“In returning and rest, you shall be saved. In quietness and trust shall be your strength.”
Isaiah 30:15
The word “tithe” comes from an ancient custom of giving a tenth of one’s yearly income to some holy use. The tithe doesn’t come from what’s left over after all the bills have been paid, but is taken right off the top, before anything else. A tithe comes from the first fruits, the best of what we have, who we are.
Lent is 40 days, roughly one tenth of a year. In Lent, we offer to God a tithe of our time, remembering that all time belongs to the One who created time in the beginning.
Are we giving God quality time or what’s left over after we’ve attended to the many things that have demands on the hours and minutes of our day? We’re not always going to be at our best, give our best, for God or for each other. Yet we keep trying, confident that the One who raised Jesus from the dead, does not leave us in our brokenness, but revives us with the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ, turns us around, and sends us out to love our hurting world.
Pastor Megan Graves, March 2021