piv·ot point: The point at which something pivots, changes, or turns (my definition)
This Sunday we kickoff our new marriage campaign I DO…Not Anymore at New Passion. As I’ve been preparing for the messages I was thinking about some of the pivot points in my own marriage. Nicki and I got married young and we face our share of struggles, but by God’s grace we celebrated 10 years of marriage last November. Throughout this series I will post about some of these pivot points we’ve made that were positive moves in our marriage.
This first pivot point was a subtle change that we felt led to make early in our marriage but the results and benefits of this change have lasted us and have been experienced over and over throughout our marriage.
PIVOT POINT #1: Shifted from tithing on our net income to our gross income.
Money has never really been an issue of contention with Nicki and me (We’ve had short spats, but no big brawls). When we first got married we had plenty of money. We never questioned how we were going to pay our bills and the term “pay check to pay check” was foreign to us. We always had money in the bank, we had new(er) cars and a nice house.
But, everything has to change at some point right? The life of financial ease would not last very long.
We were giving a tithe to God. A tithe is 10% of the income God provides to us. However, we were giving a tithe on our net income, meaning that when we got paid we were giving Blue Cross Blue Shield their share first, the U.S. Government their share second, and then God 10% of what was left over.
We heard a pastor preach a message about the tithe being the first fruit and how it should be our response to God’s goodness to us. In worshiping God through our tithe our best would be giving back to him that first fruit from the total of what he has blessed us with. I had never really been taught what was what. I had friends who were giving their tithe after paying all of their bills. This message not only struck home with Nicki and me, but also with some of our friends.
Nicki and I decided that we were going to start worshiping God with our tithe from the gross of what he had blessed us with. Because symbolically, we wanted God to be first in our money and first in our home. This was the best way we could demonstrate this to God.
A Back Story – – – (I am not presenting a prosperity gospel) – – I believe when we did this God communicated something to us. Here’s how. I had a four wheeler that I bought but never got to ride. So, I placed it in the IWANTA to sell it. Several weeks had passed and I heard nothing. The day Nicki and I decided to start tithing on our gross (with the right motivations) I had a phone call from a guy wanting to see the four wheeler. The next day he was at my house looking at it. I tried to start it three times and it wouldn’t start. On the fourth attempt it started. The guy bought the four wheeler that day and didn’t even try to negotiate a lower price.
Does this mean that if we tithe on our gross or tithe at all that God will always act on our behalf and become our personal genie? No! In fact, the impression that I felt God was communicating to me at that moment was this, “If you put me first in everything, I will take care of you (not give me what I want).” Since that day, we followed through with our goal of having Nicki stay at home with the children (up until last year she started working part time at a gift shop). Honestly, we have faced some very dark financial issues since this pivotal day in our marriage. We have had challenges as a family. But God, has sustained us. Are we rich? By America’s standards, no. According to the world’s standards, yes! Do we have the nicest material possessions because of this pivot point? No. Do we have everything together as a family? Far from it. The reality is, this pivot point was not a magic pill to give us everything we wanted.
This pivot point was our communicating and committing to God that he was first in our marriage, our finances and in our home. Even when we didn’t have the money to pay the bills, we put God first. It has not always been easy. But there are undeniable, obvious finger prints of God on my household because he has taken care of us in good times and in bad.
In addition, because we learned these principles in our marriage, they play a huge role at New Passion as well. It was set in our DNA from the very beginning that we would put God first in the church’s finances by giving at least a tithe as a church to missions. God has honored this commitment.
Join the Conversation…Have you had to come to a pivot point in your marriage with God and finances?
I can vividly remember in 2002, a few weeks before Luke and I got married, we decided we needed to write down our finances. In an IHOP on a napkin we wrote down our income and all of our expenses – and there wasn’t enough. In spite of this we made a commitment that we would give God His first and trust that He would take care of the rest. And He has. We’ve had times of plenty and times that were much tighter. A few years ago we had more than enough money, were able to give above and beyond, go on nice vacations, etc. It was easy to give then, because we had it. However, more recently it hasn’t quite been that way. In a 2 year period we went from no kids to 4. 2 moves, 2 adoptions, a teenage niece, and a suprise baby has really put more strain on our finances. We’ve had to sacrificially make the decision to give, but I think that is what God wants. He wants to know that we are willing to sacrifice, that we are willing to give Him EVERYTHING. Not only our tithe, but the rest. We are giving Him all of the bills, our home, our cars, and trusting that He will take care of us. It’s hard, but in our almost 9 years of marriage we have always had what we needed – not neccessarily all of our wants. He’s not going to stop taking care of us now.
Thanks for sharing!
I love hearing how God has worked in other people’s marriages and homes.
I think anytime we set out to serve Christ, Satan won’t sit back and make it easy. In our culture the easiest thing to attack is our finances.