I was tithing all wrong.
But what does that even mean?
See, I’d been giving 10% of my income since I was little. Why? Was I just a pure-hearted saint at a young age? No, I tithed because my parents told me to.
I have a faint memory of getting a few dollars at the end of a week of chores, and my mom’s instructions to tithe 10%, save 20%, and keep the rest. Maybe I had envelopes, or piggy banks, I’m not sure. But I learned this from the get go, and that default turned into a habit.
My high school part-time job? 10%, right off the top. My piddly summer camp salary? Tithed 10%, which was like…$40, but ouch did that one hurt.
After I graduated from college and started pulling in a real salary, it remained a default. And then when I married Brian who was a business major, I felt even more satisfied as the tithing dollar amount grew much larger (the business major salary did some heavy lifting there, I’ll admit).
And I thought, “Oh, I’m quite good at this part of being a Christian.” I had checked the boxes faithfully every month, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself. It’s usually when a character has settled in comfortably that something swoops in to knock the comfort clear off the table.
So, in my 20s I read this book by Randy Alcorn. And you know what he said?
God doesn’t need your money.
Oh, hold up then. God doesn’t need my money? Well then why do I keep sending it over? Then it got even stranger.
He said, God doesn’t require you to tithe.
What now? I don’t have to tithe? I’ve been tithing all this time and I don’t have to tithe? That means I’m 10% richer?
So then I read some more. And somewhere between the next few chapters and the next few months, I realized I’d been tithing all wrong for a very long time.
See, I had been starting from this place of 100%. The money in my bank account? We were the owners–the 100% owners. But what if I was actually starting from a place of 0%? That nothing in my account actually belonged to me? That everything was just a resource I was managing, and that all of it actually belonged to God.
Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. The more that sunk in, the more it changed everything. From the outside, I had my finances together. Giving, check. Living below my means, check. No debt except a mortgage, check. Saving for retirement, check. These things brought me peace of mind. But my heart had some transforming to do.
When I started from my place of 100% and gave out of it, I was feeling smug with myself. But when I started from a place of 0% and simply released 10% of the money I was managing, I felt grateful for what we have, grateful for the One who gave. In my most pure-hearted of months, there was a sense of awe, and the giving came freely, and joyfully.
(Note, I did not say every month. Don’t go thinking I’ve got this all figured out yet.)
The thing that still sticks with me is that part about God not requiring us to tithe. There is no tithing command. No tithing book of rules. But there is a plea to be generous–to let money flow in and flow out easily. To store up our treasure, not where moth and dust eat away, but to store up treasure in heaven. To have that instruction live as a plea, and encouragement, rather than a command–it really gets my attention.
My tithing doesn’t look that much different on the surface than it did pre-heart-thwomping and post-heart-thwomping. But dip down below the surface (which you can’t do, but I’ll tell you how it feels anyway), and you’ll see a whole different infrastructure and perspective in place. It’s hard to explain, but you know that feeling when you open all your windows at the first sign of spring to let the fresh air and sunshine in after a very long winter? It feels kind of like that.
Call it tithing, call it generosity, call it a habit, call it an act of worship. It goes by many names and takes many forms throughout the cycle of earning money and sending some of it away.
This act–repetitive, consistent, essential, helps me remember to hold things and hold money with open hands.