God did the coolest thing yesterday and I have to brag on Him!
Before I tell the story of what happened yesterday I must first divulge a little quirk about myself. I have an oddity with numbers, I count stairs everytime I climb a staircase and I hate odd numbers. In fact, only odd number I like is the number 7 (the number on my old softball jersey). The number 7 is thought to be one of God’s favorite numbers. I bet you’ve never thought about that have you? Does God have a favorite number? I believe he does. Consider this, there are 7 days in a week, 7 colors in a rainbow, 7 notes in a musical scale, we are told to forgive 70×7 times, and Jesus’ final words on the cross in Luke 23:46 were “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
You just counted those words didn’t you! See I’m not the only one who likes numbers.
Okay, so I shared that quirk about myself so that you can have a full appreciation of my situation yesterday. While writing out our weekly tithing check to church I paused when the dollar amount was going to be an odd number. Rather than rounding down (and cheating God) I rounded up and gave almost $8 extra, just to have an even number. (I know, I know, I’m weird). As I wrote the check I mummered a prayer “God, I know you are gonna do something with that.”
We can rob God, but we can never out give God. How do we rob you God? By not tithing.
“Bring the whole tithe…TEST me and see that I will not open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.” Malachi 3:8-10.
I am not a bible scholar, but I think this may perhaps be the only time where God asks us to test Him!
I remember once seeing a pastor give an illustration of a child’s sand bucket and sand shovel as he shoveled sand back and forth between the shovel and bucket. This represented us and our resources. Then he produced a huge snow shovel and shovelled sand from a wheelbarrow to the tiny bucket. God’s shovel and his container is bigger than ours.
Later yesterday afternoon my husband cleaned out my old car. For years the glove compartment in my old VW was stuck, but he was able to fix it and retrieve old papers etc. (Remember he took the dash apart to rescue the kitten). As I was going through the 3 year old papers, I found an envelope containing several other envelopes. (If you have have completed Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University you will appreciate this). Inside the envelopes labeled “Car Maintenance” contained $166.
Once again, God proves that we can NOT out give him!
P.S. In case you are wondering…I put the extra money in another envelope labeled “Dead tree removal fund.”
~April
May you and I be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. Romans 1:12