6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
For most of my life I have been anxious! Queen of the “what-ifs”, but I have learned to give thanks to the Lord in all things. Before, I would always ASK the Lord for everything, and if I had time, I would thank Him for what He did for me. A godly man spoke over my husband and I a few years ago that in our later years of life, we don’t really need much of anything, so why not spend most of our prayer time thanking God for all our blessings. This was a revelation for me, and I have changed my prayer life by thanking Him first, and if I have time, I ask Him for things. The good thing about this is I don’t seem to need much by the end of my prayers.
7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7
This was a hard-fought battle for me. I know a lot of you know that I came from a very poor family, broken home, and a spirit of poverty hung very heavily over my home as a child. We didn’t have much, so MY money was very precious to me. When I became a Christian and was told I needed to give 10 percent of MY money to God…really?! I had been living paycheck to paycheck for many years, so let me tell you the way I learned the lesson of giving to the Lord cheerfully.
During our building campaign at Harvest when we were planning to buy and restore the old Kmart building, we were given the opportunity to give over and above our tithe for a 3-year commitment. I was giving, but somewhat begrudgingly in my heart. That spirit of poverty had become a spirit of selfishness. But I was learning that ALL that I have belongs to God, not just the tithe.
We were asked to pledge what we felt we could to our building campaign. Of course, our expectations were pretty low. After all, they said “what we felt we could give.” When we filled out the form and wrote the amount we had agreed on, I felt okay but felt that it was going to be difficult for us. We did pray about it. Later, we got a letter in the mail from the church thanking us for pledging. When we read the amount that was on the letter it was considerably more than we had agreed on. I knew that we didn’t write that amount. Maybe it was a typo?
But what do you do? We didn’t feel we could call the church and say there was an error. So, we earnestly prayed and told God that if that amount was what we were supposed to give, He would have to help us. We really had to surrender everything to Him and repent for our selfishness.
Let me tell you the best part of this story. We continued to surrender to God daily. We had 3 years to pay this pledge off, and can I tell you that we paid it ALL in about 2 years as we continued to give our tithe faithfully? But there is more. We kept asking God to guide us in our finances to become debt-free. We sold the house we were in at the time, bought a new house (to us), and in a couple more years we paid off our house, car, and all other debts we owed. We were debt-free, all praise and glory be to God. We did not do anything but surrender and obey. God did the rest. Looking back, I believe with all my heart God put that amount there on our pledge.
At times when that spirit of poverty creeps back in, I remember what God did for us to teach us about giving with a cheerful heart. I repent and give thanks to Him.
Now that we are in another building campaign, we are still trusting God to help us give as much as He wants us to, and we know He will bless our giving.
Rejoice always. Pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17
Thank You Jesus for loving us so much!
We want to thank Debbie Crosby for sharing this post.
Women's Ministry 