In 1974 I graduated from college, and we bought our ranch at the base of the Blue Mountains in Eastern Oregon.  All went well for a couple of years, and then the big drought happened.  It was in February of 1977 that as I looked up at the tops of the mountains, there was no snow.  Not a bit!  The mountains should have been covered with many feet of snow.  That meant that there would be no irrigation water that year.  There would be very little pasture for the cattle, and poor crops.

It would also mean that there would be very little income, and that we wouldn’t be able to make the mortgage payment.  We’d lose the place.

Marjorie and I decided that prayer and fasting were in order.  We began a fast, and I turned to the scriptures.  In my study I discovered something that I’d never noticed before, though I had read it many times.  It was the famous scripture in the third chapter of Malachi about tithing.

“Will a man rob God?  Yet ye have robbed me.  But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?  In tithes and offerings.

“Ye are cursed with a curse:  for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”  (Malachi 3:8-10).

What I’d never taken notice of before was the next verse:  “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.”  (Verse 11).

“Wow,” I thought, “that’s exactly the blessing we’re looking for.”

I went to Marjorie and said, “If we keep the Sabbath and pay our tithing, we’ll be all right.  Look at what I found.”

Marjorie was skeptical.  She said later that she didn’t believe in the method that some people use to find answers in the scriptures, but not knowing what else to do, she went to her room and tried their method.  After praying, she took her triple combination and let it fall open.  The theory is that the book would open to the answer.  The scripture I had quoted came from the book of Malachi in the Old Testament.  To Marjorie’s great surprise her triple combination fell open to 3 Nephi, chapter 24 where the Savior gave to the Nephites the words of Malachi which had been written after Lehi left Jerusalem.  They were the same exact words that I’d read to her from the Old Testament.

She came to me and asked, “Did you pay tithing on the timber we logged?”

I had always been very diligent about paying tithing, but for some reason I’d completely overlooked paying tithing on that logging.  I couldn’t believe it.  It had never entered my head to do so.  We had to scrape around to do it, but we paid the $2,600 tithing that we owed.

At the end of the year we took our financial records to our accountant.  After preparing our tax return he announced to us that we were one of only two places in the whole county which showed a profit that year.

I don’t know how it was done.

Another year we did something we’d never done before, and haven’t done since.  That year, for whatever reason, we needed to make an income that was double what we normally made.  At the beginning of the year we paid a double tithing before we’d even made any income.  We paid tithing on what we hoped to make.  The tithing check amounted to thousands of dollars.

At the end of the year when everything was totaled, I was astounded to discover that we still owed $7.00 in tithing.  The Lord had matched our faith and expectations.

I don’t know how it was done.

But I do believe in tithing.  I do believe that the Lord means it when He repeatedly says, “Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.

“For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”  (3 Nephi 14:7-8).

Prayer opens doors.  Paying tithing opens windows.