Thursday, December 22, 2011

Do You Keep Track of God's Blessings?

This year was tough.  I went most of the year without a regular salary from the church.  I worked a secular job for 5 months to supplement our loss of income.  Our church made a move to a permanent facility.  It cost us a bunch to move and then our attendance and giving promptly took a dive.  That all sounds bad, but did you know that God is faithful?

Do you keep track of God's blessings in your life?  You should.  I do.  I just totaled up the numerical blessings God brought to my family and my church this year (so far).  We do have 9 days left in the year.  Get ready for this.  You might want to sit down.  I'm almost in shock because I had no idea God had been this good to me this year.  (And I'm sure I probably missed some too)

Oh, and let me say that both my family and my church are faithful tithers.  We both also give liberally above the 10% tithe.

God blessed my personal family with $17,066 in cash and gifts that saved us from spending our own cash.  God blessed our church with 33,050 in cash and gifts that came from outside our own church!

All year, neither the church nor my family had a solid plan of how to make the budget work.  Never once did we even consider holding back tithes.  Neither should you.  You can't afford to tithe?  I say you can't afford not to.  It's only a cliche' because it's so true.

I will be spending the remainder of the morning writing thank you notes.  May this stick in your head and in your heart and mess you up today :)

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