I Must Tithe?
I was saved on Jan 16, 2005. The following week, my follow upper came to my house and guided me on how to be a new believer, what I should do, how to do it… Being new and lost, I thank God for FGT’s step-by-step guidance for new Christians and for giving me a great follow upper aka mentor. My mentor is sister Gaik Suan and during the 3rd lesson on tithing, I gave her a blank look… It was a BIG SHOCK to me that I have to tithe i.e. to give back to God 10% of my income. That night, I was very angry that I became a Christian. “This is ridiculous! I don’t even have 10% of my income to keep as savings, how can I or why should I give away 10% of my income?!”
For weeks, I felt ‘geram’ (angry). I googled, talked to my Christian friends and to non believers. I needed to hear their input. I was furious with that tithing command. And it kept dominating my thoughts. My mentor asked me to challenge God on this topic and allow Him to guide me. My best friend, Doreen, advised me to ask help from God. So one day, I told God that after working for more than 10 years, I have no savings at all and no emergency funds as well. I told God I will start to tithe. It’s going to be a very painful process for me. All this while, my hard earned money is ‘my money’. Now I have to change and learn to bless a big portion of my income to the house of God.
The first Sunday when I needed to put my tithe envelope into the red bag, I was extremely ‘sakit hati’; it was very painful! As I struggled with God on this, I slowly learnt to let go. I learnt it is a blessing to be able to give away some of my money to others, to help the community and the church. My new behaviour and mindset changed my attitudes towards materials things. Now that I have less money to spend, I actually have to be more careful spending on ‘luxury items’ and not to spend unnecessarily. I must say I have learned to value my money better. I have learnt not to be so possessive over ‘my’ money. I felt great being able to bless the church, bless the community and do my little small part to influence and bring good deeds to the society around me. I am not living in ‘my world’ only. I am living for others also, this makes me happy.
After the painful tithing, the next month, I went for a business trip to USA. I met my US team and manager. One day, my manager called me for a face to face meeting to tell me some good news. He managed to get a budget to give me a retention bonus. This was to motivate me to continue working for Intel, as I had one of the critical skills at that moment. This benefit has so far been given only to my US colleagues and has never been offered to any Malaysian employee. But somehow my manager managed to get approval from the US as well as the Malaysian HR.
This great news came to me at the right time. What does that mean to me? All of a sudden, I have my emergency funds! And I officially opened my first FD account!
What did I learn? I reckon that when I finally learnt the true meaning of tithing, to give it willingly & cheerfully and to seek help from God, God knows my heart and God made ways to help me through. I don’t give with the intention of getting a reward. I give because God blessed me with 90% of the income. He also blessed me in many areas, non-financially. For that I am very thankful, and I am glad to do my little part of bringing my tithe to His house so that others in need can be blessed.
Tai Kim Chin
Full Gospel Tabernacle, Subang Jaya
