To Give or Not to Give...

This is a short personal story written by my friend, Sam...


"Years ago when my wife and I were in seminary, the whole question of tithing came up in a class I was taking. Given that the class had folks from all over the theological spectrum, the conversation was pretty intense. While most everyone concluded that '10%' was 'the number', it was fascinating to see how many had never actually done it and the reasons why they hadn't.


My wife and I talked about it at home. We both grew up in families that not only tithed, but gave over and above whenever the church had a campaign or new ministry endeavor. We were pretty familiar with the whole concept. However, we were also very poor seminarians. We could barely -- and I mean, barely - make ends meet as we ate hot-dog and Kool-Aid dinners in our one-bedroom apartment on the 'living room' floor. Yet, we felt compelled to tithe, especially since we were studying to become ministers.

And so, we did. It wasn't too long later that the holiday season was upon us. We really wanted to fly home to see our family, but the cost of tickets were beyond what we could afford. We were $350 short. So, we started making plans -- albeit, disappointing ones -- on spending Christmas by ourselves without family around. We never mentioned our $350 shortfall to anyone, but instead attempted to plan to make the most of things they way they were.

A few weeks later, I was on campus and had just finished class when I decided to stop by the campus post office to pick up our mail. In the mail there was an envelope with no return address. I sat down on the bench nearby and opened it. I almost fell off the bench when, to my surprise, a cashier's check for $350 made out to us when located inside. Again, no name or indication of who it was from... just a completely anonymous act of love given to us.

I ran home to share it with my wife, who couldn't believe it, either. To this day, we have no idea who sent the money. Well... I take that back, Actually, we do know. The Lord gave the money. And I am sure the Lord gave someone the wonderful blessing of blessing us and I have no doubt it brought a great joy to them to do so.

Gifts like that get remembered... for a long, long time.

Now, I have no idea if such a gift was related to our tithing. Who knows? Maybe someone had prayed about blessing someone that Christmas and we were the ones the Lord led into his/her heart. Who knows?

But this one thing I do know -- and I have never forgotten the lesson... God's eye really is on the sparrow. And I can forever trust that...