House for Sale - Lesson #1

[I've been working on this topic for a couple of days off and on and finally came to the realization that it will be much too long for a single post, so I need to break it up.  The danger for me always is: will I come back to it and finish my thoughts?  I believe I will - because God has taught me so much through this whole process.]

Once again our house is empty and "up for grabs" - ready to sell or rent ... or rent to own.

Over two years have passed since we first put our house on the market.  Early in 2011, after deciding that God was calling us to Haiti, we spent several months fixing up the place.  We even dealt with all those inconveniences that we had lived with for years but that we figured might be off putting to a prospective buyer - a missing outlet plate here, a  scuffed wall there, a sticky closet door here.  Overall, the house was in darn good shape; we had put a lot of sweat equity into it over the five years we had been living there.  Every wall had been painted, every light fixture updated, and every square foot of wood flooring sanded and refinished.  Likewise, on the outside: the dingy gray was gone and replaced with a beautiful "Ocean Foam" ... or something.  Even the kids' play structure in the backyard had gotten a face lift.

By March of 2011, we were ready to put the house on the market: for sale by owner.  We scheduled an Open House on either end of our spring break week and advertised it in the local paper.  By that point, though, the bottom had dropped out of the housing market, drying up every last bit of our sweat equity - and then some!

Still, we reasoned, God wanted us to go to the mission field, so He would sell our house.  When the Sunday of our first Open House arrived, we put the finishing touches in place, sent our four kids off to play with friends for the afternoon and eagerly awaited our first visitors.  Sitting on the couch in the living room beside the picture window at the front of the house would afford us a perfect view of approaching strangers, giving us plenty of time to jump up, rush to the front door, greet them and show them around the house.

That couch was where I fell asleep ... and enjoyed a nap completely uninterrupted by the doorbell.  Our second Open House a week later brought in one solitary couple - those two wandered through the house for 3 minutes and then disappeared without so much as a smile.

Melissa and I were crushed.  It wasn't just that crowds of potential buyers hadn't shown up ... Where was God?  Why didn't HE show up? Was this a sign?  How was I going to have a neat and tidy miraculous house sale story to share with others if God wasn't going to cooperate:   "We put the 'Open House' sign up and fifteen minutes later a couple walked in and offered cash - $10,000 over our asking price!  We serve a mighty God!" 

This was the first of several gut-level lessons God would teach us through this house. (I'm talking about "gut knowledge" beyond just "head knowledge" here!)

Lesson #1: Just because I believe I am following God's will, doesn't mean the path is going to be easy and paved with miracles.  Now this might strike you as obvious ... and it IS obvious and I already knew this in my head, but my gut was holding onto the belief that because God was calling us to work in Haiti, He was bound to expedite our transition. 

I say it is obvious that being in the center of God's will does not equal smooth sailing because anybody can open the Bible to just about any random passage and find proof right there in God's word. Case in point: Take a good look at the Apostle Paul's experience once he got launched onto the mission field.  His missionary life was filled with tales of prison time, a couple of attempted murders, beatings and shipwrecks. 
 
But even though we "know" that neither success nor failure is directly correlated with the quality of our relationship with God, how quick we are still to judge others and to evaluate our own standing with the Lord based on the positive or negative circumstances of our lives.  We forget that even what others might mean for evil, God can use for our good - even though it still looks very much like "bad" right now.  And we forget that the man who has to build more barns to store all his harvest may die tomorrow and lose it all ... and face judgment before God's throne. 

Truth is, at least part of me wanted that miraculous house sale to prove to myself and others that God really was calling us to Haiti.  The last chapter of Acts is so instructional regarding this in-grained attitude we carry with us regarding hardship as being equivalent to God's disapproval and blessings being God's thumbs up:  The Apostle Paul and many others are caught in a storm at sea and their ship breaks apart just off the coast of Malta.  All the victims survive and are cared for by the natives.  Paul goes to help build a fire as they are drying off and a snake latches onto his arm.  Acts 28:4 records the reaction of the islanders: When the natives [fn] saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, "Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice [fn] has not allowed him to live."  BUT when Paul fails to keel over and die in the coming minutes, the people "changed their minds and began to say that he was a god."
 
They were wrong on both counts!  The only thing the incident truly proved was that God was sovereign over all circumstances and His will was taking precedent - even over snake venom. 
So back to our real estate situation: the house is again up for sale and I am now more inclined to pray "Thy will be done" than to request a quick and easy sale.  I can honestly say I am more interested in a resolution that brings glory to God than one that just simplifies our life and finances.  If they happen to be one in the same, then yahoo!  Maybe in my next post I can tell you a bit about how God has put the house to good use over the last two years - in ways that would not have been possible if our Open Houses had been "successful".
 
Prayer Request: Even as I finished writing this post tonight, I received a call from a stranger requesting a showing of the house tomorrow morning at 10.  Currently though, first dibs on the house belong to a new friend/sister in Christ who used to live in that neighborhood and would like to return.  She is working on figuring out finances with the bank.  I simply ask you to pray with us that God's will be done.  Thank you!