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.
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.
