After much ado, the back and forth with the sellers of our new home is complete. The process, much like the selling price negotiations I described here, was arduous and at times frustrating and carried us through a full range of emotions forcing reliance on God and his provision (at times kicking and screaming).
The day all of this was coming to a head I got an email from RightNow Media (a Netflix like service our church provides with awesome studies, kids videos etc.) announcing a new study on Doctrine by Francis Chan, the tagline of which was "God is better at math than you are." I had to chuckle as I was in the midst of being bogged down in the details and numbers of repair negotiations and once again my pride was getting the best of me as we battled with unmotivated sellers and a realtor that was difficult to work with causing a perfect storm of frustration. As Proverbs 16:9 says, we had plotted our course but God had a few more steps he wanted us to go through to complete (hopefully) the work he needed done in us.
I'll give a brief synopsis of what transpired over the course of about a week because anything longer would just turn into a rant. We made our offer on the house knowing there were a few major things needing to be done (which the inspection report confirmed) and planned to set money aside for those things, but armed with proof on paper I saw dollar signs and so began the creation of spreadsheets and onset of greed. There were also some miscommunications along the way (did I mention the difficult realtor??) that brought up some suspicion/frustration and a little more hardball negotiating thrown in for good measure, but in the end we realized there was a little pot calling the kettle black going on and we were being just as unfair as we were accusing them of being (after the subtle reminder mentioned above).
The day all of this was coming to a head I got an email from RightNow Media (a Netflix like service our church provides with awesome studies, kids videos etc.) announcing a new study on Doctrine by Francis Chan, the tagline of which was "God is better at math than you are." I had to chuckle as I was in the midst of being bogged down in the details and numbers of repair negotiations and once again my pride was getting the best of me as we battled with unmotivated sellers and a realtor that was difficult to work with causing a perfect storm of frustration. As Proverbs 16:9 says, we had plotted our course but God had a few more steps he wanted us to go through to complete (hopefully) the work he needed done in us.
I'll give a brief synopsis of what transpired over the course of about a week because anything longer would just turn into a rant. We made our offer on the house knowing there were a few major things needing to be done (which the inspection report confirmed) and planned to set money aside for those things, but armed with proof on paper I saw dollar signs and so began the creation of spreadsheets and onset of greed. There were also some miscommunications along the way (did I mention the difficult realtor??) that brought up some suspicion/frustration and a little more hardball negotiating thrown in for good measure, but in the end we realized there was a little pot calling the kettle black going on and we were being just as unfair as we were accusing them of being (after the subtle reminder mentioned above).
Once again, my flesh
got caught up in details and I lost sight of the things that really matter as well as the overwhelming number of things that lined up in order for us to be in the position we are in but I don't think this was a matter of coincidence. As Romans 8:28 says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose," (or click here for musical form) it's just that sometimes the "good" we need is to flush out some of the bad in us to make room for something better.
As Francis Chan states in the Doctrine series linked above, "My brain is like a 2 Liter bottle and God is like the Pacific Ocean." We feel at peace with how things worked out but as a friend reminded me, we serve a God of grace who will sustain us even in bad decisions so we should be covered either way!
As Francis Chan states in the Doctrine series linked above, "My brain is like a 2 Liter bottle and God is like the Pacific Ocean." We feel at peace with how things worked out but as a friend reminded me, we serve a God of grace who will sustain us even in bad decisions so we should be covered either way!
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