God Answers Tithing Prayer
By Jerry Russell, Washington Conference vice president for finance
![Washington Conference executive committee members pause
in prayer to thank God for answering a specific
tithing prayer.](/build/image/7726.jpg?or=360&crop=%2C%2C%2C&w=480&h=480&s=bf167b9d2cefca9404e5e5bb43162e0e)
The Washington Conference financial staff learned awhile back about the importance of praying with purpose and specificity for things that were on our hearts. This past year, we prayed for a five percent annual tithe gain.
This seemed like an impossible goal to us because we had 53 Sabbaths in 2016 and 52 Sabbaths in 2017. You can usually count on a loss in that situation and are grateful for a breakeven year.
God bigger plans for us.
God answered our prayers with a tithe gain of 4.97 percent for 2017. This was celebrated with conference office staff, committees, and our pastor’s meetings. We celebrated: God is good and the tithe gain is close enough that we can round up to 5 percent in conversations. This was an exciting time and we praised Him for His goodness and provision.
Yet I personally questioned why would God bring us right to the threshold and not let us cross it with a 5 percent gain. My questions were always with a profound amount of gratitude for the 4.97 percent, but I still wondered why He wouldn’t have given us just another $6,000 to make up the 0.03 percent difference.
If I drop the story right there, it’s still a really good story. God is good! He has promised to provide and has done so incredibly well.
But God had a different story.
Craig Carr, Washington Conference vice president for administration, shared that he’d had a dream that I would find the money to make our tithing goal.
As I left the office one day, a ministry director stopped me just before I got out the door and informed me that one of his church groups still needed to remit about $10,000 in tithe for December.
Of course we have closed our financial reporting for 2017 and the 4.97 percent is our official report, but hearing this, I realized that God had given us what we asked for, and then a little more. With the additional $10,000, we unofficially have a gain of 5.01 percent.
It’s so much fun to be a firsthand witness as to what God is doing!