A Test of Faith

God has spoken some fairly incredible promises over our finances. On the heels of those promises have been opportunities for obedience and tests of faith. The test I am sharing about here was one of the most difficult tests…

First Fruits vs Tithe

Honestly, I never really understood the difference between first fruits and tithes. I had always thought they were the same thing. In January 2006, my pastor taught on first fruits though and really made the difference clear.

In short (for those who may not already know), it’s easiest to think of first fruits as in harvest. So, if you planted a crop of tomatoes and lets say that you have 10 tomatoes that get ripe first – that is your first fruit. So you offer all 10 to God – holding nothing back – in expectation that He will provide abundantly. The next group that gets ripe might also be 10 – this time though, you would give a tithe (1).

So how does that translate into modern life? Well, when you get a raise – the difference between your normal check and the new check with the raise would be an example of a first fruits offering.

I’ve heard of people who give their first paycheck each year as a first fruits offering. In our case, we had never given a first fruits offering, so we took it to God and asked Him what we were to give.

Our First First-Fruit Offering

As I asked the Lord what our first first-fruit offering should be I sensed God was asking us to do something significant (at least for us!). I was thinking it was to be my bonus check from work – a large amount of money for us. I kept my thought to myself and asked my husband what he was sensing – expecting confirmation if I was correct.

Over the next week or so, I continued to ask my husband what the Lord was saying to him on this topic. But he hadn’t gotten an answer yet.

In the meantime, we had found out we had a sizable tax refund coming… about three times the size of the bonus! We had been praying about where the tithe from that was going to go. We had not had to wait long for our answer on that – a precious young lady from our church (Maria) was planning a short-term mission trip to Honduras. She needed money to buy a ticket 🙂 We both immediately sensed she was to have the money and we told her so.

In her excitement she began sharing about God’s call on her life. She was called to be a full-time missionary, but had a student loan that was holding her back. As we left that evening – I grabbed Allen’s hand and prayed a quick prayer – “Lord, I would love to help Maria with that student loan – if you can make a way for us to do that it would be awesome! I just pray that debt would be removed in Jesus’ name!”

A couple days later, Allen called me at work and said he’d finally heard from God on the first fruits. God had told him that I thought it was my bonus check, but it wasn’t (already I was floored!) – God had told Allen that we were to give the whole tax refund to Maria to pay off her student loan and give her about half what she needed for her Honduras airfare.

Confirmations

I did a big gulp – you see, I’d done the math and the tax refund was enough to take care of all the things we’d needed to do – we could have done without the bonus money, but to do without the tax refund was truly an act of faith!

Even as we prayed for wisdom and confirmation – more confirmation came – God supernaturally brought up a picture of her on my computer screen. I work in information technology – I am aware of what is possible and what God did was not possible!  And more confirmations came after that.

As I reasoned out in my head giving her the money – I knew cutting the check would leave us with about $17 and change in our account until payday. I thought to myself “I guess we’ll just live on credit cards until then.”

When we gave Maria the money she was overwhelmed – you see God had told her that her family in Christ would step in and would help with things like this… it had seemed impossible that anyone would, but with God NOTHING is impossible!

The Next Step – Freeze the Credit Cards

Still on the high of stepping out in faith – God followed it up with instructions to completely stop using credit cards. We literally put them in a block of ice in the freezer!

This was a big step because we were cash poor – but we were trusting God to show up.

That spring we’d taken the Crown Financial Ministries class. We’d always known that we were walking by faith being in our home (see Tithing and holding out on God) – the house was always held open in our hand ready for God to move us, but each month – He provided… we’d just never know exactly how much! During the class we discovered that we were running between $500-$1000 short each month! How incredible that each moth God provided the difference! (Note: let me just say I am not advocating going into heavy debt and then looking to God to fix it – however, in this case we found ourselves there, repented, were obedient with that which we had and God showed up!)

A Test of Faith

The First Fruit offering had taken a chunk out of our cash. As the end of May approached, we realized we did not have enough to pay June’s mortgage. We waited fully expecting God to show up just as He always did – especially after our big leap of faith!

Only the money didn’t come by June 1. It wasn’t there by the time the late fees were applied on June 16th. And by the end of June when we still hadn’t paid it and weren’t ready to pay July’s either… well, let’s just say my faith was being stretched!

Allen and I pressed in in prayer daily. We asked God for correction if we had acted wrongly. We sought Him with all our hearts. The only correction we recieved was a word from a prophetic friend who said “God says stop worrying! You’re dealing with doubt and unbelief.”

We knew it sounded crazy, but we felt like God had put us in this specific position as a test… we didn’t know what kind of test or why, but we felt it was His hand and we were simply to trust.

Right at that time, God came through with a smaller financial miracle – but it again confirmed that this test was from God.

Feeling Stupid

By the end of July, I was feeling really stupid. I knew in the natural what we were doing made no sense, but we both kept sensing that God was saying don’t try to fix it – just wait on me. All the words God would send our way lined up with this. Yet I felt stupid!

One day God sent a word of correction to me – He said, “Who are you to feel stupid about where I have put you?” Wow! It totally opened my eyes and freed me up to simply rest where He had me.

Fire Getting Hot!

The beginning of August arrived with letters of impending foreclosure. We still sensed that we were to wait on Him as crazy as that might seem to some. We were convinced either He would come through with the finances or a foreclosure officer needed to know about Jesus! 🙂

A friend who I had shared our situation with emailed me with some rather harsh words about what we were doing. Challenging that there was no way that God would do this. It devastated me! Through the heavy flow of tears I heard the Lord ask me who I was going to believe… Him or someone else?

I asked Him about my credit rating… and He told me where He was taking us it didn’t matter – that I just needed to have faith.

God is Faithful

In mid-August, two days before official foreclosure proceedings against us began we received an unexpected check that paid our full past due amount and all the way up through October! Praise God! He had shown up just like He said He would… and our level of faith had increased in the process… that’s for sure!

Conclusion

Sometimes we are called to take big steps of faith. No matter how big – God’s faithfulness is bigger.

In my mind – this story is only part of the testimony – there will be more coming as God continues in His faithfulness to bring forth the promises as He has given them