I was working on my budget on Friday when I came up short. Exactly $6.60 was missing. I was baffled, because I could not account for that extra $6.60-expenditure anywhere. Even after I added in the missing A&W receipt (which I had to calculate the price of using nothing but all my other receipts and change – thank goodness I save all the change rather than reusing it), even after I included that it still wouldn’t balance, but now I had exactly $3.80 extra. I tried to reconcile that number; it just didn’t make sense – it’s just too small a number to be a mix-up in bi-monthly grocery receipts. Finally I just sat back, completely confounded. And then I thought of something.
What if God gave me $3.80–just to mess up my budget so much that I would never be able to explain it any other way?
Of course, my inner-cynic went wild at that–
“God wouldn’t do that, especially not to you,”
“You probably just missed it in your calculations, you should do them again,”
“That’s a dumb idea, why would God do that?”
But I looked back over all my figures and $3.80 just didn’t fit anywhere. It couldn’t be in the cash since there’s nothing smaller than a $5 bill there, it couldn’t be in the change jar because I’d already calculated out the change to get the exact price on the missing A&W receipt, and it certainly couldn’t be in the bank because I can look back on the account for as long as I’ve had it and see that everything is accounted for. Everything is accounted for and I still have $3.80 more than I should. What’s going on?
So despite my inner-cynic, I dropped an extra $3.80 into an empty income field on my budget. And I laughed.
Why? Because even if it’s just $3.80, it’s $3.80 more than I had at the beginning of the month, and God was there in that moment saying, “Look son, I’m taking care of your finances, and the more you entrust to me, the more I will entrust to you.”
Someone said recently about tithing, “You can live better off 90% than off 100%”, and I can testify to that. Yes, I “tithe”. It’s not 10%, it’s actually a little more (I haven’t done any precise calculations, I just set aside so much). Last month I got a rather large bill in the mail, but in spite of all the expenses, I still somehow had $200 left over which I took to the grocery store for a good restocking of my shelves. Between tax returns, free groceries and money multiplying to meet every need, I have more than enough on my eighty-something-percent. And I can’t help but see the providence of God for a cheerful giver living with open hands rather than clenched fists.
Because I believe God rewards the good steward, and entrusts more to him. And I continue to be amazed by even the smallest show of His goodness–even if it’s “only” $3.80.
Grace Confidence 