I would like to share this to increase your faith, not so that I do my alms before men to be seen.
I am in the process of a big transition in my life. The place where I have rented for the past three years will no longer be available for rent in July. My landlady, who is an older woman moved out to help her family back in April, but allowed me to continue to rent through the end of her lease. She called me one evening to let me know that someone had wrote her a check to cover my rent for the month of May. I knew it was God and was so thankful to Him for doing this. I felt I should give tithes on this amount, even though I could really use all that money to cover some bills.
As I'm not sure what the next step in life is, I will be leaving my job when my rent is up, due to not being in the area. All of this certainly is a recipe for anxiety, but the Holy Spirit just keeps reassuring me not to worry.
So a few Sundays back, I put my tithe in the tithe box at church, which not only included my weekly salary tithe, but also the tithe of the money that was paid for my rent. The next day, I went to visit my sister and was going to stop at a store up on that side of town, but the Holy Spirit spoke so clearly and said, “Do you trust Me? Go Home!” I felt such an urgency and quickly changed lanes to get on the freeway that would take me home. I got home, prayed and read the Bible. Asking the Lord, what it was He wanted me home for. I did a few things around the house and then thought I will go to the local store to get what I needed. I decided I should take a load of things to the Goodwill (local charity) on my way to the store.
As I was putting the things into the car, I saw an envelope laying in the back floor board. It said, “Brother Jonathan H. Please use this as the Lord directs or as you need it.” My hands were shaking as I opened it, and counted out a large sum of money. I don't know that I would have found it had I went to the other store. The windows had been open in the car and it could have blown out or someone could have taken it. But the Lord had an appointment for me.
I had already felt to be singing the hymn all that week, “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word. Just to rest upon His promise. Just to know, 'Thus Saith the Lord'. Jesus, Jesus, How I love Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh for grace to trust Him more.” That is my cry everyday, “Lord, give me the grace to trust You more.”
