The white haired widowed ran her knurled bent fingers over the number keys on her solar calculator that she received as a bonus for obtaining a long ago cut up credit card once again. Only this time she entered the numbers from the bottom of her column to the top somehow believing that if she keyed them from a different direction the total displayed by pray fully pressing the summation key the total would increase. The sigh that escaped from her inner being when she pressed that “equals” key combined with the telltale drooping chin and shoulders validated what she already knew. No matter how she added them the list of numbers said the same thing, “Projected income was not enough to cover known expenses!” for the coming year.
Her story was all too familiar. Year after year there never seemed to be enough coming in to cover all that needed to go out. Income increased by “cents”. Expenses increased by “dollars”. Medical expenses increased as high summer thunderheads, creating the same havoc in her life that the storms wreaked on the farmers crops.
Auto expenses were up. Taxes kept threatening to steal from her the very home she had spent most of her married years working to obtain. Utility bills were riding on the up escalator. Income was waning. Happiness was sinking. Hope had become a dying ember.
She pushed the well worn balance sheet and judgmental calculator across the table and asked to anyone listening, “What do I do now? It just doesn’t add up.” As she pulled out twenty-plus identical budget sheets from her ragged cardboard folder she sighed again, “I don’t know how I’ve been able to make it all these years? Each year I seem to have the same problem. Will it ever go away? Will it ever be different?”
What a miracle was witnessed that day! The folder full of yellowed budget sheets, eraser chaff and broken dreams stood as a monument to God’s faithfulness. The glowing numbers on the calculator that just minutes before seemed to condemn her to another year of struggling now shown the light of God’s promise upon the very evidence being used to dishearten and destroy.
“Can’t you see how you’ve been able to make it?” “Can’t you understand the miracle here?”, I softly spoke. The first line item on each and every one of the budget sheets was the widow’s tithe. The ten-percent. That for which God asks was always number one in her budget. None had ever been erased or altered. The tithe stood at the top of the budget as a beacon, as a steering light to all of her financial decision for each of her years. That line item was the non-negotiable part of her spending plan. God honored that in the first year, in the second year, last year and ever year in between. God is the same today as He was yesterday and will be the same tomorrow. If He is that way, so are His promises.
God tell us in Leviticus 27:30 that “all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s; it is holy unto the Lord.” He continues defining the tithe in Leviticus 27:32 where He says, “And concerning the tithe of the herd or of the flock, even of whatsoever passes under the rod, a tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.” When you are faithful to God, in this case the widow was faithful with her finances and that which the Lord sees as holy; God honors that and blesses you. Do not misinterpret what was just said. I did not say that you should give in order to get. That is not why we give. God loves a cheerful giver, (2 Corinthians 9:7) one who gives freely of whatever resources for which they have been provided, not the one who gives grudgingly or out of compulsion.
So knowingly or unknowingly the widow was being obedient to God’s wishes. Her tithe came first and was never compromised. As promised, God blessed her by providing for her needs each and every day for over twenty years. Did He prosper her? It depends on what you consider prospering. She didn’t have diamonds and gold. She will never be found in the upper stratus of society. She did meet every bill. There was always money for the necessities and mysteriously there was always enough left for the extras.
We are never to test God and His promises (Matthew 4:7) however God challenges us to put Him to the test when it comes to giving. Malachi 3:10 says that we are to bring our tithes into the storehouse and put God to the test. If we do that, He will open the windows of heaven and pour out the blessings so much so that there will not be room enough to receive all of them. Is this prosperity giving? No this is the Word of God. The widow’s situation is a tangible example of this in action in our lives today. - Dan
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