God Paid Me Back, With Interest

I don’t know how the subject came up. Some good friends had taken us to lunch. After church. They were celebrating my latest birthday. I went along because I wanted the vegetable plate at the Sand Dollar Café.

After we talked about the aches and pains of aging, our discussion quickly turned to churches we had known, tithing, and old-timey tent revivals. Well, I waited patiently until there was a lull in the conversation. And I jumped in with both feet.

Tent revivals were an easy place to start. We had them every summer when I was a kid. Some evangelist would put up a giant tent on the vacant space out where Cherrywood Road cut off of Highway 79. They would throw sawdust over the grass, bring in a bunch of chairs, and go to shouting to the high Heavens.

I explained to the folks around the table that the music was the best part. They’d have someone playing an old Gibson J-45 guitar, and with tambourines ringing along, they’d send a message to the crowd with, “Now if you don’t from sin retire, He will set your fields on fire.”

These tent meetings welcomed one and all. When the evangelist got going full blast and folks began to jump those chairs and fall out in the sawdust, I figured I might be a little closer to Heaven than I was prepared for at my tender age….

We attended the First Baptist Church. As a child I thought the name odd because we didn’t have a Second Baptist Church in town. The First United Presbyterian Church was across a side street from us. And, their name also gained my youthful attention. Were there churches that were not united? I am still pondering on that one to this day.

I favored the Cumberland Presbyterian Church that was on the other side of us. Bro. Cody was kin to the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody. I went hoping to get some insight into his famous ancestor. Talk about disappointing, he never one time brought up Buffalo Bill. He stuck mostly with the main characters, Jesus, Abraham, Peter, and Paul. And Moses.

Tithing was an important part of our worship. Mother did not play around when it came to “giving back to God.” She wouldn’t give us money for a Dr. Pepper if it might threaten to short our family tithe on Sunday morning.

We begged Mom and Dad to give us an allowance each week like so many of our friends received. My parents didn’t jump on that bandwagon because there were three sons, hence three allowances. And money was always tight. But one day Mom realized this might be a great way to instill tithing into our little hearts.

They began to give each of us 25 cents a week. Believe it or not, that was a pretty standard allowance in 1956. You talk about being thrilled! I’d sit around all week pondering long and deeply as to how I was going to make use of MY money, now burning a hole in MY little hand.

I wasn’t thinking about saving, I was leaning toward the spending part. There was one small catch. We had to tithe ten percent of that money to God. Mom wouldn’t give us a quarter a piece. We got two dimes and a nickel. She was making it easy for us.

“Son, you’ve got to give a nickel of your allowance to God. It is right, just, and fair. You’ve got to give back ten percent!”

I knew well that verse about being a cheerful giver. But I told myself it wasn’t one of the Ten Commandments! I might have resented, when no one was looking, dropping that nickel into the passing plate. It was like throwing an unopened pack of baseball cards into the Obion River.

It got to be a routine that I followed for years. And I slowly came around to understanding God was possibly blessing someone with my ten percent.

Many years later I was taking a math course in college. We were tasked to figure out outcomes and percentages using some type of graph. I discovered plain as day that withholding one nickel out of a quarter wasn’t ten percent. It was twice that!

I had over paid God! For years and years back in my youth!

Talk about fit to be tied. Think of the Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and Stan Musial cards I could have had. And just how, pray tell, do you get your money back from God?

Then, in a more thoughtful moment, my wonderful Mom and Dad came to mind. And two brothers that took care of me. Great friends that have filled my lifetime. The perfect wife He supplied. Healthy children and grandchildren. And God keeps sending young people into my life to this very day to keep me renewed, alive….and thankful.

On second thought, I don’t believe I want to get into a “who owes whom” discussion with Almighty God….

Humbly,
Kes
kesley@aol.com