SOLD!
Sorry about the delay in posting here. For you faithful and fervent readers (both of you), thanks for sticking by.
Well, it looks like we did it. We sold our house! We have an accepted offer on the table and inspections begin on Monday. We likely will close by the end of the month; certainly no later than January 5th. So we only have a few weeks left in our house at the most. It’s been an amazing ride with more than a few ups and downs, but I have to say it has clearly been quite a sanctifying process. God has surely been faithful in showing us the way with this and I have naturally had to learn a great deal about expectations and trust. That process is not yet over; we still have to find a house to move into. However, by God’s providence, we have living arrangements covered while we look so we won’t be left out in the cold…literally…
So we settled on a price that was $700 less than what we were asking but still lets us leave the table at closing with more than enough to cover closing costs on the next house. I’m not sure how it all will work out but I figure God has gotten us this far and certainly will provide for us in this next step. I continue to wrestle with expectations and emotional attachment to ideas of where I want to live, but naturally most of those have fallen through. So I have been left with the idea of what faith looks like in a process like this.
Some Christians would have me believe that faith looks like telling God what I want and then applying my faith to get it. However, I think I am coming to the conclusion that faith looks more like trusting in God’s desires for me and trusting in His ability and desire to shape my will and desires to meet His (sanctification). If we have every spiritual blessing in Christ, as we are told, and lack no good thing, then faith looks like a pretty simple excercise, though sometimes difficult to yield to in our incredibly relativistic and individualistic times. So I’m not “thinking big” in this process. Of course, I’m not thinking small either, I’m just thinking “Your will be done” and I have never felt so comforted by that idea as I do now. It is, after all, what Jesus himself told us to pray and I find a great peace in relying on this simple prayer. After all, one of the great benefits of having intimacy with the Creator is that in trusting recklessly in His sovereignty, I can expect His ultimate goodness to be extended to us as a by-product. He will, I am reminded, never give us a snake or a stone when we ask for provision. So I find myself comforted in the position of just asking for His provision, His will, and His wisdom. We are promised in scripture that He always grants a request for wisdom so I am exceedingly thankful for that; especially in a crazy real estate market and being in a place of limited funds.
We have already seen His faithful hand in granting us a sale on our house; something that is very hard to do these days. I look forward to seeing what His hand shall provide next.