Fruit Inspection

This week I was reminded of one of the many names of God: Jehovah-jireh. Meaning, “the Lord will provide”.

This story goes back to March, when we first decided to put our house on the market. The very first people that looked at it wanted to draw up a contract. There were many phone negotiations and then a date and time to meet for the final signatures.

The weekend before the signing of that contract Jeremy and I drove out to the town where we wanted to build our next house and began looking for land. We started our own negotiations on that end and got really excited about the possibility of moving our family there.

But the buyers for our house changed their mind. They cancelled their appointment with us, and we called off our search for land in beautiful Morgan Country.

Fast forward to June. Another serious offer. More telephone negotiations. And a verbal price agreement. For 4 weeks they continued to tell us they were drawing up the contract, but their agent never produced anything.

Then, last week, the family flew in from out of state for a closer look. They were here for almost an hour while Jeremy showed them every nook and cranny in this place. Yep, they wanted it. The price was right and they were “heading to the office right now to finish the paperwork”.

And they wanted to close in 3 weeks! Hallelujah!

That night we drove back out to see if the land we liked was still for sale and Yay, it was! So we called the agent and set up a meeting. We were going to need something quick since we were going to be homeless in 3 weeks! Jeremy wanted to get started building right away.

But then something happened. The purchasers for our house did not write the contract. It didn’t make sense. They flew all the way down here to see it. They loved it. They said they were going to leave that night and finish everything up. What went wrong???

Jeremy and I kept praying through all of this and on Sunday he said, “What if God doesn’t want us to live in Madison and that’s why all the contracts keep falling through?” I thought it was an interesting perspective, so I changed my prayers a little bit. They became more specific and as I was coming driving home from the grocery store on Tuesday, having a conversation with the Lord, I felt Him asking me this:

“Jodi, when is the last time you’ve had peace about selling your house and moving?”

I had to really think back and it was when Jeremy first approached me with the idea. He knew I would hate it, but he threw the suggestion out there anyways. With the housing market so slow, we were having to get creative on how to keep the money flowing, so he asked me one night, “what if we sell this house and move into one of our communities?”

Of all the things we had talked about, this one gave me peace. Which is weird because I hate to pack and move. So I knew it was from God and that it was what we needed to do.

In thinking back to that moment of peace this week I realized we were not being completely obedient to what God had told us to do. He wanted us to sell our house and move into one of our communities, not move to a nicely wooded lot in the country. And I believe He was preventing us from making that mistake.

When I got home, Jeremy happened to be there and I talked to him about what was just revealed to me. I said, “If God told us to sell and move into a subdivision, then that’s what we should do. We need to go ahead and start building our next house and let the rest fall into place. I believe that God will bless our obedience by selling this home.”

Jeremy was a little hesitant to start a new home before this one was sold, but he agreed with what I was saying. So Tuesday night we went out and chose our lot from one of our neighborhoods and decided on a house plan.

The next morning my prayers went something like this: “Lord, you know we are trying our best to do your will. We want to live where you want us to be. Sure, we’d love to be in Madison, but if you want us here, that’s where we will stay. We have chosen a lot and a house to live in. Is this what’s best for us? Please give us a confirmation somehow. Lord, I really really want you to confirm the plans we were making last night. This is a huge step of obedience for us. Please let us know if it’s the right thing to do.”

And that same day, at 4:00, Jeremy had a contract for this house sitting on his desk. Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

And that was confirmation enough for me. Jehovah-hireh: the Lord will provide.