Every fall our pastor, Eddie, talks about being a good steward of your money. He always challenges our people to tithe for 3 months and see what God does. The promise is that if God doesn't bless you, then you can have all of your money back. Never once has he had to give the money back. His goal is to show us that we can't out give God.

Growing up VERY poor, the management of our finances is very important to me. When we got married, my friend Stephanie recommended that we read a Dave Ramsey book that she and her husband were using. In the last year or so, Bryan and I finally got on the same page about the finances and agreed to start using Dave's debt snowball. One of the first things he talks about is giving 10%. Bryan and I had always given regularly, but it wasn't always the first thing.

As a part of the church staff, it is of utmost importance that we lead by example. Bryan and I not only made a plan to get out of debt, but committed to giving first. This year, that has been a top priority. Even when bills would have to wait or the savings would have to be tapped, we wrote the tithe check first. Sometimes, a lot of times, it hurt.

Using the debt snowball, at the end of February we had only 4 debts besides our house. As of Saturday, we are down to two. On Friday, both Bryan and I got paid, so our bills were taken care of for the end of the month. Bryan checked the mail that afternoon and there were two unexpected checks that pretty much doubled our income for that pay period. It paid off two of the four remaining debts with enough left to make an extra payment on one of the others.

On top of all of that, we went to dinner that night and our bill was about $17. When we went to check out, I gave the girl a $20 and she gave me $10 back. I started to walk away and realized that she had given me the wrong change. I went back and told her and she redid the bill twice. The computer did the same thing every time and only charged us for $9 worth of the food. The girl assured me that her drawer would come up right and that she would not be in trouble for the charge as it was.

I was amazed at how God blessed us! Eddie sure knew what he was talking about. You can't out give God and He will not let your faithfulness go unrewarded.