So, I was sitting in church yesterday listening to the message my good friend Tim was giving. We're still in this series called "Fighting", which relates to how we deal with challenges and struggles in everyday life. During the message, I kept hearing, Jesus is after our hearts. My mind tends to drift at church and I often find myself thinking of things that are going on in my life and how they relate to the message. I was processing this idea of Jesus being after our hearts and I came up with the thought of Him testing us. What if He is just testing Ann and I with this whole moving situation. We put our house on the market last week in hopes to downsize and honor God's calling on this. I have said before that I know in my heart that this is what we are supposed to be doing and I completely trust Him in all of this. But, what if He is just testing us? Testing our hearts to see if we would actually do it. Maybe He wants us to stay here and try harder to reach our neighbors and to let our neighbors reach us. Maybe His plan is greater than a relocation. Maybe He will do something awesome in our hearts and this communities if we stay. After all, they're all His children too. They deserve a second, third, fourth chance.... If we are the light and the way, then why would we be called to take it somewhere else and leave these children of His to be abandoned. There are other Christians in this neighborhood. Some of them even go to our church. Maybe they are to continue the fight for lost hearts in this neighborhood. There are so many possibilities, as there always is with God!
But then there is the fact that I am still unhappy here. Our kids have no friends to play with. All of our direct neighbors are older and the overall feeling on this part of the street is a stuffy one. We are still just getting by with the mortgage payment. Not able to tithe, not able to save, not able to use His money how He intended it to be used. I dream of using that money to build small homes in Honduras. So much could be done with it instead of going to a mortgage payment for a big fancy house that has nothing to show for it. It feels like a burden to me and I want it to be lifted.
So what now? What do we do? We sit and wait. We have moved a lot in the past (3 houses in ten years), and every move we have felt led. This is an opportunity to trust God and watch Him do something awesome. It also a learning experience for us. We can look back to see what we might have failed at, and then take that experience to look forward to see what we can do better. It is also a struggle in progress. You can't have one without the other. Struggle is good as long as you don't dwell in it for too long. As long as you learn something and progress. I have no regrets with our past. Life is an adventure and God wants us (you) to take chances for Him. How can there be any regrets if you truly trust Him?