MKE/MMA WEEK 3: To Tithe or Not to Tithe, The Mother of All “IF/Thens”

Listening to Lori’s pearls from Week 3 I immediately knew I had my content for this blog post.

Lori was “diagramming” an MKE/ MMA alum’s DMP when she remarked: “Do not make tithing conditional on being successful!”

Essentially, no more “IF/Thens!”

For much of my adult life I’ve had a conditional relationship with Old Man Malachi and his Storehouse.

I would always tithe (and tithing is a placeholder for every situational promise we make to ourselves) but only/or except WHEN I knew I could afford to, but it never seemed that I could ever afford to.

Procrastinating, making a provisional promise based on some future event.

Waiting for permission from an external trigger.

Lori pointed out the bi-directional nature of this IF/Then by stating that if tithing is predicated on success, then success is blocked/ stunted/ muted because of its tether to the fact you aren’t tithing.

Essentially, we have it backwards. Lori says, simply, if you are going to tithe, TITHE. NOW! Or, in my words, “BE the Tithe you want to see in the world.”

[Side Epiphany: Mark makes a great point in Week 3 as well, one I never thought of, namely, that procrastination, i.e. equivocation, is really just passive-aggressive judo to control-freak things by NOT deciding.]

Hmmmmmmmm.

Why is all this relevant, and at the moment I heard it last Sunday, October 10th, 2021?

Two reasons:

1. ) On Sunday morning, before the Week 3 Webbie, I had a dialogue with myself about sending my sister some money to help her catch up a mortgage payment on her house.

Keep in mind she had not asked me for help.

I was considering calling her and telling her I would send her some money by month’s end IFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF one one of my closings occurred and IFFFFFFFFFFFFF the commission landed in my bank account…..

But, then for some reason, I stopped myself from making that phone call. From making that temporary promise based on something happening outside of my control in the future. I asked myself what would be the benefit of promising Pam money if this closing slid in another direction, or delayed, as they often do.? What would be the payoff? For my ego to feel good for a minute?

So I decided, on Sunday morning, even before hearing Lori’s exhortation several hours later, that I would only call Pam on the day that I actually send her the money, and not beforehand.

Was this a premonition of the Week 3 Webbie I hadn’t even heard yet? Or sweet synchronicity? Either way, I’ll take it!

2.) The day before Sunday’s MKE/MMA’s Week 3 webinar, October 9th, was the 10 year anniversary of the day my Mother passed away in 2011.

My Mother was a very generous person, but also highly conflicted.

She would make promises, continually, ESPECIALLY around money, that her continuing circumstances almost always ensured that she would not be able to keep.

My Mom never seemed to break free of this viscous cycle of promise and disappointment. Promise and disappointment. Promise and disappointment. Like it was a kind of addiction. Was it? It made her very bitter.

I inherited/ or modeled, you pick the semantics, her pattern of promise-as-procrastination with SEVERELY detrimental financial effects in my own life.

I have made every kind of financial mistake there is. I own it.

My MOM was a very powerful woman. Smart, Funny, Creative. She could move alot of furniture around. But she never found that place within herself to face/address the cause of her emotional/ behavioral tempests and constant upsets.

She was too busy her whole life exhausting herself battling, and will-powering, EFFECTS.

And making promises she could never cash.

The MMA/ MKE is a way-show-er leading me back to that vault within myself where all the riches I already AM have for too long been left unnoticed and unattended.

Much Love!

Lord William