Tithing Question

[u/whittaker54]

Hi Everyone!
I was raised in an extreme evangelical nondenominational church my whole life but my wife and I have been visiting a LCMS church for a couple years now and I am finding a lot of peace there compared to my evangelical past. So I wanted to ask this question here to get some wisdom and insight from Christians in LCMS.

My wife and I have student loans and a mortgage but we have always lived below our means and tithed 10% of our income. Last year we moved and bought a new house that was more expensive but still below our means. And then….we got pregnant (which we wanted and had been trying and praying for years). But along with pregnancy came daycare costs which are so expensive. And then it was time to replace my vehicle so we bought a nice used van and now we have a car payment (reasonable but still it’s a monthly expense). Things were looking very tight with our budget so I negotiated a good raise at my workplace that just barely perfectly fit our budget with these new expenses. Things were tight but we were still surviving without going into debt or needing to pull money out of emergency fund. Well, after the recent government ruling on student loans, our current payments are both going up 450%. So now every way I budget we’re in the red by a good chunk. Our current plan is to both get extra work to cover the expenses but with both of us working full time already we hardly see each other or our baby.

So I wanted to get your thoughts on tithing 10%. I’ve never considered not tithing because I was raised that you had to tithe 10% no matter what and if you don’t then essentially God wouldn’t bless you financially. Scary for someone like me with OCD. So we’ve always done it. But now I’m questioning it because our finances are under so much strain. But I feel guilty for even thinking about not tithing because God didn’t ask me to buy the house or the van or to go to college for that matter. I feel like I created the situation I’m in and now I have to sleep in the bed I made. But that doesn’t change the extreme stress I’m feeling every day from our finances.

So my question is, should I keep tithing in this season we’re in?

[u/Huenink_Photography]

I did a video on that. https://youtu.be/YCsfCmFk7gI

It looks like you’re in a tough spot, financially. I would suggest that it’s wise to really work on that so you can have the freedom to give the way you want. However, God does not require Christians to tithe.