God's Economy Archives - Page 14 of 14

Hello World!!!

The weather in the A is crazy, huh? It’s either tropical and raining or frigid and dry…Today is one of the colder days…somewhere in the 20s…that just ain’t right….

Anyway, let me get on task. So have you made your resolutions yet? As I said in my last post, it takes me the whole month of January to come up with suitable resolutions or more appropriately, goals. Some of my goals for the year will be concentrated on my finances. It’s an area I would rather not think about actually. This comes from my uneasiness about numbers in general. I think it’s just how I’m wired. I don’t know many journalists who are good with numbers. But alas, I’m 35 on the way to 36, and I still haven’t snagged a baller…so I guess I need to get my Plan B in gear.

But I must say I’m proud of the fact that I have been tithing since I got my first job in the eighth grade. There have been times due to irresponsibility and fear that I have missed tithing a paycheck from time to time, but for the most part, I’m a faithful tither. To tithe is to give ten percent of your income to the church. (One cannot assume that everyone knows what tithing means!) My father drilled it in me that if you give to the Lord what is due Him, He, in turn, will make sure that what is left is more than enough to provide for your needs. There is even a verse that describes this principle.

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Malachi 3:10

My father actually preached on this verse last Sunday. And this verse has been proven true in my life over and over again. A few years ago, I was going through a dark phase in my life. I was in between career jobs if you know what I mean. I was working at a department store in the mean time trying to make ends meet, but inevitably, someone would move the ends, ha, ha! My roommate had moved out leaving me with half of the money I needed to pay for my mortgage. My car had broken down, and I didn’t have the money to fix it. And right after I got the job at the department store, the department store shut down. I was so depressed I swear I didn’t open any bills for a few months. But during that time, nothing was turned off, and nobody came to get anything. I would like to think that my years of tithing had something to do with how the Lord took care of me. And when I finally had the courage to open my bills again, the Lord granted me favor with the bill collectors.

My absolute favorite author Catherine Marshall wrote about her experience with tithing in her book Something More. (How a white woman who could have been a contemporary of my grandmother became my absolute favorite author is a mystery to me, but I just adore her work. FYI – Her work is archived at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. I once spent my birthday reviewing her work at the Agnes Scott College library. Yes, I am quite obsessed…) Anyway, Catherine Marshall’s husband Peter Marshall suddenly died leaving Catherine, who was a housewife, and their young son to fend for themselves. In fact, they had to live off of $171 a month, according to the book. But Catherine decided to even tithe that. And the Lord took care of her. He told her that she was to “pick up [her] pen and edit and write.” Catherine became a best-selling author and has influenced generations with her work. The fact that a black woman with curly red dreads and who knows how to slow wine reads her work is a testament to that. (It’s sooo cold outside that I’m dreaming of being in Jamaica as I sit at my desk.)

So what’s up? Do you tithe? Has God proven to you that He will take care of you if you put Him first? Let me know…

Any thoughts?

P.S. Since Jamaica is on my mind, I have posted a video of one of my favorite Bob Marley songs. It reminds me of watching my dad wash his car on hot Saturday mornings…

Hello World!!!

Whew! We have an extra hour of sleep today, but alas, since I am writing this post, I will have to catch my zzzs later!

With the election just over two days away (Thank You Jesus!), I thought I would tell my story about a Joe I know. Instead of Joe the Plumber, however, my Joe is Joe the Mechanic! Yes, his name is really Joe! I once read a Christian book years years ago, Knight in Shining Armor by P.B. Wilson, in which Wilson described “God’s Economy.” As our Provider, according to Wilson, one of the ways that God provides for us is through Gifts-in-Kind, which is “goods or services that God gave you through other people. For example, you moved into a new apartment and the manager waived your security deposit of $200.” After I read this passage, I started looking for ways that God blessed me with breaks through random people.

So nearly 10 years ago, I was sitting in a Honda dealership staring blankly into space as I pondered how I was going to cough up the $500 or so, maybe even a bit more, that I would need to pay to get my cracked head gasket in my black Civic (R.I.P. Black Beauty) fixed. After a few minutes, I figured that I would just ask my Dad to pay for it and pay him back later. However, as I stared, this woman came over to me said something like, “You know I heard them tell you how much it was going to cost to fix your car and that was outrageous! You know what I do? I just bring my car to the dealership and let them tell me what’s wrong with it, and then I bring it to my mechanic, Joe. And he fixes it for a whole lot cheaper. He’s a certified mechanic, and he’s honest. I can give you his pager number if you like.”

I looked at the woman and said, “Thank you. I will probably get the dealership to fix my car this time, but I will keep his number for the future.” So the woman wrote down his number on a slip of paper and handed it to me. I’m not the type of person that goes around getting recommendations from people for various services, but for some reason I just knew that I would be calling this Joe the mechanic in the future. And since my Civic was getting old at that point and it was nearly paid for (y’all know how that is), all kinds of stuff started malfuctioning and Joe became my mechanic. I would go to the dealership to get the problem diagnosed and then I would bring my car over to Joe’s house where he would fix the problem for a fraction of the cost quoted to me.

If you’ve been anywhere near my car lately, you have heard the brakes squeaking, and since I recently have come back from two trips, I didn’t want to think about shelling out more cash to get them fixed. So what has been my antidote? Y’all, I promise you that I have just been turning up my radio and acting like I don’t hear anything. And then when you have the nerve to look at me crazy while my car is squawking, I just start moving my lips like I’m singing the song playing on the radio and I don’t see you. (Wow, I was crazy embarassed while I was backing out of a long driveway last weekend, and my car was squawking the whole way. It would have been cool if people hadn’t come out of the house to help me back out because apparently, it is still a challenge for me.)

Anywho, when I went to the Honda dealership last week to get my oil changed, the oh-so concerned mechanic guy comes over to me in the waiting area and gives me a shopping list of services that need to be done ASAP. When I just stare at him expressionless and he realizes that I will not be buying into his hysterics, he said, “Well I know you heard those breaks squeaking and they do need to be fixed immediately.” I said, “I have, and I know they need to be fixed. Ima get my mechanic friend to fix them this weekend.” “If they can last that long,” he said loudly. (He ain have to say that like that.) Then he gives me a sheet of paper outlining the costs of his recommendations. I hone in on the cost to fix the front brakes: $199 plus tax. Relatively speaking $200 is not a large amount of money, but when you have other pending bills – (In a perfect world, the speed limit would always be 80 mph on the highway…), you have to watch yourself.

So that was Monday. So I finally called Joe on Thursday. (ever the procrastinator!) I told Joe what was up with my brakes.

“So much you gon charge me Joe,” I said to him.

“$50,” he replied. (Side note – Joe always tells me what parts to buy at AutoZone, and he just charges me for the labor!)

“Really,” I said. “If I knew that it was going to be that cheap, I would have called you a while ago.”

He just chuckled in his men-don’t-like-to-waste-words way.

And since we’ve become friends over the years, sometimes he just comes to my house, picks up my car and takes it back to his house to fix like he did yesterday morning. And yes, he likes to flirt with me and occasionally ask me out, but it’s all good. He’s not pushy or anything so I say something like “Stop playin’,” and that’s enough for him to not ask me out again until the next time I see him. Of course, recently, he told me that I was probably too old for him now. However, he added that since I look younger than my age, he could make an exception for me…

So there you have it. In God’s Economy, He loves to bless you through other people. So it’s not only about what you think you have, it’s also about what God has… The possibilities are endless! That’s comforting to remember in these turbulent economic times…

Any thoughts?

P.S. That picture is not actually a pic of Joe!