IT’S AMAZING HOW ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER! When we moved to Owatonna almost nine years
ago, following God’s call to ministry in this town – we prayed that He would
help us find a home. Not just any home –
but THE home that HE wanted us to have, because after all, it would be His to
use for His purposes. After much
searching and steadfast prayer, a Christian realtor led us to the home that was
actually the first home we had ever purchased.
You see, we had lived in church parsonages almost all of our married
lives. We loved them and we made them
our own as much as you can without having ownership, and we cared for them as
if these homes were our own! But there
is something about finally having your own home, and God in His loving
faithfulness led us to the place that we would call “home” – but will always
know that it belongs to Him. Upon moving
in, with help from some of our new congregation, we turned the stark white
walls into inviting colors that gave it our personality. Well, that is – on the lower level. We had full intentions of doing a repeat
splash of color on the upper level once we settled in a bit more and things
calmed down. I am smiling … because LIFE
happened … and the remaining unpainted walls have remained primer white for all
this time. That was alright,
really! We were busy in our new ministry
and later in the marketplace ministry, and later yet, with the brand new
ministry birthed out of extreme pain and suffering – named Elevation
North. And over the years as we lived
our blended lives and multi-tasked in a myriad of directions, God brought
people to live with us “in His House” from time to time. Each time took a little getting used to as
our empty nest expanded – but we loved the opportunities to touch these lives
and fill their “homeless void” for this point and time. And upon their times of departure, we knew
that God had used their stay to be a change-point for them as well as for
us. We were always aware of His presence
and His provision, especially when we were not sure that the resources that we
had would stretch far enough. Guess
what? They ALWAYS did! I think the REAL owner of this home had
something to do with that! He owns it
and we just get to take care of it for Him!
Well, back to the colorless walls.
Our sons and their wives had given us gift cards and cash a few years
ago at Christmas-time, which we had stashed away waiting to “find” the time to
be able to transform our walls with our color choices. How it ever took nine years is amazing in
itself, but when “the time” finally comes, you just know it and you leap into
action! There were a few trips to the
store to choose samples and bring them home and “look at them” before making
the final decision. But then, more
months went by before we were actually able to take the painting plunge and
yes, to pray about the right color choices.
Now we are in process, and loving the fact that as we stand in the store
waiting for our cans of color to be mixed, we discover the extra blessing of
God “just happening to have a special paint sale going on!” Who says God doesn’t care about the things
that matter to us, especially when we seek His hand of blessing and
favor?! So, after several evenings of my
hubby’s hard work and my “extra trimming and clean-up” … miracle of miracles,
we now have beautiful color flowing all through our home; well, through God’s
home. And getting back to my opening
statement, you know how doing one thing leads to another. Well, so does painting! The painting leads to needed deep
cleaning. And the cleaning leads to
purging lots of things that need to go.
Things are just that – things.
Either they have been used to the end of their usefulness, or they
become “too many” things and only add clutter and end up defeating the plan to
keep our lives as simple and unencumbered as possible. It’s actually a very freeing thing to
exercise purging your home of all that extra stuff that God knows we do not
need. Doing this has reminded me all
over again what is recorded for us in scripture, and how we need to be purging
“stuff” from our own lives as we walk with Christ. Listen to what we are instructed to do: “Therefore then, since we are surrounded by
so great a cloud of witnesses (who have borne testimony to the Truth), let us
strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin
which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us
run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed
course of the race that is set before us.”
(Hebrews 12:1) Oh, Lord, may it
not take us nine years or nine months or even nine weeks to get busy with the
purging of our sins, our bad attitudes, our wanting our own way, our thinking
we need this or that – like right now, our filling the hours of our days with
everything but You! Help us to throw it
all off, all out, all away – all that unnecessary heaviness, so that we can
purposely run with unhindered gait and focused persistence the race You have
marked out for us. We want to run like
You want us to run! We want to run
unhindered – straight to the finish line!
REMEMBER . . .
“He is right
here.
With an
unyielding desire that is willing to trust,
we may call
out to our heavenly Father and know that He will answer,
filling our
hearts with bright colors and freshness of life.”
~ Unknown
Serving Christ Joyfully . . .
Pastor Doug and Debbie
