A wealthy Stake President was reportedly asked by a poor widow in his stake how he achieved financial success. He replied without a thought, “I’ve always paid my tithing.”
Her quiet-and likely unheard-retort, “I, too, have always paid mine,” raises the question of just how one accepts the Lord’s challenge to “prove [Him] now herewith.”
This simple story suggests that wealth is either not the measure of the proof the Lord intended or that the challenge is more complex than simply paying tithing.
It would be unfair to suggest that this widow, or other people, who have paid their tithing but have not accumulated wealth are undeserving or that the Lord hasn’t blessed them-certainly they are worthy and He has undeniably blessed them in other ways.
If your objective in accepting the Lord’s challenge, however, is to accumulate sufficient means to not only provide for your family but also to provide for lifelong, active church service, there is likely more to the Lord’s challenge than merely paying tithing and waiting for the windows of heaven to open and rain prosperity upon you. Malachi’s record may subtly hint at the issue-“there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
Imagine that 401(k) plans, IRA’s, mutual funds, are buckets to catch the Lord’s blessings from heaven and that a disciplined spending plan is a funnel to get the blessings into the buckets. This is how we make “room enough” to receive some of the Lord’s blessings.
Making Room
Of course you wouldn’t expect the Lord to be accruing a secret pension for someone that hasn’t been saving as she should or to create a mission fund for a teenager who invests all of his income in his “awesome” music collection for his iPod.
Clearly, then, it behooves us to do more than pay tithing and wait for blessings. As with all laws, the Lord has made clear that He understands the laws of finance. Various parables in the New Testament suggest the importance of financial stewardship. While these references are frequently used as allegories for spiritual matters, they nonetheless provide evidence of financial savvy on the Lord’s part. We shouldn’t expect the Creator of heaven and earth to be as perplexed by the time value of money as most of us are.
The nominal point of one such parable in Matthew 25:14-30 (the Kingdom of Heaven as a man travelling into a far country) was that the wise steward who earned the greatest financial return on his talents or capital was given the talents of the “wicked and slothful servant.” The Lord went so far as to suggest a specific investment strategy to the disappointed servant, “Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers,” as that would have provided a favorable return.
The Lord expects us to learn and employ the basic laws of personal financial planning. He won’t develop your spending plan for you. He will, however, help you develop the self-discipline to use it. He won’t walk to the bank to open an IRA for you. He will, however, help you to have the courage to defer current spending in order to make a current investment.
To really put the Lord to the test and make room for the blessing he’ll pour out upon you, you may wish to obtain substantially greater knowledge. The more you know and understand about money and investing the more room you’ll be able to provide the Lord for his blessings.
Do Your Part
In addition to learning and abiding the basic principles of personal finance, the Lord requires that we be anxiously engaged in the process of generating sufficient income for our needs. As with financial planning, you would not expect the Lord to bless a slothful employee to keep his job if he called in sick every day and then went skiing-even if he had paid his tithing.
Joseph Fielding Smith articulated our responsibility to “be industrious” in terms that remain crystal clear almost 100 years after he first spoke them.
All men and women should feel a degree of independence of character that would stimulate them to do something for a living, and not be idle; for it is written that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer of Zion, and he shall not have place among us. Therefore, it is necessary that we should be industrious, that we should intelligently apply our labor to something that is productive and conducive to the welfare of the human family.
In the Prophet’s mind, clearly, idlers were not entitled to the blessings of tithing, including particularly, direct assistance from the church. It is a logical conclusion, therefore, that the Lord feels the same way and will not bless the wicked and slothful servant who fails to genuinely earn-or at least to honestly endeavor to earn-an honest day’s wage.
Keep the Commandments in Faith
A final element of accepting the Lord’s challenge, is to act in faith keeping all of the Lord’s commandments. Both Matthew and Luke record the Lord’s rebuke of the scribes who paid tithing even on their herbs but omitted “judgment, mercy, and faith” from their religious practice. James E. Talmage clarifies the point, conjuring a farmer who harvests acres of wheat and then when paying tithing remembers to include a tenth of the small harvest from the herb garden. Hence, the Lord’s accusation of hypocrisy for paying tithes calculated to the last leaf of mint while neglecting other, weightier spiritual duties. The clear implication of this message is that if we hope to have the “windows of heaven” opened on our behalf, we must attend to the weightier gospel duties.
A key theme of the Book of Mormon, repeated throughout its pages, was articulated by King Benjamin (among others), who promised the saints of his day that “if [they] would keep His commandments [they] should prosper in the land.” Although the first reference to tithing in the Book of Mormon was recorded 42 years after this speech, tithing was likely a part of the commandments known to those saints at that time. Even so, it was not singled out as the only or even the key requirement for the Lord’s support in achieving prosperity.
The specific inclusion of “faith” on Matthew’s roster of omitted practices also reminds us to exercise faith that the Lord will bless us for our obedience to the law of Tithing.
In truth, most readers will feel that they are working hard to make ends meet and that they are living the gospel-including its weightier duties-to the best of their abilities. Most will find, upon thoughtful consideration and introspection, that they simply have not made enough room to receive all the blessings that the Lord is willing to provide.
This article is excerpted from my book, Building Wealth for Building the Kingdom, which addresses these and other financial topics; you can connect with me on my blog at BuildingWealthForBuildingTheKingdom.com, on Twitter or Facebook. Be sure to share your experiences in the comments below.
