Increasing Your Cash Flow the Old Fashioned Way

I've been trying to set up a budget. Lately it seems that I've been running full speed with a foundation when it comes to money. No foundation except for faith that everything will work out. That's not a good plan I admit but it is an easy one.

I'm an impulsive person by nature. Yet I rarely often feel free to spend. This puts me in a huge bind from time to time. I've missed out on some great things because of my conflict. But perhaps it's all for the good. It has also kept me out of trouble. My conflict lies mainly in not allowing cash to flow. I have no problem with seeing In-come, it's the Out-go that I almost always struggle with.

So I've decided to do some budgeting to see the where and when of my cashflow. Something that came up recently was the topic of the tithe. I've been thinking about this for a few weeks, first by finding my mother's Bible marked at Deuteronomy 14:22- the law of tithing. Then I found my giving growing and my income growing with it. Finally, this Sunday a talk on Job diverted to a discussion of the tithe. I just happened to have my Mom's bible with me and I joined the conversation. It was a weird synchronicity. I get that a lot.

The Concept of the Tithe

The tithe is the custom of people of Jewish-Christian faith to give a percentage of their earnings back to God. It came about in the life experiences of the Old Testament patriarchs. It was then codified in the Old Testament Law and carried through to New Testament believers.

I have seen tithing viewed variously as a literal tenth of a person's gross income or as a tenth of their hourly wage. Whichever manner you view it as, one tenth is the figure that is worked with. There are reasons for the tithe that are explained in scriptures.

What started as a bargain with God ended in a promise from Him. In the Book of Genesis we have the story of Jacob stealing the blessing of Isaac, his father, from his brother Esau. Once he did that he had to live on the run in fear of his brother's wrath. In chapter 28, after his dream of the ladder with angels ascending and descending upon it, he begs for God's favor and makes a vow to give a tenth of all he attains back to God.

In the book of Leviticus, the concept of the tithe is codified and sanctified. Chapter 27:32-33 states that the tenth is holy unto the Lord. In fact the entire chapter is dealing with dedications to the Lord and it is interesting that the tenth, regardless of the quality is holy and unchangeable. This is interesting in that, most offerings were of crops and livestock, things that a farmer would have little or no control over. In other words God accepts the ordinary offering without judgment. It is not the tenth alone that is holy--it also is the act of offering.

This act is very important regarding cash flow. Here's how.... Accusing the nation of Israel of "robbing" Him, God asks them to prove Him though the tithe. Malachi 3:10-11 gives the promise:

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,"
Says the LORD of hosts,
" If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field."

God will give as you give. That's apparently the formula here. The concept of giving is further enlarged and encouraged in the New Testament in the words of Jesus in the story of the widows mite.

Luke 21:1-4 reads, "And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, "Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had."

The widow gave from her poverty while the rich gave of their abundance. How often does our charitable giving get determined by what's left over? I'm guilty of it, but just maybe the universe is set up differently than what is mere human wisdom. Saint Paul explains the manor of giving in 2 Corinthians 9:7-8 :

"So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work."

True giving is to be done cheerfully. We give because it is right, not because we have excess. But how does giving the tithe unblock the cash flow?

Unblocking the Cash Flow

How the Universal Intelligence, or however you want to describe the place where all good things originate, operates regarding wealth and accumulation has never been a secret. You've heard "it is better to give than receive", well the two have always worked together. Think of a bottleneck. The only way to get a better flow is to let more go!

I recently read the book "The Power Of Intention" by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. The book speaks from an Eastern worldview about the law of attraction and intention. It's main message is that we attract to ourselves everything that occurs in our lives. Our thoughts and tendencies deliver to the Universe directives that it responds to. It does not matter if what it gets, positive or negative, it simply returns the "order" it is given.

Our prayers and faith work in much the same way in the Christian-Jewish worldview. If I ask for something, half-heartedly in unbelief, I will receive the answer of a halfhearted unbeliever! The New Testament writer James makes it clear, " ...let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." I personally believe that our thoughts act as prayers in the way Dr. Dyer is expressing.

My "intention" is affecting my cash flow because my fear of not having is causing me to not have. The signal I'm sending out about money and God, and truly my inner fear that He might not provide, is giving me exactly that. In evaluating that I have decided that the place to start a budget is with God's promise to bless and overflow. Not just in obedience to a scriptural law, as it is codified, but in a firm belief that the experiences of the patriarchs were real and the resulting promise is also to me. My intention is set to be free to give that I may be free to receive. For as the Scripture also says in Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure-- pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."