I wish I could remember exactly how long ago it was that Nick and I read the book, The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. If I were to take a guess, I would say it was about 7 years ago, because I remember the kids being little. The book is based on Jericho and circling your dreams. At the time we wanted to sell our house, we desperately wanted to move to a nice brick home with land or a pool or by the lake, honestly; we didn’t care too much, we just wanted out of the one we were in. As we read the book, we decided to circle our house. Just as God told Joshua to do at Jericho, we did at our house. Each day for a week, we walked around our house and prayed. The first day we walked around it once, the second day twice, and so on and so on. Some days we prayed out loud and others we prayed silently. I’m sure we looked like crazy folks to our neighbors and the kids were small so they joined in for part of the march and played in the back yard when they were tired of walking.
After the week of circling our house we put our house on the market. Not a single person wanted to look at our house. The timing just wasn’t right, and so feeling defeated and like God didn’t answer our prayer we took the house off the market. A couple of years went by and we got the itch to move again, so we put the house back on the market and started dreaming of the house we would make our home. This time, we did have people look at the house, but no offers came, and once again we took the house off the market. We felt as if we would never get out of that house. There were times I cried because I couldn’t stand the house we were in. As time went by, God started showing me how privileged I was to have a house, running water, clothes, food to eat, two cars, and I was richer than majority of the world, so I really needed to stop complaining.
I grew to appreciate my house. I was making wonderful memories with Nick and the kids and the house was just that...a house. It was just a thing, an item that we owned by the grace of God and one that allowed us to take care of our family the way we needed to without wondering how we were going to make it, although there were times when that thought did cross our minds. Fast forward to this past summer, 2018 and that itch of wanting a new house came back. Instead of rushing into selling our house, we prayed about it and decided to wait. Around November we were discussing putting the house back on the market in the spring and decided to pray. Over Christmas break after much prayer and discussion, we decided that the timing wasn’t right and we would wait another year before putting the house on the market. It would allow us to get rid of some debt and to pay the house down more so we could ask for an amount that seemed fair for our house.
God must have been laughing, because this is not what happened. I will give you a brief version of how God has been working in our lives over the past three months. A beautiful old house that Nick always wanted to buy came up for sale. We knew the realtor so I sent her a message and asked if we could see the house. She showed us the house the next day and told us there were offers coming in and if we wanted it we needed to let her know soon. We fell in love with the house but knew it wasn’t feasible because of the down payment. We prayed about it and let her know it wouldn’t work out. The next morning as I was getting ready for church I felt like we were supposed to put an offer on the house, but wasn’t 100% sure if it was just my emotions or God. I told Nick and we didn’t really talk about it much. Later that day Nick got a phone call urging him to put the offer on the house and not to worry about money. Which is crazy, because we are both school teachers and have no real way of making extra money without getting a second job. That night we decided to make an offer. Three days later our offer was accepted. We couldn’t believe that they accepted our offer. We didn’t know what we would do with our house and decided to pray about it. We went back and forth as to whether we should rent or put it back on the market, after all; we know the luck we’ve had with selling it. A little over a month later we closed on our new house and moved over spring break. We decided to put our old house on the market and see what would happen. We talked to the realtor and she agreed that we could have a short term contract so we wouldn’t have to make months of double house notes.
God is good! The house was on the market a few days and we had someone look at it. Then a week and another person, and shortly after that another person. Then an offer came and as Nick and I talked it over we couldn’t believe how quickly things were moving. We accepted the offer and about six weeks after putting our house on the market we signed the contract that officially said the house was no longer ours. I’m still in shock at how God works. There is so much more about this story, and where we live, and what is now our forever home. Even though I thought God wasn’t answering our prayer to get a new house, he was. He heard my prayers and saw my tears, but what he wanted from us was to appreciate what we had. We had to learn to be content with what we were given before we could appreciate this wonderful gift we have now.
If it seems God isn’t answering your prayer right when you asked, please know he is listening and he’s working. God doesn’t sit still and he’s going to work things out and they will be so much more, so much better than you ever dreamed of. Keep trusting in Him! Dream big, be bold, be still and let God do the work. God loves you and he hears you! Until next time: “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
