{"id":1019,"date":"2011-11-15T13:18:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T13:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2011-11-20T12:51:23","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T12:51:23","slug":"you-can-afford-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html","title":{"rendered":"You Can Afford It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1020\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/309\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>Tithing fascinates Wendy. So would having a savings account and discretionary income to spend. Unfortunately, Wendy is broke. No dinero, nada, zip, nothing. She has friends who tithe large sums of money to their church, and they have savings accounts and are able to buy themselves a little something extra every once in awhile. Wendy wonders where she went wrong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would love to tithe,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great idea if you are already making a lot of money. But I am trying to feed 4 on $1500 a month. I was thinking of cutting our living expenses to tithe and save, but living on a heated park bench would get a bit chilly in Michigan!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We hear ya, Wendy! We love your sense of humor and feel your pain. How can you win the tug-of-war between your moral obligations and financial reality?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Try these three steps to sensible tithing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. Study the scripture for true insight (not just a way out) to interpret <a title=\"READ scripture passages on Tithing!\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/tithing.html\" target=\"_blank\">passages on tithing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>2. Discuss your views with clergy, teachers and students of biblical ethics for more clarity around this confusing concept.<\/p>\n<p>3. Pray for wisdom to make decisions on whether making financial offerings will bring<br \/>\nyou closer to God.<\/p>\n<p>There are those who will argue that tithing is not a religious requirement. And they may be right. But no one can argue that generosity is optional. When you are feeling low about your finances, turn it around. Be generous in ways that don\u2019t have a price tag. Be generous with your praise, gratitude and love.<\/p>\n<p>The $1200 a month Wendy has to live on is insufficient\u2014 for sure. Yet it\u2019s there for her to use along with the many safety nets our community offers to those in need. Even the great big problem of not enough can be managed in small bite-sized morsels. Study, discuss and pray. Take the three steps to sensible tithing and find the answers you need.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Prayables.com\" href=\"http:\/\/prayables.com\" target=\"_blank\"><em>-Prayables<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff\"><strong>READ MORE and Enjoy these features from the Daily Prayable! <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Story\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Story<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Scripture\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/philippians-417.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Scripture<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Prayer\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/gifted.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Prayer<br \/>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Video\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/strong-tower-kutless.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Video<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Joke\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/sex-on-sabbath.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Joke<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2192 <a title=\"Daily Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/2011\/11\/reaching-the-port-of-heaven.html\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Quote<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tithing fascinates Wendy. So would having a savings account and discretionary income to spend. Unfortunately, Wendy is broke. No dinero, nada, zip, nothing. She has friends who tithe large sums of money to their church, and they have savings accounts and are able to buy themselves a little something extra every once in awhile. Wendy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[582,581,580,584,583,579],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational-stories","tag-afford-tithing","tag-how-much-to-tithe","tag-how-to-tithe","tag-is-tithing-required","tag-sensible-tithing","tag-tithing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>You Can Afford It - Prayables<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"You Can Afford It - Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tithing fascinates Wendy. So would having a savings account and discretionary income to spend. Unfortunately, Wendy is broke. No dinero, nada, zip, nothing. She has friends who tithe large sums of money to their church, and they have savings accounts and are able to buy themselves a little something extra every once in awhile. Wendy&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-15T13:18:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-20T12:51:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Prayables\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"You Can Afford It - Prayables","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"You Can Afford It - Prayables","og_description":"Tithing fascinates Wendy. So would having a savings account and discretionary income to spend. Unfortunately, Wendy is broke. No dinero, nada, zip, nothing. She has friends who tithe large sums of money to their church, and they have savings accounts and are able to buy themselves a little something extra every once in awhile. Wendy&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html","og_site_name":"Prayables","article_published_time":"2011-11-15T13:18:11+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-11-20T12:51:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Prayables","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html","name":"You Can Afford It - Prayables","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2011-11-15T13:18:11+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-20T12:51:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayables\/files\/2011\/11\/woman-with-open-wallet-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/2011\/11\/you-can-afford-it.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"You Can Afford It"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/","name":"Prayables","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/#\/schema\/person\/ec269252d24ce0bc77635e1f49f53107","name":"Prayables","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/author\/sdiamond"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1034,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayables\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}