Houseiversary

Four years.

It had been four long years since we moved to Bixby, Oklahoma. Don't get me wrong - we love Bixby. It's just that when we moved out of our house in east Tulsa and into an apartment in Bixby, we expected to live there for four months while we sold our old house and built the new one we would live in. But then our house in East Tulsa didn't sell, and to support that mortgage while it was on the market we wound up retracting our deposit on the new house build, and then we wound up having to turn our old house into a rental property. So we were stuck in an apartment which was very nice, but also very cramped for our family of four. With no money left to build our new house.

For four years.

Our lease was coming up for renewal, and we really felt like it might be time to make a move. It was either get out of the apartment, sign another year lease, or pay a huge premium to go month to month. One day my wife and I had dropped our little girl off at a friend's house for a birthday party, and with nothing else to do for an hour or so until picking her back up, my wife said "Drive down there." Apparently she had seen a sign for a little neighborhood that was going up... so we drove down to take a look.

There were only a handful of houses there, but right near the front of the new neighborhood there were three model houses available to look at. We peeked into each one in turn, and had a bit of a Three Bears experience... the first one wasn't quite what we wanted, and neither was the second one, but the third one was Just Right. The realtor told us that since it was close to the end of the month, it might be to our advantage to wait to shop for financing until after the first of the next month, so we told her we would get back with her then.

But we couldn't get away from being interested in that house! After the first of the month we went back over, and talked to the realtor - who was actually a different woman this time. She told us that the house was still available, but there was another potential interested party - if we had our minds made up, it would be to our advantage to put down our earnest money and lock it down for ourselves. We needed to run back to our apartment to get the checkbook, but she said she would be there when we got back.

Now, it so happens that that day was my wife's birthday, and to celebrate we had bought tickets to hear Jonny Lang play in concert that evening. Jonny is an amazingly talented blues guitarist who is also a man of faith, and his faith in God sometimes turns up in his music. To get pumped for the concert that evening, we had been listening to his Live at the Ryman album all morning - it was playing on the way back to our apartment.

When we got to the parking lot at the complex, something occurred to me. "We haven't actually prayed about this yet," I said to my wife. "Would you like to pray?" She said yes, and right there in the car she began to pray for guidance and wisdom.

I was listening and agreeing with her in prayer, but as it turned out I didn't hear much of what she said... because the Holy Spirit was speaking to me right through my stereo speakers! Right when my wife started praying, Jonny Lang got to a part of his song "Red Light" where he was half-speaking, half-singing to his audience about trusting God. "It's gonna be all right," he sang. "It's gonna be all right. Everything's gonna be all right."

Over and over Jonny sang "Everything's gonna be all right," and my heart said to me that it wasn't an accident that that part of the song happened to play right when we were seeking God's wisdom on this decision. I'm not someone who sees "sign from God" in every coincidence, but I'm also not too dense to recognize the Holy Spirit using something to encourage me.

There were a lot of things that day that came together for us. We happened to have enough spare money available to us right then to put down the earnest money - an unusual situation for us. We got there that day before this hypothetical other buyer - I realize that he may or may not have truly existed (I know how high-pressure sales work), but a man did turn up as we were working on the paperwork and he did want to look at houses. The perfect house for our family was already built and waiting for us just when we needed to move out of the apartment; no waiting for a 4-month build.

And my wife got the most lavish birthday present of her life so far: a new house!

We've never regretted what happened then. Today is the one year anniversary of the day we moved in, and we couldn't be happier! (Even our dog is more relaxed than he was in the apartment!) The neighborhood is nestled between some areas of farmland - the photo at the top of this blog post is a snapshot I took one morning within walking distance from where we live.

Four years.

Sometimes God's blessings take a bit of time to arrive (review this if you need additional information). But when they do arrive, they are amazing!

Never A Bad Deal

I never thought the book of Jeremiah would make me laugh. Isn't he called the weeping prophet? But when I closed my Bible, I was chuckling.

Last Thursday we received some discouraging information from our banker. We're working on a loan to make some repairs to our house, and the appraisal came back lower than we had hoped. It won't stop us from doing what needs to be done, but it certainly presented an unwanted bump in the road. My wife in particular was pretty crushed about it, and I knew it.

I am currently in the nineteenth month of my quest to read all the way through the Bible in one year (it's been a really long year!) and that evening after getting the negative news, I picked up my Bible and simply turned to the next chapter on the list: Jeremiah chapter 32. And that's the chapter that made me laugh. "Guess what my Bible reading was about tonight, Sweetie?" I said to my wife.

"What was it about?" she asked.

"A bad real estate deal!"

Let me set the stage for you. The nations of Israel and Judah, God's people, were in deep trouble. They had finally rebelled against God past a point of no return, and they were on the brink of being completely conquered by Babylon. Some of them were already in exile in Babylon, in fact, but there were still pockets of resistance to the conquerors; one such pocket was Jerusalem itself, where the king, Jeremiah, and the rest of the inhabitants of the city were barricaded in and under siege. Jeremiah, in addition, was under arrest in the palace; the king was very upset with him because Jeremiah had prophesied that indeed, Jerusalem was going to fall to Nebuchadnezzar, and the king himself was going to face some unpleasant consequences when it happened. So in the middle of Jeremiah being under arrest in a city that was about to be invaded and the inhabitants deported, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

God told him to buy some land.

To his credit, Jeremiah immediately and publicly did what he was commanded to do by the Lord. But later on he went to the Lord in prayer, and after reviewing just about the entire history of the Jewish nation, Jeremiah asked a very logical question, but one that you wouldn't expect to hear from the lips of a faithful prophet of God. "Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it," Jeremiah prayed. "What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, 'Buy the field for money and get witnesses'—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans." (Jeremiah 32:24-25 ESV)

It gave me a chuckle when I read that, because it seemed so unexpected. Jeremiah is all like, oh Lord, You made everything. You save people, You punish people, You do mighty signs. And then at the very end he almost whines, God, you just told me to waste money on land that's about to be taken away from me by a conquering army! What's the deal here, God? What's going on?

I don't know if you've ever felt like that... wait, yes I do know. You have felt like that sometime if you've been a Christian longer than about ten minutes. We all do. It's nice to see that the mighty prophet Jeremiah felt that way, and yet he still acted in obedience. I guess that means that being a Christian doesn't always mean that you understand what you're being instructed to do, but you're being faithful and obedient right now and asking for an explanation later, right? Food for thought.

Anyway, as I was reading through it, God's answer to Jeremiah's question hit me like a ton of bricks, and it has become my theme verse for what we're doing with our real estate. "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh," God said to Jeremiah. And then God added, "Is anything too hard for me?"

What God knew but Jeremiah did not know was that buying the land was a prophetic act. God had his prophets do all kinds of weird things in Old Testament days. Live completely naked for three years. Marry a known prostitute. And, in this case, buy land that's going to be taken away almost immediately by a conquering army. These outlandish acts were done not to be outrageous, but to make a point. The point in this case was that one day, God was going to rescue His people from Babylon, and when that happened, they would return to the Promised Land and Jeremiah's land deeds would once again be valid. What looked like a crazy act turned out to be an investment in a future only God could see. And bringing that future to fruition was not in any way too hard for God! Jeremiah's bad business deal would one day turn into a valuable investment.

Well, despite our bump in the road, we're going ahead with the plan for our house which we believe God has placed in our hearts. Just because it seems like it's not going perfectly doesn't mean it's not God's wisdom. I'm certainly not advocating making wild business deals in hopes that God will somehow magically turn them into good business deals, but I am advocating a life of prayer and listening for the voice of God. When God is behind something, it will not fail.

"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV)