etc. But Pastor Dave had said in many of his sermons to listen to God’s voice and trust that He is there with you. So, I became a greeter! I was really nervous about it at first cause I knew how “first impressions” were to newcomers and I certainly didn’t want to be the one to “turn them off”. Let me tell you again, this was the best thing I’ve done. I couldn’t wait for Sunday mornings to see who God would place in front of me that day
Everything was “good” until the day Pastor Dave preached on Tithing. Tithing was a subject my husband and I talked about on several occasions but could not understand why “they” (the church) needed our money. After all, we were being good by giving to various charities, donating food and clothing to the needy and adopting kids at Christmas time. Wasn’t that good enough?
During that same period of time, our community group was studying “Matters of the Heart”. God always knows what we need doesn’t he? Pastor Dave also mentioned that tithing was a heart issue and that where our heart was our money went.
If we truly wanted to put God first in our lives then we should give joyfully to God first as He commanded. God knew that money was one of the biggest hurdles that we would have to jump.
Tithing is the only matter God tells us to test Him on…so we did! I remember writing out the first tithe check and being surprised of feeling relieved and really not expecting anything great to happen. Well, the very next day, (I know, I know, it’s hard to believe for some of you) we received a check from State Farm Insurance for the exact tithe amount plus a few cents more. God has a sense of humor! State Farm had lowered our rates and refunded us for the remainder of the year. Who ever heard of an insurance company doing that!
A few months later my husband’s mom, who lived in another state, was diagnosed with cancer and was told she didn’t have much time. The company my husband works for heard about this and asked him if he would want to relocate to that state to be closer to his mom during this hard time. Now again, what company does that? This is a very costly process for them. We soon figured out that housing there would cost us an additional $300/month even though we downsized. Since this was a lateral move there was no promotion involved we would just ride it out and know in our hearts that this was where God wanted us to be.
Well…to our surprise, my husbands new boss announced that he had requested a $300/month raise for my husband since he was happy that he had accepted to be transferred to his plant. AMAZING!
But the most amazing part of it all is that we were able to witness to my husband’s mom and sister on every visit and they both accepted Christ on Mother’s Day…just a few months prior to her passing…THAT’S GOD’S TIMING!
The funny thing about this is that we were only there 10 months and the company relocated us to another state….I’m not even going to wonder what God has in store for us here. Hopefully though, he will bring us back to NHC when he is done with us here
