God's Preparations
Las Preparaciones del Señor
by
Mary Hunt Webb
Posted Friday, May 31, 2019
We had a stove similar to this one when I was growing up, and felt blessed to have one with a temperature gauge on the oven. Our previous oven hadn't had one. [Photographer: Rick Roberson. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
Somehow, growing up poor didn't seem to me to be preparation for the future, but it was. Because I learned as a child and teenager how to make do without luxuries, I was prepared for events that lay ahead.
One that I remember well came about a year after Morris and I married. I was still working on my bachelor's degree and was taking a required course in education that was only offered in the evening at the urban university where I was studying. One of my classmates and I discovered that we lived not far from each other so we agreed to carpool. That meant that we wouldn't be walking alone across campus in the evenings. Like me, she hadn't been married long, but her perspective was different from mine. Unlike me, she had experienced the benefits of growing up in a carpeted, air-conditioned home that her parents owned and in which she had had her own room. That home included an electric dishwasher as well as a washer and dryer for clothes. With two cars in their garage, there was always transportation available for any activity she needed to attend. In the company of her parents and siblings, she had enjoyed summer vacations. She hadn't needed to work after school or during summers, as I had, because her needs were met. She hadn't experienced money worries until she married her sweetheart.
As my friend described the financial conflicts she had with her young husband, I began to understand how blessed I had been to grow up with so little. Morris and I never argued about money because we both knew how to economize. As a young married couple, the air-conditioned apartment we lived in had central heat instead of a floor furnace like the one I remembered while growing up. I had never had an electric dishwasher before and now I did. Although laundry facilities were in a separate building that was part of our apartment complex, I did not have to walk several city blocks to a Laundromat, as I had done with my mother when I was growing up. Because we hadn't owned a car, Mother and I walked, rode a bus, or went with courteous neighbors for whom we babysat or carried out other tasks. With no transportation and little money, Mother and I had not been able to take vacations. As I listened to my car-pooling classmate, I realized that God had been preparing me for marriage all those years, and I hadn't even realized it!
Yes, Morris and I have had some difficult times as a married couple, but we tithed our income and managed our resources as best we could, so that the Lord has blessed us in return. Morris and I began tithing at the start of our marriage and firmly believe that is the reason Morris was never without employment. We developed the habit of tithing early on, and that habit has stayed with us even during tough times. And God has brought us through some very tough times. Psalm 37:25 says, "I was young and now I am old; yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their children begging bread." (NIV)
Consequently, we shouldn't believe a person who says, "I'll tithe when I have a larger income." They are expressing an inability to trust God to provide. They have to see the money first before they give. Believers give before they see sufficient funds to do so, and that faith insures that they will have enough to continue giving.
In Psalm 50:10, God says, "For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills." (NLT) When we trust Him with ten percent of what He has given us, He will trust us with more of His abundance.
BIBLE VERSES FOR THIS POSTING
Psalm 37:25 — I was young and now I am old; yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their children begging bread. (NIV)
Salmos 37:25 — Joven fui, y he envejecido, Y no he visto justo desamparado, Ni su descendencia que mendigue pan. (RVR 1960)
Psalm 50:10 — God says, "For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills." (NLT)
Salmos 50:10 — Porque mía es toda bestia del bosque, Y los millares de animales en los collados. (RVR 1960)
I have been known to pray, "Lord, since You own the cattle on a thousand hills, could You please sell off a couple and use the money to get me through my current difficulties?" [Photographer: Robert Owen Wahl. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com.]
