I’m so excited today to be guest posting on Catholic Link and getting share a little bit about fitting tithing into your budget. I know tithing has been a difficult thing for us and I know that many of my readers struggle with being able to afford tithing even 1% when they really want to tithe the full 10%.
So, I thought I’d share a little bit about how to make fitting tithing into your budget – even when it’s super tight, a reality. To go ahead and read the full post on Catholic Link, head here or read on for a preview.
Growing up, my mom taught my brother and I the importance of managing our money well and how important giving of our time, talents, and treasures was. And, I wish I could tell you that I’ve always managed a budget and did everything I was supposed to do with money, but the cold-hard truth is that I haven’t.
I’ve failed more times than I can count with money but the only way that I’ve been able to get our finances back in order is to go back and rework the budget. Because usually, when we stumble with our money it is because we’ve failed to manage the budget properly (or if we’re being really honest, failed to actually create the budget in the first place).
When we don’t budget, we have no idea how much money we have or don’t have.
A budget is a focus of trust and confidence in God when times are both plentiful and hard. It is a practical prayer for God’s provision through Jesus’ promise: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things” (Matthew 6:32) because God does indeed know what we need, but without a budget we don’t know and thus we allow the world to tell us what we need.
In other words, we may think that we need new clothes and we may think that we have the room in our budget for it, but without actually sitting down and counting the cost before we go shopping, guess what? We don’t know if we have the money to actually go shopping with.
Isn’t this exactly what Luke 14:28 talks about? We must sit down and calculate the cost BEFORE we spend the money. We are called to be wise and good stewards of our money because when we are we can glorify God through our good works. But we can also glorify God when we raise up and regain control over our money.
To continue reading, please head here.
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