The Only Invitation to Test God

Margaret Chen sat at her kitchen table in Raleigh, North Carolina, sorting the month's bills into two stacks — due now and past due. Her husband had been laid off from the furniture plant three weeks earlier. The checkbook balance read $412. Rent alone was $650.

She opened her Bible to Malachi 3:10, the verse her grandmother had underlined in red decades ago. "Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty. Margaret knew her Scripture well enough to recognize how extraordinary that phrase was. Nowhere else in the Bible does God invite His people to put Him to the test. Everywhere else, testing God is forbidden. But here, with the tithe, the Almighty throws open the door and says: prove Me.

She wrote the check to her church for $41.20 — ten percent, right off the top — and placed it in her purse before she could change her mind.

What followed wasn't a lottery win or a mysterious envelope of cash. It was a neighbor who needed weekend childcare and could pay. A church member who knew of a hiring manager. A late tax refund that arrived eight weeks early. One open door after another, none of them dramatic alone, but together unmistakable.

Malachi 3:10 is not a transaction. It is an invitation from El Shaddai, the God who is more than enough, daring us to discover that His faithfulness always outpaces our fear.