I just started a new Bible study through the book of Jonah and God has already used it in my life in a big way. I'm still in the first Chapter, but God showed me how He used Jonah's sin to reach the hearts of the other people on the ship to Tarshish for the glory of God. Because of Jonah's sinful rebellion, they came to worship God. God has used that in my life to show me that I am to trust Him - even through my sin. And some how, and it has to be a God thing, because I can't figure out how God connected the two - but God used this to show me my own sin. The sin of a lack of faith - a lack of trust.
You see, shortly after the beginning of the new year, my husband started looking at all of the houses for sale in town. He started telling me about them, and we even started looking at a few. I have no idea why, but he had decided it was time for us to buy a house. I didn't agree, but didn't see the harm in looking.... and then we found one that I loved - I mean really loved. It would have been my dream home. And it sold less than a week after we first saw it. We had only just asked the realtor about it and she wanted us to see how much of a loan we qualified for before going any further. She didn't tell us she already had someone else interested. Only that it had been on the market for so long that they had dropped the price by over half. Before we could get to the bank it was gone. Looking at houses wasn't fun for me, I dreaded finding one I liked, and hated wasting time on the ones that weren't what we were looking for.
But we did find another one that had everything we were looking for - and it was even more reasonably priced than the first one that I set my heart on. We talked to the owner and he was willing to do owner financing. We needed to have the money for the down payment - and we did - it was a done deal. The house was ours... or so we thought.
The money we thought we had for our down payment fell through. So we decided we would check about getting a regular loan through the bank. The first guy we talked to told us that there was no reason we wouldn't be approved, in fact, he recommended going for a bigger loan to make the improvements we needed. The owner of the house was willing to pay the closing costs - it was a done deal... or so we thought.
The next lady we talked to at the bank said that there was a very slim chance we would qualify for a loan. In fact, she was pretty sure that we wouldn't because Mr. Amazing was unemployed during our move to Texas last fall. It didn't matter that his work history until then was better than most peoples, they said even one day of being unemployed within the last 5 years makes it pretty much impossible to get a loan. Period. So when we called to tell the owner of the house, he recommended doing a rent-to-own. He would rent us the house until next year, under the understanding that as long as we didn't miss any payments and paid the down-payment out of next year's tax return, that the house would be ours. It was a done deal... or so we thought.
The house is actually owned by brothers. Their parents left it to them in their will. The brother didn't like the idea of renting. But they really wanted to sell the house, so they agreed to take whatever down payment we could afford. Awesome! But with the 15 year mortgage they wanted to do, that made the payments too high for us to do comfortably... we were going to have to walk away... or so we thought.
The brother that we were talking to about the house, agreed to a 20 year mortgage instead... and then talked his brother into it. So they dropped the down payment from $10,000 to $3,000 and changed it from 15 years to 20 years. It was totally a God thing. We're set to move in at the end of April... but yet I don't believe it yet. I'm still waiting for the next thing to go wrong. I don't want to tell my landlord that we're moving out because of that fear. I didn't even want to tell my friends and followers about it for fear that it would fall through. And God showed me today that I'm not trusting Him - at all.
I'm not trusting Him that He will care for us, provide for us, and shelter us. I'm fearing the unknown instead of trusting my known God... and I'm sorry. I've confessed that sin to God, and now I'm confessing it to you. Because this post is already so long, I'm not going to tell you all about our new house today - but you can check back in next Monday for the scoop. Just know that I'm trusting God - whatever happens - that He will continue to provide for my family. Even if the deal on this house falls through - again - He will make sure that we are cared for and have a home.
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