Aaron and I have never been very good about tithing. We’ve tithed in spurts, but most of the time we’ve just thrown whatever we had crumpled up in our pockets into the offering basket, mumbling something about being in debt, about being broke, about giving time instead of money.

(For the record, this is not my desk, or my hands. My desk has more books piled on it, and also a hairdryer. Also, I have not been that tan since I lived in Africa, and I’m pretty sure those hands belong to a dude. Though I’m not certain.)

Well, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, all our mumbling was an excuse. They were perfectly reasonable excuses, and if they’re your excuses too, please understand that I am not laying judgement on you. I don’t believe people HAVE to tithe. (Obviously.) And there are probably even situations where people SHOULDN’T tithe. But in our case, it was just a big excuse, because we were scared about money. We were scared about whether or not God would provide for our needs. We were overwhelmed by the insecurity of being self-employed. We were just scared, and holding onto our piddly trickle of income like it was something that could save us.

No more. We have made a decision to tithe.

Aaron brought up the idea of tithing our time, as well. After asking the obvious question (gross or net, LOL!), I began to consider it. What would it be like to tithe one tenth of our waking hours to God, to give it away to something bigger than ourselves, to give joyfully without expecting anything in return.

Then today, as I was running errands and worrying about all the things I wasn’t getting done, because I didn’t have enough time, my mind took another leap. I’ve been studying the “six days of work, one day of rest” pattern laid out in the Old Testament, and it occurred to me–what if I applied that to my days as well as my weeks?

Here’s the idea: if you sleep 8 hours a night, that leaves 16 waking hours, right? (Right? *Counts on fingers* Right.) Divide them into tenths, and you have ten time periods of roughly 1.5 hours to work with. If you give one of them to God (quiet time, helping someone who needs it, etc.), and six to work (employment, studying, housework, cooking, mowing the lawn, whatever), that leaves you with 3 time periods, about 4.5 hours, of blissful unstructured nothingness–even after 1.5 hours of spiritual nurturing, and 9 hours of work. And I could accomplish a LOT in 9 hours of solid work!

Now, obviously, that’s gimmicky. And if I ever write a book suggesting that Christian women pattern their lives after my brilliant idea, then come over quick and put me out of my misery, because I have become everything I consider vomit-worthy about engendered cultural Christianity. But let’s face it–I could use a gimmick to help me organize my time. I could use ANYTHING to help me organize my time. Perhaps a brain transplant or personality-altering procedure. But since those are out, I need to settle for cheap gimmicks and friends who love me enough to yell at me (nicely, and without ACTUALLY yelling).

So, I’m thinking about trying it. And really, I like the idea of my time being divided into 1.5 hour chunks, because I have a lot of DIFFERENT things that I need to accomplish, and 1.5 hours at least takes a bite out of it.

Really, I hadn’t been scheduling my time for the same reason I hadn’t been tithing. I was scared that I wouldn’t have enough. I was scared that I would have to give up something I want. I was overwhelmed, insecure, and attempting to hoard what I perceived to be in short supply.

But suddenly, it doesn’t seem like time is in such short supply anymore.

4.5 hours of NOTHING a day??? Really???

That sure seems like a miraculous opening  and outpouring of the storehouses.