The Pump That Had to Be Primed

On a dusty farmstead outside Abilene, Kansas, there stands an old cast-iron hand pump — the kind with a long lever and a rusted spout. A hand-painted sign hangs from the handle: "Pour the jar of water into the top BEFORE you pump. Don't drink it first. Trust the well."

Beside the pump sits a mason jar filled with water. Every instinct says to drink it — especially when you are parched. But that pump draws from a deep limestone aquifer, an underground reservoir that could quench your thirst for a lifetime. The catch is this: the leather gasket inside has gone dry. Without priming, the pump pulls nothing but air. You must sacrifice the sure thing — the water you can see — to access the abundance you cannot yet see.

That is precisely what the Lord Almighty says through Malachi: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. Test Me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven." It is the only place in all of Scripture where God invites us to put Him to the test.

The tithe is the jar of water. It looks like everything you have. But God is not asking you to go thirsty. He is asking you to prime the pump — to pour out in faith so He can draw up from a supply deeper and more abundant than anything you could ever hold in your hands.