First day of the Usher 10% Tithing Experiment

Hello World!

Today is day one of the Great Usher 10% Tithing Experiment. The basic idea is God is the source of all abundance in the world. Simply put, God gives us work, God gives us our paychecks, God gives us someone to love, God gives us children to raise, God gives us everything.

But God created a law called the law of Tithing. The law is simply that you must give back to God 10% of any money you receive in whatever form. By form I mean it could be a bonus from work, $100 bill you found in the gutter, your paycheck, or a $1000 gift from mom and dad.

This law only applies to money. Unlike the IRS, God doesn't tax you on property, gifts, etc, unless it is money. So if someone gives me a home - the law of tithing 10% does not apply.

If my work gives me a food basket worth $100 instead of a bonus - the 10% tithing does not apply. If my work instead gives me the $100 in cash - I must tithe 10%.

Now this is spiritual law. It is a law that you cannot break. Some of you may think you don't tithe, but you do. Remember that car accident last month? You know the one that cost you $6000 because you did not have full coverage. That is the law of tithing being forced upon you. Remember when you lost your purse two weeks ago - costing you $1000. That is tithing.

The law of tithing operates with or without your approval. God giveth and God taketh away!

Now the good news is that there are other spiritual laws in the Universe. One such law is the law of giving. What ever you give you will receive three times more. Some say 10 times more. Personally, I think 3 sounds more realistic. But hey, it could be ten I suppose.

If you give $10 to someone - God will give you at least $30. Now that $30 is not cash my friends. God works in mysterious ways. The law of giving is not about money, but about energy and abundance. That $30 is not necessarily going to manifest as $30 in hard cold cash. Perhaps you will lose your iPhone and this time around someone actually finds it and returns it to you. There is your $30! Perhaps someone buys you breakfast tomorrow. You get the idea?

Now getting back to the Great Usher 10% Tithing Experiment.

I want you to understand that we are taking a great leap of faith here....pun intended : -)

We aren't broke, but we certainly are not living in great abundance. Truth is we have no savings and we live paycheck to paycheck. We have piled ourselves into high debt for the billionth time. We absolutely cannot afford to tithe 10% of everything we receive. All in all that equals around $600 a month.

If we were to spend $600 a month buying ourselves new clothes and eating at nice restaurants - it should bankrupt us. That $600 would come from bills that we normally pay!

So in all reality, Tithing $600 a month should bankrupt us by the end of the year, or sooner.

Yet - we're going to do it any ways!

Why you may ask?

Because it is time for a change. We are stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are debt creators. We have been debt free a few times only to get find ourselves back in debt again.

Nothing seems to change.

My wife and I have great ideals about helping the less fortunate in this world, yet we lack the financial abundance to do so.

The little abundance we have only provides a few weeks vacation a year. So if we wanted to spend 3 months helping the poor in the Philippines, we would have to schedule it over several years of vacations!

We realize that the answer is not more money, but a change in priorities.

The problem is we are asking God for money to solve our problems, but we are not giving a lot of that money back to God.

In essence we are not meeting God half way.

We are going to change our priorities. We are going to meet God half way. We are going to pay God first!

If God truly is the source of all our abundance, including our financial abundance, then God will not let us down.

If we spend 10% of all money we receive by giving back to God, then we believe God will refill our financial cup. God is responsible for paying our rent, for paying our credit card bills, and for whatever job I have that gives us our bi-weekly paychecks. If we give God some of that money back, we believe God will make sure to take care of whatever we lack as a consequence of that.

The goal is to break this viscous financial cycle. We want to live life more abundantly and be of greater service to God and the rest of the world. We believe we are responsible for our limited abilities.

God wants us to have more abundance and to be able to have the freedom we need to do greater things. But God will not do everything for us. We must meet God half way.

We are taking a great leap of faith. We are going to meet God half way and prove to ourselves that God indeed is the source of our money.

This will be an interesting year.

You heard right - we are committing to tithe 10% for one year.

Now I am not a mainstream Christian and tithing does not come naturally to me. I tithe at Church on occasion and I believe in giving back. But I have never tithed consistently.

I am going to state this for the record - I am challenging God.

That is right - I am not afraid to challenge the big guy. I am challenging God to prove to us that He truly is the source of our abundance.

We will follow the law of Tithing that God created and in return God will provide us with abundance. We plan to use that abundance to do Gods work.

God has one year to prove to us He truly is the provider of our abundance.

One year to show us that it is not our work, our government, our significant others, that is ultimately responsible for the abundance we have in life - but it is God.

Like I said - in all reality, Tithing 10% should break us financially. We should start missing payments to creditors, lose our car, be unable to pay the rent. But I believe God will provide for us in our times of stress.

God will return the favor at least three times fold.

Keep checking back to this blog. We will be blogging the whole year and you can follow the ups and downs to this wonderful experiment.

I hope this blog inspires others to give a try at their own experiment and prove to themselves that God indeed does exist and is the source of all abundance.

You do not need to believe in God to try this and you do not need to be of any specific faith.

This experiment is for those who are like us - financially stuck - and need a way out. If you feel like you are repeating the same mistakes in life - financial mistakes or if you lack the means to accomplish your goals in life - then this experiment may be the key to your financial jail cell.

If you do not believe in God, perhaps you may discover God by the end of your experiment.