A Difficult Decision
Today at church was great. We had an awesome service and discussed a passage in Mark 6. After the services, I went to a Bethany Women’s Fellowship Salad Luncheon. I met some great women there and I even got a few more sources and leads for one of my articles. I also found out about a women’s retreat that has been planned for spring and I am really looking forward to it a lot. So today was a blessing in a lot of ways.
However, along with these blessings came a big decision. Today, Bethany Church was collecting a special offering for several missionaries that they support. The offering was taken to go towards their Christmas fund for these missionairies. They had to start collecting now because they’re mailing it and it’s going to take a long time to actually reach the missionaries across the world. When the pastor was talking about this, the Lord struck me with a thought and then a heavy conviction. I could hardly remember the last time I tithed. I mean, sure part of this could be because I haven’t had a steady job in a while, so I didn’t exactly have anything to tithe with. (And this isn’t even technically ‘my’ home church, right?) But then again, I have been going to concerts and activities in which I managed somehow to scrape up the money to attend. Why wasn’t I putting that much effort into giving back to God that which He had given me? What makes a concert or anything else of that nature, so much more worthy of my cash? Besides, doesn’t it say in the Bible that if we give to God’s church, He will surely reward us? I knew right away what I had to do. And to be quite honest, I’m ashamed to say that it was really really hard. A friend of mine had gone out of his way to get tickets to a Dashboard Confessional concert this Monday. I love Dashboard and I was really really looking forward to going. I didn’t even really have the money for the ticket, but somehow I scraped it up. I had even planned on getting a t-shirt. (the t-shirt I had suffered a great deal of regret over last time because I didn’t buy it. Seriously, I was so angry with myself because I didn’t get one!) Anyhow, God was telling me that I needed to give that up and give the money to the church. I was thinking “Why God? You know I wanted to go to this concert really bad.” But deeper behind that voice of questioning, I knew it was what I needed to do. So I’m writing a check for the amount of the ticket plus the amount I was planning to spend on a t-shirt, and I’m mailing it to the church.
What’s even harder though is that I feel absolutely terrible about not going because my friend who got the ticket for me was looking forward to going with me. I haven’t been able to tell him why I can’t go. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to tell him. So I’m praying heavily about that. (that’s why I put a lock on this entry) I pray he’s able to find somebody else to go. I’ve told a few girls on my floor about it. They love Dashboard too, so I know they’d appreciate going even if it is with a stranger. I feel so bad! But yet, I feel like this is something I’ve been commanded to do. IT’S SO HARD! Grrrr… Lord, please show me Your reasoning in all of this and ease my heart!
