An example of God's blessing

Back in 1997 my beloved and I were having struggles with the church we were going to. I will not go into detail but there were things we were seeing that we no longer felt comfortable raising our (at that time) two boys there. I searched out for local churches but ended up going to my first church over 50 miles away. Due to the distance the church discouraged us becoming members, and thus discouraged us from tithing. With no church home to speak of we were unsure of what to do about out tithe. I am sure there were better things to do but we ended up taking the 10% and putting it into a company stock purchase plan. For about eighteen months we were dropping the money into this account. Fast forward to mid-1999 and a move later we became members of the church we were attending. With that movc we stopped the employee stock purchases and began tithing to our church, and we left the money in the ESPP account. We were not sure what to do about it. Later in '99 our church (Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD) entered into a new phase of their building project. Perfectly normal for a church that is healthy and growing. :) Anyway, both my beloved and I felt an impression from the Lord that we should take the money we "tithed" into the ESPP account for this endeavor. It is important to note that this account had been multiplied immensly (I can't remember the specifics, but it was in the realm of 2x to 3x). Although my beloved and I differed on what we should actually give...one version was the original ammount that was deposited, the other was the full current value. After praying about it for a few weeks God brought us into agreement and we donated the full value of the account. We felt such a peace and a joy that it was litterally a relief. Remember this is 10% of our income for eighteen months - that has been multiplied significantly. It was a real test of our faith in what God was doing. Here is where God reveals his plan. The church does not hold onto stocks so once the shares were transfered to their account the sold them to convert it into liquid assets at a much lower risk. This was about December of 2000. Within two months the tech bubble burst. What was once in the realm of $40 to $50 a share became worth less than $5! If my beloved and I had held back anything from what we felt like God was leading us to give it would not have remained valuable. It would have been like a whisp of wind! God took our unconventional tithe plan... multiplied it... then asked us to give it in faith... it was used to bless a local church that does much for the community and the church body as a whole (as a member of Sovereign Grace Ministries)... and then in His mercy (in my opinion) showed us the folly of "building bigger barns". Verse for today: Matthew 6:19-21, ESV “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust [5] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Missing the boat

There is a reason that I do not work on Wall Street. My timing is all screwy. By God's grace my beloved and I do not live pay check to paycheck (unless we've been eating out a lot ;) ) and when my mom passed away we received a relatively small life insurance. We wisely put it away instead of buying a new car, etc. Well, I've managed to get it invested with a good company (if anyone is interested I will gladly sing the praises of "my guy" and would love to direct you to him as well) and I talk to my account manager from time to time. Now I am a pretty small fish in his pool of accounts but I keep an eye on it. Anyway there are times when I get an inkling about some stock or another. My problem is my timing is all off. I used to own 20 shares of Apple when it was less than $20 a share (and it was not really all that long ago!) but I got impatient... and now it's over $80! Alos, recently I bought a few shares of another company - mostly because I liked it. If I had sold them (less than two weeks later) like I felt inclined to do I could have locked in a 15% gain, but did I ... no! Not me. I really cannot complain because over time I am still in the black. I'm just glad that I do not do that sort of thing for a living! Besides, it complicates my taxes! :) For me the whole investing thing is not about getting the larger house, or the sports car, but being a good steward of what God has generously entrusted to me. Tithing the gains by supporting my local church. Someday I may get into a glorious way in which God multiplied an investment and what He did with it. When my time on earth is done I want to be able to know that the storehouses (if there is anything left) was distributed as God has shown me. (Sharing cloaks, etc.) Verse for the day: Matthew 25:14-19, ESV “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants [3] and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, [4] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.