"Ate it" is tithe spelled backwards

Do you read all the posts from other people on the 10-for-10 challenge? If you haven't, head over on this link and check them out. Here's one that I posted this past week:

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Allow me a story. When I was a wee lil' boy (oh, I was at one time), baseball was my thing. The spring melt was the time of the year I lived for. Pulling out the mitt from storage, otherwise known as buried in the closet, getting out the cap and getting into shape. I lived in a house with a design that put some of the roofing tiles on the front, and that was my backstop. In fact, here's a pic of that very house - granted, the roof was black at the time. For hours I threw a rubber ball off the house, knowing every location on it and where I could get a line drive, pop-up, one hopper - you name it.

When the bushes in front ate the ball (I see they have since been removed in that picture, but trust me - they were some evil bushes), I would bike to the Certified with a couple quarters to get a replacement. Then the call from the coach after Little League draft, biking to practices with my glove over the handle bars, uniform top, pants and stirrups (real ballplayers wear the pants bloused with just the right amount of sock showing)...what a summer! Season ending didn't stop the throwing off the house. Baseball was life for me. It was what defined me through my young years.

I hit 15, and I hit the bench. That was the first time I had ever watched a game from the dugout (unless you count the 3 innings I missed after I tore up my knee stealing home). Baseball....was boring. It just didn't thrill me anymore. When I did get off the bench, I would make one dumb, boneheaded play after the next. I doubt hit more than .200 that season, dropping from almost .500. It wasn't fun anymore, so I stopped playing, moved to soccer and grew up. I came back to my love of baseball about 15 years ago. I look at those two decades without basball and think of what I missed - the joys, thrills, agonies, and heartbreaks.

So you are reading this and thinking "Ok Magellan - guide this ship in and tell me what baseball has to do with tithing." My point is this - without baseball, I lost a part of myself. At the time, I didn't realize what I had turned from. Soccer isn't Satan, per se (unless you are Man United). It's just that with baseball so much of who I was, when I finally saw it gone, I felt empty and incomplete.

67. That's the number Dave, Tim and Jon have told us. 67% do not know Jesus. How many of those 67% don't have joy or thrills or agonies or heartbreaks? Jesus never said it would be easy. He just said to follow Him and he won't abandon us. So I have heartbreak - Jesus will carry me through. I experience joy - thank you Jesus for loving me, even when I forgot to love You. I even think 67% might be low. I wonder how many of the other 33% work towards a full and complete relationship with Jesus. I tithe not just to thank an Awesome God and show how He is my love. I tithe so someone else can have the chance to listen, and move, when a gentle whisper tells them their life can be so much more.