- First of all, I feel that we made a commitment to pay this mortgage off for this home.
- I also recognize that this house has become a hindrance to our family. This is something that we have worked years to change, but due to the market, our attempts have been frustrated and unsuccessful.
- We changed our strategy and started about a year ago, saving for a down payment on a second home. We had figured that it would take until next spring to have the requisite money for down payment, and money saved up in case we could not find a renter right away, etc.
- We felt (Actually Jeff felt) it was time to start looking for a new home in mid August (yes, right after school starts). I felt good about following Jeff's lead on this. We were frustrated with a lot of the homes we found. I finally told Jeff and our Realtor that we were wasting Jeff's time, and that the Realtor and I should just look at possibilities and narrow it down for us to come look at the good homes.
- When the Realtor and I looked at this home, I felt as we walked up the stairs that this was the house. Jeff felt good about it too when we came back. In the mean time there was another house that I really liked as well and we had to sift through the different possibilities. I also had conflicting feelings about the house - sounds crazy but it is a bit more "up-scale" in many areas that are almost uncomfortable for me.
So amid all these feelings, tonight we are praying and it hits me - it is time to get into the (new) house, and that is what I need to support. I need to stop holding myself back from supporting what I have felt inspired about and have had peace about when I have prayed and observed how I felt. I don't know for sure what will happen with this house (I do know that we can't pay both mortgages for too long), but it hit me that is not what I should be focusing on. I need to focus on what I have been inspired on and leave the rest be.
I recognize that material things are not all that important to the Lord or His kingdom, however, I have been trying to make sure that 'the mortgage gets paid on this house' is part of His answer to me. It hit me tonight that some of the lemons from our lemon tree decay. Meaning that God gives us many things to be useful and helpful to us, but it would be silly to try and eat every lemon on our tree simply so that none would decay. And that is the way of our current house. It has been good for us, but it truly is becoming a hindrance to our family. If for some reason we are not able to get a renter and make the payments needed, then it will be taken by the bank and they will have their collateral that we agreed upon.
I am a greedy person by nature. It is something I work at. One thing I do when I am feeling especially cheap, is remind myself that if my dollars were apples, I would not mind sharing them with others who needed them. So I then should have no problem sharing dollars as well. I sort of took a reverse thought on this idea tonight. If apples (dollars or our first home) should decay, then that is the nature of material things. They are only important to us in relation to helping us progress in this life.
I am reminded of a story from the New Testament when a man approaches the Lord. If I recall it correctly, he tells the Lord that he and his brother are not in agreement over how the inheritance from their father should be divided. The Lord tells him, that these things are not important. I need to focus on the important part of all this. And yes, I still hope that we can meet our commitment on this house, but I realize that is one of the smaller things.
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