Long time no see friends! It has been over a year since my last post and frankly its because so much has happened in my heart over that year that I was overwhelmed at the thought of having to put any of it to words. It has been a year of pruining, refining, dying to myself, and letting my heart be molded in ways it never has been before. I’m
going to share the story of a small bit of that refining with you. This story attempts to squeeze 18 months of
journeying with the Lord into one or two scrolls of your computer/mobile
devices’ screen so bear with me. I’m going to do this in 2 posts so you don’t start to go cross
eyed trying to follow along :)
Lets
jump right in with the back story.
For over 6 years now, I’ve longed for a home; to have a place where I
could feel free to dig deep roots, plant my feet and not wonder when I’d be
packing up to move and re-settle again. Maybe its a southern thing or maybe its a female thing, but there's something to be said for a women and her home. I love hosting people and inviting them in to share their hearts. In my
early 20’s I began to look for homes several times, but every time the Lord
would tell me to wait on my husband before I purchased one. I was glad to be obedient and wait, but
the desire to have a place for “roots” was always in my heart.
When
Zach & I got married in May of 2014 I thought to myself “Now its time! Now we’ll find our home.” We asked the Lord and both felt peace
that one of our top financial priorities would be to continue to save for a home. We re-worked
our budget to be wise and prepare for the time that He would show us where we
would live. We were able to limit
some of our lifestyle and save joyfully because we knew what we were working
for. Every month when we would see
the little amount in our savings account grow, we got so excited! We were working towards a dream
together and it was so much fun to see the unity that it brought in our family.
I started
looking at homes over the Summer of 2014 but it wasn’t the Lords timing for us,
and to be honest, the process showed me that my heart wasn’t in the right place. I became focused on our “next step” and
I didn’t realize it at first, but little by little I began to put more hope and
excitement in the thought of finding a home than I had put in the thought of
having Jesus and no home at all. Isn’t it funny how a desire for something other than Jesus
can creep up and hide in our hearts while we don’t see it? It could be a desire for a home, a career
move, a spouse, a retirement plan, a child, even a healing, you name it. Those things in and of themselves can be
wonderful things but when we build a theology of who Jesus is for us around
what He gives us, we are way WAY off.
When our view of him is based on what’s in his hand for us and not on beholding
His face, we’ve totally missed it.
He is always more concerned about the condition of our hearts towards
him over anything else. A house
became something my heart was hungry for, and anytime a heart is hungry for
something other than Jesus, that desire needs to be submitted to the
cross. That is exactly what Father
did with that desire over the next several months. He allowed me to pursue a home so I would see that I’d tried
to run ahead of him. Then, in his
kindness, he lovingly showed me that I’d allowed my perspective to get off
track and He invited me back to submit myself to Him and his timing. He helped me turn my heart back to run
after Him alone rather than Him and a home. That’s the beauty of repentance. When we repent and change the way we think to be in line
with heaven again, it always brings freedom. It’s humbling to even admit that’s where my heart was
because it sounds so selfish, but I’m hoping I’m not the only one willing to
admit she’s found herself in that boat :) Don’t leave a sister hangin! Any time we seek after Jesus and ______ (you name it), we
will miss so much of what He has for us because our eyes’ focus is being
divided. That’s why he tells us
“Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you”
(Matt 6:33), and “When you seek me you will find me when you seek my with ALL
your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13)
The
Summer came to a close, and my heart was in a beautiful place with the
Lord. Zach and I prayed about how
long of a renewal lease to sign on our apartment. We felt like we should renew until April of 2015 so that’s
what we did and we took a break from house hunting. As the new year approached, we started to ask the Lord about
when he would have us begin looking again. The more we prayed, the more we felt that January 2015 was
the time for us to pick it back up.
We felt like the Lord had even told us at the beginning of the year that
our house was coming soon (In hind sight, its always good to remember that when
the Lord says “soon”, rarely does it match our definition of “soon”). We had different people who were
unaware of our situation tell us that they felt like the Lord was bringing a
house to us or that they saw pictures of us holding keys to a home that would
be a center of ministry. My heart
swelled!! It sounded like everything
I’d hoped for in a home: a place to settle and establish roots; to invite
people in to love them and bless them.
We want our home to be a place of ministry where people come and are
filled up and encouraged. I
couldn’t wait to see what it would look like, where it would be, how many
people we could have at the dinner table, etc. We looked at several homes for the first few weeks of
January. We knew that the Lord had
a home for us whether He had showed it to us yet or not, we just didn’t expect
his next move…
Out
of the blue at the end of January, the Lord very clearly told Zach that we were to
take the money we’d saved for our house down payment and do something different
with it………………(insert gasp, tears, questioning, thinking my husband had
lost his mind, me telling the Lord to tell Zach he’d heard wrong, etc). I wish I could convey the cycle of
emotions I went through over a 24 hour period. I cried, I wanted to throw up, I cried some more, I
questioned if we’d even heard the Lord correctly about our home. My response was not cute, let me tell
you, but let me also tell you what that one ask from the Lord did for me. It became a holy invitation from Him to
look at my heart again and ask: if all of our natural proof that his word would
be true was taken away, did I still believe Him for what He’d told us? I informed him, as if He didn’t
know, “Lord, Zach and I co-labored
for over a year for that. We will
never be able to get a house by April with out it. We’ll never be able to get a house this YEAR with out it!” You see, it wasn’t about money for me
at all, it was about a dream being postponed again. “A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing
fulfilled is a tree of life.” Prov 13:12.
It showed me a place in my heart where I wasn’t fully believing in the goodness
of my Father. I wasn’t trusting Him
to provide for the word He had spoken.
In that one “ask”, He was calling me to a deeper place of standing on
the truth of who He says He is, regardless of what my circumstances seem to
say. It took me a few days to get
there, but in a weeks time I was able to step in obedience and write the
biggest check I’ve ever written with joy in my heart and complete confidence in
His goodness and faithfulness. The
Lord loves to invite us to higher levels of revelation of who He is through our
life circumstances. It’s our
choice to respond to any situation by believing truth or by choosing not to,
and choosing the latter will always lead to questioning and doubt. Its so easy to agree with truth it in a
quote, a sermon, a teaching, but when He asks you to live it out, it sinks
roots into you that go deeper than any teaching ever could. It becomes part of the core of who you
are and who you believe Him to be.
Fast
forward to April when our apartment lease expires and that is where we will
pick up in the next post. I hope
you come back to hear the rest! I
know I’m biased, but it is such a sweet testimony! :)
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