90 days in the wilderness
Just three months ago, my church launched a 90-day tithing challenge. It was a call to trust in God that He would provide for us beyond our imagination. As I sat in the audience, I thought, ‘Well, what more could He do for me that He’s not already doing… I tithe, I trust, that’s not a challenge’. But the Spirit spoke to me, ‘Just because you already tithe and trust doesn’t mean you can’t ask for more. Perhaps the problem is not so much that you don’t believe, but that you are trusting Him with all the small stuff.’
I pulled out the bulletin insert and wrote ‘I’m taking the 90-day tithing challenge’. I wrote out a check for ‘ten percent’ and tossed it in the tithe bucket with my declaration. As it turns out, my sister couldn’t afford rent or her cell phone bill this month. So upon returning home, I wrote another check in the amount of her bills. As the next few Sundays flew by, people from the church climbed the stage to share their testimony of how God was providing in miraculous ways for their families since taking ‘the challenge. But 30 days in, I was beginning to feel the weight of my commitment as my sister couldn’t afford another month’s worth of rent or the phone bill. I wrote out my challenge check and spotted her the cash with my part-time wages, with trust that God was going to make everything alright.
60 days in, more extraordinary testimonies were being delivered at church; still not one had come to pass for me. I did begin to feel a heavy burden, though, for the particular situation I was living in. It was a few months’ worth of harbored hurts that all began to stack up in my heart until I reached for a pen and wrote a letter to my landlord as notice of my departure. I had no place to go or any money to fall on, but I heard Him say this was the right thing to do.
As it turns out, my sister couldn’t afford rent or her phone bill for the third month in a row. So very shakily, I wrote the check for the challenge and cleaned out the rest of my savings to keep a roof over our heads. It was now mid-month; I still had no place to go. I remember sitting in front of the fireplace with my spiritual mentor talking about some of the deeper convictions I had been facing, when she stopped me and said, “You know, Trisha, God is just placing it on my heart to tell you that my husband and I have a spare bedroom in our home if you’d want to stay with us. Pray about it and let me know what you decide.” Well, it didn’t take too much prayer to know immediately this was what I had been waiting for! One last thing, what about my house full of ‘stuff’? Well, it turns out the church had a single-car garage empty and offered it up as a place to store everything free of charge. In one week, everything I owned was packed up and stored away, and I had a new address. As I went to the pastor to share my 90-day tithe testimony, he said, “Do you realize today wraps up the last day of the challenge?” My desperation knew I was close, but my faith didn’t care. I tested Him, and He came through just like He says He will.
One last thing to note… one of my biggest struggles is patience 😉 God knew exactly what He was doing when He made me wait. It was all in His timing, and in the end, with the enemy of time, logic, and fear staring me in the face, I learned to trust Him, lean on Him, and demonstrate a radical hope and faith in His promise.