God’s Timing Is Not All About Me

 

It’s been proven to me, yet again, that God’s timing is perfect.  That His will is best.  That I need to learn to relax: God’s got things under control.  That life is not all about me, that there are others needing things to happen as well.

This spring and early summer has been a crazy time for our family.  My husband and I traveled from one end of the country to the other trying to determine God’s will for our lives (jobs, kids, housing, etc).    After securing a job in California, we decided to post our house as “For Sale by Owner” and let God do His thing.

God’s ‘thing’ was to wait.  God sat quietly while I packed and worried.  We had no place to live in California, and we had no bites on our house.  I packed.  I fretted.

I tried not to, I really did.  I prayed often throughout the day and gave my worries to God – over and over again.  As those sneaky little worries kept coming back, I’d pray them away again.

Our family has been reading a book called “The Circle Maker” by Mark Batterson.  Mark talks about making prayers specific, circling the problem with prayer and waiting for God to act.  I decided, without telling anyone (but eventually caving and telling a few) of my circled prayer request:  “God, please sell our house within next two weeks (well, you know it takes longer than that to go through, but sign a contract of intent) and please sell it for over $___,___.  At the same time, Lord, I’d like your will to be done.  This is my specific prayer – but You do what’s best.”

This was big for me!  I don’t like the idea of putting God in a box of impressing my will upon His.  But I prayed that prayer, over and over.  And while I prayed, I let go of the worries.  Things would work out.

The phone rang frequently about the house.  Several people came to look.  Dozens of real estate agents hard hit to sell for me.  I stayed strong in the belief that God was going to take care of this house.  We had a real estate agent/friend who was willing to help us  as a friend, not an agent) to save cost. We waited.  We hunted for housing in California and we cleaned and packed in our house in Kansas.

Two weeks.  Time’s up.  Nothing.  No housing in Cali, no house sale in Kansas.  What?  Lord?  I drew the circle, I prayed.  It wasn’t His will.  Story of my life.  I’m pretty sure it’s because my will and His will are not always aligned and so through “unanswered prayers” I try to maintain faith.

Time flew into 3 ½ weeks and the truck was coming in 5 days.  I dejectedly packed yet another box and wondered what God had in mind.  My husband sat at the table with a computer and a phone.  No housing.  No sale.  We discussed options and they were all discouraging.  At last we decided that if God didn’t sell our house by Thursday, we would list it with an agent and if nothing came free in California, we would lease long-term (not a financially sound decision we were wanting).  We prayed and left it at that.  I went back to my boxes and my husband went back to his papers.

The phone rang.  A man in California told us a month-by-month rental had come available LAST NIGHT.  It’s small (tiny) but live-able, would we like it?

Oh yeah.

I packed more and my husband put away his papers and packed in the garage.  The phone rang.  “Your house is exactly what I’m looking for,” exclaimed the excited woman on the phone.  “Hold the house for me until I get off work!”

Amy (not her real name) came over and walked in the door pronouncing the house to be everything she was looking for – she criticized nothing (and believe me, there’s plenty to pick on) and let me know she wanted the house.  It felt too good to be true.

Amy told us she’d call the next day with an offer and I waited thinking we’d never hear from her again.  Things didn’t happen this smoothly.  She called the same night and we talked.  She didn’t know what she was doing, without a real estate agent, and neither did I.  I told her of our friend and we set up an appointment with him.

She told me how thrilled she was with the house.  I took a breath and let her know for me, this was a “God thing.”  I said, “I don’t know of your beliefs, but this is an answer to prayer for us.”  I told her that we had decided to list and she laughed and said if we had listed, she wouldn’t have noticed it.

Amy described to me how her life had fallen into rough times and after selling her house, following a divorce, she had to find a house in the area in order to keep her kids in their school, but she couldn’t afford most houses in the area.  She told how she was looking for a ‘sale by owner’ in order to save costs and get a slightly better house.  She told of losing her phone and the discouragement at not being able to look for houses because she couldn’t get online any more.  She told of her boss getting her a new phone that morning and her sister telling her to relax.  “God does not have your house ready for you, Amy, just relax and let Him find your house.”  Just seconds before she called me, she made the choice to download Zillow, the house-hunting app I used to post our house.

This house sale is a God thing.  Prayed for by me.  Prayed for by Amy.

God did not meet my timetable.  He missed it by over a week.  But God was not sitting quietly while Amy and I fretted and worried.  He was busying arranging houses and money the way it was needed. God missed my prayer target, because He was busy arranging the needs of more than one person, in His time!

It’s not all about me, God’s timing involves so many angles we can’t even begin to understand.  Thank you Lord, for taking care of our needs.

God missed my prayer target, because He was busy arranging the needs of more than one person. #inspirememonday Click To Tweet

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