When I listened to Elder Bednar’s talk at the October 2013 General Conference, I was immediately struck with the thought “this talk is an answer to one of your prayers”. Our family has spent many long years in graduate school, where I have to say our income has definitely been on the leaner side. I have spent many hours on our family budget, at often times wondering how everything is going to work out. But I am forever thankful and humbled for the “tithing blessings” that have come to our family in so many ways. I loved Elder Bednar’s phrase “significant but subtle” blessings–that is the perfect description of the blessings of tithing I have seen in my own life. The statements below especially stood out to me.
“We might want and expect a job offer, but the blessing that comes to us through heavenly windows may be greater capacity to act and change our own circumstances rather than expecting our circumstances to be changed by someone or something else.”
“Eyes and ears of faith are required, however, to notice in us an increased spiritual and temporal capacity (see Luke 2:52) to do more with less, a keener ability to prioritize and simplify, and an enhanced ability to take proper care of the material possessions we already have acquired. We might want and expect a larger paycheck, but the blessing that comes to us through heavenly windows may be greater capacity to change our own circumstances rather than expecting our circumstances to be changed by someone or something else.”
“The honest payment of tithing is much more thanks duty; it is an important step in the process of personal sanctification.”
I think it is significant that Heavenly Father won’t always bless us with a higher paying job. Instead we may be blessed to be a really good at finding really good deals, or we will be blessed to receive wonderful hand-me-down clothes for our children, or the meals we prepare stretch to contribute to another meal of leftovers. Heavenly Father blesses us to work well with what we have been given, and I know that tithing blessings are real and are a part of my life.
Elder David A. Bednar, “The Windows of Heaven”. October 2013 General Conference.
