Since your heart follows hard after what you treasure greatly, direct your heart to love your access before the Lord, that you can stay before Him, and that you can enjoy so much of His presence—because of His abundant grace. -Barry Hall
I am sitting here wondering how much different our lives would be right now if we had never sold our first home just to make money to pay for bills we accrued because we bought our first home. And then wondered what if we had never bought a first home. Maybe we would be millionares! LOL!!! And then what if we hadn't had to have a bug man, a yard man, 200 channels on our TV that we never watched, 100 square feet more, just a little nicer neighborhood, and 4 different sets of living room furniture in 8 years because we couldn't find what we really wanted. It's something to think about. And I often say, we really didn't "spend" that much but somehow, we did. We see so many young couples starting out with nothing but getting great jobs and because they have a great job now they can have it all. INSTANTLY!!! It's scary because the more you make, the more you spend. And the more you spend, the more you want. And the more you want, the less you can give. And the less you give, the less you end up with!!! Where was Dave Ramsey 13 years ago?! :)
We prayed for 6 years to have a baby and you know when I got pregnant? The month after we became debt free (the first time)! We love God with all of our hearts. We ask him to direct our paths but we refuse to live in a world without if we don't have to. We think if we go where He tells us to go we are doing good. And we can take whatever we want to with us. As long as we are "going" we are obeying. Matthew 19:21 says : Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. THEN come, follow me." He didn't say, "Come on bring all your stuff, your debt, your greed, and your desires". Jesus doesn't care if your yard is green or brown. He definitely doesn't think it's more important to give your kids a massive amount of channels or even TV at all if you aren't giving to help someone else's kid have water today. And I'm not hating on you, I'm talking about our story. We have always been givers because we believe that's the only way but never been able to give what we should have been giving all along!
But the last 2 years God has done an AMAZING work in our lives. And if I could go back I would do it all different. After buying our 3rd home, and taxes going up, and our car going kurplunk, and having 3 kids, and back surgery, kidney stones, etc., we felt a pulling on our hearts that a change was coming. We thought that meant a change in job/ministry. We sold our house in 2 weeks and moved to an apartment to "wait on God". Where are we going God? What's up? What do you have for us to do? And little did we know, He was about to walk out on the water and ask us to come join him! Our lives as we knew them were about to be over. Our girls were not going to have a bow to match every outfit anymore! Christmas was going to be about giving to others instead of making a plan to get everything on the list. We weren't going to go eat every Sunday night after church, even when our girls would cry and say why, why, why. We weren't going to Alabama, or Florida, or Texas, or some other new place where we would again get to pick out a new house! We weren't GOING anywhere except out in the backyard to get our switch off the tree and hand it to God!! In these past two years of saying NO to our desires and our girls', we have been at more peace than in all 13 and 1/2 years of marriage! We have learned to once again hear God's voice and obey! Psalm 37:4 says: Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. It doesn't mean you get what you want! It means He will literally give you the actual desires. And your desires will be His desires. When this happens in your life you will be more free on the inside than you could ever imagine. We are now a few months away from having one debt left. And that's our car, which we are believing for that debt to be gone by the end of next year. Which would be paying it off almost 4 years early.
I debated whether to blog this or not. But here's the thing. The money we have is God's. The house we have is God's. Our vehicles, our furniture, our appliances, and the trees in our backyard, all God's. We have truly given everything we have to Him and I want the world to know. No we aren't perfect. Yes we've made HUGE mistakes, but God is a merciful God and He is not in the business of sitting back and watching us fail. Living in a world without at one time meant, no jet ski, no new shoes for this great new dress, no curtains from Pier One (even though they were on sale), not always eating out with our friends (because we never get to see them), & no HGTV:)!! But now, my world without is a world without debt, without shame, without fear, without having to say no when a need is presented, without wondering if my kids will truly believe in what matters most when they grow up. It's never about where God is taking you next! It's about who you will be in the place He has put you!
