Friday Blog

A Different Perspective

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Front yard of house

A number of years ago as I was attempting to understand God's methodology and His timing I came to the realization that from my perspective God is always a day late and a dollar short, but from His perspective He is right on time with just enough. My challenge is to stop seeing it from my perspective and start seeing it from His! These past few weeks as Lisa and I have been preparing for and implementing our move from Texas to Tennessee it has been essential for us to NOT view this move from our perspective but from God's.

I have stated before that I am someone who likes to have all my ducks in a row, I wrote about it in a blog post on March 13. This past month has been anything but having all my ducks in a row! We came to Tennessee in early June to look for a house and left without finding one. We got back to Texas and it took much longer than anticipated to get our house on the market. We ended up delaying our move from June 28 to July 5 because things just weren't ready yet. When we finally did get the trucks loaded (yes, we had two 26 foot U-haul trucks) we left a house that was not yet listed for sale going to a place we had no where to live (to be fair we did have a room at our son's house where we could stay temporarily, but nothing permanent), and no place to unload our stuff! This was the perfect situation for my faith to evaporate because it appeared that God a day late and a dollar short once again. But God has been working on me and He has been reminding me that "my God will supply all of your needs according to His riches" (Philippians 4:19) and "do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?" (Matthew 6:25) Jesus goes on to explain why in verse 33 where He states "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you."

I have been reading a devotional by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland (there are a lot of things the Copeland's teach that I don't believe, but there is also a lot they say that is worth considering) where they encourage the reader to believe without wavering that God has ALREADY provided the solutions to the challenges we face. Ellen White, in Life Sketches pages 195 &  196 states "We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history."  In this move I could see two specific areas where I could exercise faith - the first was a place to live, the second was selling my house back in Texas - and recognizing God's intervention in each aspect helps faith to grow.

Upon arriving in McDonald, Tennessee the first thing I did was contact U-haul to see if we could extend the rental on the trucks for two extra days (the contract price for this was $55 per day per truck). To my surprise, the U-haul agent extended BOTH trucks for three days at no extra cost!  We decided that since our house wasn't selling in Texas we needed to find a place to rent. We drove by several that we were not impressed with. Finding something that would meet our needs seemed like it was not going to happen. Looking on Zillow we found a home that was available immediately that was big enough for most of our stuff and that had a fenced back yard for our dog that we could get into the next day. Interestingly this house was three doors down the street from two different houses we had contemplated purchasing - God apparently wanted us in this neighborhood! We were able to get all our stuff off the trucks by noon on Friday leaving us plenty of time to return the trucks before Sabbath. By Monday night we had enough organized in the house so we could start living there.

The final hurdle we had to face was selling our home in Texas. We had hoped to have it on the market before the end of June, then it was supposed to be listed over the July 4 weekend (it didn't happen), and if finally went live on Tuesday about 1 pm.  Two other homes in our neighborhood that are comparable to ours have been on the market this spring - both of them basically right across the street, one house apart. One of those houses was on the market for about two weeks before they received a contingent offer, the other has been on the market for about two months with no offers. By 8 pm on Tuesday our house had been shown three times - one of them made an offer and the other two indicated an offer was coming by the end of the weekend. We decided to inform the buyer that made the offer we were going to let it sit for the weekend and make a decision  on Monday. They countered by raising their offer $6,000 with a commitment to close in three weeks.

I don't know why God chose to wait until the last minute to find us a house here in Tennessee or why He allowed the delay in listing for two weeks but this one thing I know when I look at it from my perspective God was late again, but when I look at it from His perspective His timing was perfect. I am slowing learning to stop seeing with my eyes and start seeing through His!

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