Who's In Charge Here??

Have you ever noticed there are times in life when you just can't seem to get ahead? Bills threaten to drown you, your car needs more work than its worth and you just can't seem to catch a break at work.

I mean, goodness knows you're trying! You're cranking everything you have into doing your job, you're doing everything you can at home to make sure that the house is clean, the yard looks just right (wouldn't want to upset those neighbors with a seedy yard now would you?), and you're running around like a chicken with its head cut off because everything and everyone seems to be counting on you and the world will just spin off its axis if you even stop moving for five minutes!

My Pastor calls this Living Without Margins. Like when you're driving down the interstate and there's a construction zone with barricades and the flashing yellow lights to one side, a speeding semi-truck on the other and you're driving fast to keep the guy behind you from hitting you. You feel like there are just inches between you and the barricades ... and the truck ... and the guy behind you. You have no margin. If there's an unseen bump in the road, or if that semi moves even an inch closer ... POW! you're either off the road, or under the truck or smashed into that idiot behind you.

All of a sudden, where ever it is you were going -- that all important task that you were needing to do -- doesn't seem all that important does it?

Many people, including many Christians, live their lives like they are the ones completely responsible for getting everything done. For making enough money to pay all the bills and get your family all those things they feel they just have to have. The thing is, God already owns it all. He has simply blessed us with the ability to use some of it for us to live on.

There's a little boy who gets a weekly allowance of $1. (yeah, I know ... $1 isn't much in today's currency. Bear with me, this is one of those parable things Jesus used to teach, Okay?) His parents wanted to teach him to tithe and to save. So rather than giving him his allowance as a $1 bill, they gave him ten dimes. Each week, he took one dime with him to church and put it in the offering, he put a second dime into his piggy bank, and he could do what he wanted with the other eight dimes! He thought this was pretty cool! He had eight dimes. He could buy candy with them if he wanted to, or a toy or, well, whatever he wanted. He was rich! WHEEEEEEEEEE!!

As the boy grew up, his parents increased his allowance. Even though the boy had more money, his parents made sure that he still put 10% in the offering for his tithe, and 10% into his savings. (Granted, by now Mr. Piggy wasn't quite up to the task, so Mom had taken him to the local bank and opened a savings account) But he still had 80% of his money for what he wanted to do with it.

Then the boy was old enough that his parents decided that rather than giving him an allowance, they would allow him to get himself an after-school job. Each week, the boy would bring home his pay check and with his parents instruction he opened a checking account. So the pay check went into the checking account, the boy wrote a check for his tithe and he put 10% into his savings.

The boy grows some more, and is now a young man. Like most young men, he sees things he'd like to have. He is also gaining more financial responsibilities. His after-school job lead him to his career and he is out on his own.

Daily life gets a little stressful, but the boy young man continues as he was raised, he tithes and he saves, and lives on the remaining 80%. Yeah, there are times when things get a little stressful. It would be nice to have just a little bit more money. So, one day when the young man is making a choice about spending money he thinks, "Well, Pastor says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, He doesn't need MY money." and he starts using his tithe money for other things. But he still puts money into his savings, because you never know when you'll need that for something like an emergency.

Time passes. The young man takes on more and more responsibilities in his work. He meets a wonderful woman and they get married. Now there are more bills, and there's a mortgage payment and there are expenses that he'd never had before. More and more, the man is putting less and less into that savings account. His tithe? He's not tithed in years.

I'm not telling you this story to say that people who don't tithe and who don't save are evil. I'll fully admit that there are times when my own tithe doesn't make it to the offering and the only reason I save regularly is that wonderful invention called "payroll deduction". But let us all consider: Part of the reason God wants us to tithe, aside from that money being used to further His kingdom, is because it teaches us to live with margin. To put our priorities on something other than ourselves.

Malachi 3:10 teaches us that God wants us to let Him show us how He will bless us!

Malachi 3:10"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 you will not have room enough for it."

Now, let me be clear here. I am not speaking of what is called the "prosperity gospel", where if you give God your 10%, He'll give you a trunk full of cash. I'll be honest, to me that is nothing more than white-washed greed trying to pass itself off as righteousness.

What I am talking about is the fact that God will bless your life in ways you've never considered possible. Some of it will be financial. But most of it will be little things (the roast you needed for your groceries was on sale for an absurdly low price or just finding a good parking spot or someone actually offering to hold a door when you've got your hands full).

Too many times in our lives, we feel like we are the ones making all the decisions, and everything has to be done a particular way. But let me remind you (and me), the one who is in charge has been around a whole LOT longer than we have. And He'll be around a LONG time after we've left this earth to join Him in heaven.