GIVING

Going From Two Incomes to One

By Dory Nissen, The 700 Club

CBN.com – Patricia Whitley was tired of trying to balance family and a career.

“The boys would cry in the morning because they wanted to see me,” Patricia said. “My youngest was 18-months at the time. And when I'd come home at bedtime they would fight over me because they wanted to see me. I was gone all the time.”

So she and her husband, John, decided Patricia should quit her high paying sales job. But after she resigned, Patricia became terribly ill and landed in the hospital with large medical bills.

“It was a situation where you start to feel like you are treading water. You are trying to avoid sinking,” John said.

Soon they were tens of thousands of dollars in debt, with no way to pay it off. 

“I felt guilty. I felt embarrassed that it was me who was sick, that it was me who was causing the problem,” Patricia said.
 
As Patricia recovered, she decided to spend time reading her Bible and praying about what God wanted them to do.

“And I remember the example of my family, that they had been tithers forever. So I wanted to go back and set that standard again, from where I came from, and start tithing again. I just wanted a stake in the ground,” Patricia said.

John refused to give their money away.

“I kind of rolled my eyes and said, ‘Look, God is not a slot machine. You don't drop $3 in the plate and expect to get $35 back. That does not happen,’” John said. 

A week later, Patricia was listening to Pat Robertson on The 700 Club.

“His inflection, the tone of his voice, was like he was talking right back to John and he said, ‘I know God is not a slot machine,’” Patricia said.

“This is not some heavenly slot machine; I want to make it very clear,” Pat Robertson said.

“I was so stunned that he had repeated verbatim what my husband had said days before that I just stopped listening and ran to the phone and called The 700 Club to give,” Patricia said. 

Patricia called John and this time, he listened.

“She called me and said, ‘You will not believe what Pat just said.’ And I said, ‘What?’  She said, ‘He said exactly what you said last week,’” John said.

John finally agreed to tithe. The Whitley’s came up with a very tight budget so they’d have extra money to put towards the debt. They also experienced a few money miracles!  Patricia got a bonus from a consulting job she had done a year earlier. And John’s business at the music store picked up substantially. 

“You start to feel like someone is on your team, that someone is on your side. We are winning. It's coming down,” Patricia said.

In six months they paid off nearly $40,000.               

“I was so excited. I was so excited because His Word worked!  I’d given as He’d said, in Malachi, I had tested Him. And He passed!” Patricia said.

God is true to His word! John and Patricia acted in obedience to God's word and were amazed by what He did in their lives. He will amaze you too!

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“To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away." Matthew 25:29 (NLT)

The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives.

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