Do I really have to tithe ten percent when money is already tight?

The only way to break that bond that we have, that tendency, that desire, the only way to do it is to give, and to get rid of the things that we are holding on to. I always tell people, yes, it is ideal to start at ten percent. But that is not the goal. The goal is not to give ten percent. The goal is to give, forgive me, until it hurts a little bit. I was thinking about my early years in the church, and I mean, I grew up in a family that had a lot of fighting about money, and we never really had much. We were always kind of just making it, kind of suburbs, and not anything extra. And I remember there was a lot of fighting growing up about money. And it was about, I was about twenty-five or twenty-six, and it was the year that I said, I am going to tithe this year. I am going to give ten percent. It does not make sense. It does not make sense on paper. Blah blah blah. I am going to give this year. And I remember that I gave that year, and at the end of the year I still owed like two or three thousand in taxes or something. I had no write-offs or whatever, and we were not making that much, and taxes were high. And I remember stepping back and saying, if I did not tithe, I could have paid my tax bill, but this is the most peaceful year about money I have ever had in my heart. I was like, this is the least worried about money and anxious and fearful I have been about it ever in my life. And in some weird way I was like, you know what? If I have to tithe in order to get more peace about money, then I would rather tithe and have more peace, and trust God that he is going to find a way to work it out.