My $150 Investment
Our brother SMC recently discovered how deep a relationship with God can be. It is more than just going to church regularly and being a “good citizen”. Read about how God has revealed Himself to him, and how his personal relationship with Christ has flourished.
A few weeks ago, our pastor asked for an offering to help out with buying sound equipment for our praise and worship team. I felt led to contribute a certain amount even before I attended the prayer meeting. It was an amount that hurt my wallet, as I often have more money going out than in to pay for debts and living costs. The next day, I made the biggest sale in our company. The profits doubled what I gave in 20 minutes. This incident reminded me of my first meaningful offering, when I learned that our God is a God of miracles and He is always faithful to us.
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When I came back to Christ some 12 years ago, one of the first clear miracles that I experienced was a result of tithing for the first time. I was 25 at the time, and I still had the mentality of giving a dollar or whatever spare change I had in my wallet at that time. I never made a sincere declaration to God saying “God, I am going to give you my money today, please provide for me.” It was more along the lines of, “I have $150 in my wallet (which was a lot of money to me because I was only working part time) and I’m just going to throw it in the basket. I’m just not going to care about it.”
A few months before leaving the country for a short period, I re-dedicated my life to Christ without really understanding how my walk with Him was supposed to be. When I called my friend for spiritual advice, I wasn’t looking for any miracles or signs. I just felt like my life was spiraling downwards, and I needed to do something to stop it.
I went to Seoul, Korea, for 8 months with a plan to pursue a career in professional basketball. That plan fell through due to a shoulder injury, but I continued my stay there and enrolled myself in an exchange program to learn the culture, language and to spend time with my relatives. It was also a time of debauchery. Whatever fun I had at home in Vancouver before I left, I had 100 times more fun in Seoul.
I, however, came home feeling very empty. It wasn’t because I missed Korea, it was because I didn’t know what or who I had become. This feeling intensified when I heard the news of a friend of mine, Kat, who was brutally murdered.
Kat was like an older brother to me and he was my protector. We grew up in the same neighborhood and he was one of the most gifted people I knew. When we were kids, he would spend a lot of time with us teaching us how to play basketball. But growing up in an urban downtown area came with its many dark influences. Gangs were rampant, as the drug trade was a big part of the downtown area. Kat was lured by the flashy lifestyle, and most of all, he wanted to be respected. He worked his way up the ladder and was definitely respected by his peers. He was respected because he was feared. You don’t work your way up the chain without inflicting serious bodily damage on other people. He was near the top of the chain and had amassed a good number of enemies along the way.
I dabbled in this world before I left for Korea. I never indulged in or sold drugs, but I lived to party. I worked as a bouncer at a nightclub for years, and ended up socializing with many of the city’s underworld. I had a penchant for fighting and sometimes you pick fights with the wrong people. I made that mistake a few times. Fortunately for me, Kat would always smooth things over for me. Sometimes he used what might be called a “9 gauge diplomacy”.
His death was a time of introspection for me. I definitely knew that I didn’t want to be a part of that world anymore, but I wasn’t sure which path I was going to take. I searched my thoughts and I realized that they were mostly violent and sexual. Both gave me a sense of power. I also had a dirty mouth. One friend asked me if I could say a sentence without cussing. That one question haunted me for months and I realized that I was swearing subconsciously. I knew my soul was rotten to the core, and I knew that I needed some sort of guiding light. The only thing I could think of was to go back to church. I asked my mother if she could track down an old friend named Isaac Lee. Our families grew up together from the same neighborhood. The Lees used to drive us to church, and the last time I spoke to Issac, he was going to Bible College.
Isaac led me to a church where he thought I would fit in. I remember walking in for the first time in years, choosing to sit in the very back. But in the following weeks, I moved closer to the front and established a relationship with the pastors. I eventually accepted Christ back into my life and was baptized.
I, however, still thought of Christianity as something to keep me disciplined and aligned, to put me on the right path and away from social evils. The concept of grace, miracles and the Holy Spirit were foreign to me. I didn’t fully understand how personal a relationship to Christ can be until the day I emptied my wallet into the offering basket on a whim at church. During the next week after the offering, I had forgotten all about it and received a mysterious check from the university I graduated from. Till this day, I have no idea why the school gave me $500. I’m sure it was for a good reason. I never inquired about it. Despite that, the timing was impeccable. This occurrence continued the next week when I tithed a larger amount and all of a sudden I would receive another check for double the amount I tithed.
Of course, it wasn’t and will not always be like that, but my tithing was my first test of faith where I started to understand our God as a God of miracles. It also opened up my understanding of having a relationship with Him, and what grace and mercy is all about. I was about to take the “religion” mentality out of me.
So that $150 has actually turned out to be the greatest investment of my life, and it continues to give me a strong return.
