TITHING
My mother was the organist for our congregation during my entire growing up years. We lived in a small town, and for most of those years there were no other people in our church who could play the organ. So, my mother managed that assignment quite single-handedly. It was also her responsibility to choose the hymns for our worship services.
Not only did I hear the
hymns often in my home, but my mother arranged for my piano teacher (who was
the organist in her Methodist congregation) to use our church’s hymnbooks in my
own piano instruction. With that
arrangement I had two-fold opportunity to become very familiar with the
hymns.
Even as a little girl, I had
my favorites: Battle Hymn of the
Republic, Praise to the Man, There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today, and Gently
Raise the Sacred Strain, among others. And…
Abide with Me. Actually, there are two
hymns in our hymnal— Abide with Me, Tis Eventide, and Abide with Me, each composed
by a different person. I liked them
both—first for the melody with the words, and then as I got older for the text
message that gives such heartfelt petition for the Savior to abide with us.
I have always been taught that the Savior will abide with us (stay nearby and succor us) as we
continually strive to strengthen our individual relationship with Him while keeping
our covenant connection to Him. This is
the foundation rock we choose to build our lives on. It is the source of enduring hope, peace, and
joy, just as we sing in those two hymns.
We abide in the Savior’s love by keeping
His commandments.
Curious to know if I had successfully
taught this principle of “abiding” to my children, I sent a message to 19 of my
children and grandchildren asking what their experiences have been in the
correlation of their keeping the commandments and having the Savior abide with
them. All who responded gave pretty much
the same response—their lives go more smoothly, and their trials and setbacks
have the proper perspective because they know the Lord is abiding with them.
I, too, could think of so many general ways I
have been blessed with the abiding presence of Christ as I have kept “the
commandments”. There is always an almost
imperceptible feeling that Christ is nearby.
But I also remembered
some very specific times I have kept a singular commandment that brought added
testimony of the Savior’s love and abiding influence.
This is one of those lessons in obedience to a commandment:
One summer between school
years at Brigham Young University, my bishop, who owned a construction company,
invited me to work part-time in the office at his business. It was a great job. However, the office was
in a rather isolated part of our town where there were only industrial concerns
like the construction company, the local cement plant, a distribution
warehouse, and a lumber yard. No
residential areas at all. So completely off the beaten path, in fact, no one ever wandered through that complex.
The door to the office where I worked was in front of my desk and in direct eye-line with the gravel lot
where I parked my car. Mine was usually the only car in that place all day long. And, since we were all a friendly lot in our town, no one
bothered to lock car doors. Including
me. I would even leave my purse on the
front seat of the car because there was no obvious need for me to take it into the office with me. What would I use it for?
One day near the end of the summer, I parked my car in front of the office leaving my purse on the front seat, as usual.
However, on this particular day there was a twenty-dollar bill in my purse which was my
tithing money.* Why in the world did I
have that in my purse? I don’t have a clue. However, as
I got into the car to go home for lunch, I had a thought to look into my purse. Much to my horror, the money was gone!
Who could have taken it? While sitting at my desk that morning I could see my car the whole time. No one had opened the car door and then opened my purse. In fact, no one ever came around that area anyway. We were literally in the boonies.
As I shared the crushing news with my mother that I now had no money to pay my tithing, she gently suggested that I go to the bank and withdraw another $20 to pay my tithing—and that the Lord would provide. But HOW was I going to have enough money to pay for my housing expense when I went back to BYU? Twenty dollars was one month’s rent!
But I knew my mom was right. I had paid a full tithing on all the money I had earned over the years babysitting, delivering newspapers and taking in ironing. It was an established habit. Yet this was a tough way to compensate for my stupidity.
Almost reluctantly, I went to the bank
to withdraw the $20. And wisely kept the money on my person until I turned it into our bishop at church the following Sunday.
It was too embarrassing to
tell my bishop/employer what a foolish thing I had done. Leaving my purse in the car—with my tithing money in it, no less.
I kept that to myself. I was too humiliated to admit my folly!
Yet, quite surprisingly a couple of weeks later, my bishop/employer came into the office and told me that he had been really pleased with my work that summer. He had decided to increase my pay by twenty-five cents an hour. In 1965 the
minimum wage was one whole dollar. So, a 25-cent raise was significant!!!
When it was time for me to return to college, and I tallied up my earnings, that $.25/an hour was just exactly—to the
PENNY—enough to make up the $20 I had taken out of my savings account to pay my
tithing.
The Lord had remembered my need and
provided a way to pay my rent because I had been obedient to that very important commandment of tithing as part of my
covenant promise to him.
I am a witness that same outcome of obedience continues to be true in my life. I
know without doubt that Jesus Christ abides in us as we choose to make Him the foundation
of all we do.
Obedience is a blessing....
*(Tithing is a "free-will offering" of 10 % of a person's "increase" which is given to the church. In this day and age tithing in paid in monetary equivalents.)
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