It was last August when I was a young man. My wife and I with our two children arrived on campus at the Christian College where I was to study. We had enough money for necessary fees and a month's rent on a basement, and very little more.

My wife worked at a store and I began school. The children settled in to their routine. We soon saw that we were losing ground financially. Uncerttainty about the future caused family tensions. Soon my wife said, "Harold, we're not being fair to God."

"Not fair with god? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Harold, we're not giving God his tithe."

His tithe? Everything we were doing was for God! We'd left friends and relatives, left a good job, loaded all our worldly goods on a rickety old car and moved a thousand miles for His sake! Did He expect us to tithe as well?

Somehow thngs seemed different since we had moved. For one thing, my wife was now the breadwinner. It seemed everything went for necessities and it seemed hard to lay anything by for the Lord.

But Phoebe convinced me. A bowl in the cupboard became our tithe bowl. On payday we put one tenth of all earnings into the bowl. Then, on the Lord's day, that money went into the offering.

I can't explain it; our income was no greater; our expenses were no less; there were still the rent, the groceries and all the usual expenses. But, somehow, the struggle was over. Nine-tenths with God's blessing went farther than ten-tenths withouot Him. When the bills came due the money was somehow there to pay them. Truly, God was blessing!

Since those days we've ministered many years in difficult fields with low pay. But never again have we been tempted to short-change God! And never has He failed to bless us.

How does He do it? I still don't know how, but I can easily see why. As our motivation to serve Him increases, so His incentive to bless us grows!

He has invited us to put Him to the test: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." (Malachi 3:10)