In our urgent journey towards a house, and a home, we have had various experiences with owners. I wanted to say that most of them were awkward, very awkward. How do you ask someone that you have never spoken with before if the Lord has been talking to them about giving their house away.
The first time that we tried, we sent letters. And the owner had a PO Box so the letters were returned. In the letters, we tried to just describe our situation, and the needs that we had. And we tried to say that we weren’t asking for the house, we were just asking if the Lord had been communicating with them about the house.
The second time, the house was for sale by owner. And they published their phone number. She was rushed. She couldn’t understand at all being where you couldn’t buy a house. From the improvements that they published, and their costs, they probably sold a $1.5M home for $1.1M. The owner seemed to be restless. She said that she didn’t know why she came here 4 years ago. To not know why she came, she certainly did a lot, like building a 12 stall barn and indoor riding arena. But, I said that I would pray that the purpose for her time here would be made clear. That was OK. And I felt honored that I could pray that little bit for her.
I think that sometimes I neglect thinking about the short prayers, the focused prayers, the ones that seem to be there and gone. I think that I have been impressed with long prayers, and the spirituality that I wanted that I thought was in them. Along that line, I remember a time a long time ago, when my ex-wife, my betrothed at the time, was introducing me to a friend of hers who had been a follower of Jesus longer than the two of us put together. My ex, then my betrothed, asked me to pray before dinner. And I started to pray, and wandered around in the prayer, and her friend finally said, “If you want to pray for stuff, we can do that later, but the food is getting cold.” What a playful rebuke. I bet that I am profoundly ignorant about prayer too.
So along our journey, which we hoped would be a few weeks, but is already at a few months, the Lord changed me from praying for a house, to praying for a home. Home implies more in terms of relationships, but that is what I am praying for. And, as we are on this journey, when I blog about the coming change, I will label it with the “Journey Home”. But I realize that this journey is something that He is using to teach me what “home” really is about, and where my “home” really is, which is in His heart. “Really is”, is probably not completely accurate. Home on earth is intended to be a reflection of our true everlasting home. Our true, everlasting home, and His heart within it, is the spiritual furnace and generator for what we do here. We can do “home” here best when we are seated with Him in heavenly places. (Eph 2:6)
My thoughts here remind me of a book title (a book that I haven’t read), called ‘From Shadow to Substance: The rediscovery of the inner message of the Epistle to the Hebrews centered around the words “let us go on” ‘ It is by Roy Hession, who authored both The Calvary Road, and My Calvary Road. The latter is his excellent, humble autobiography, one of my “top 5” autobiographies of followers of Jesus.
So, to bring you up to date, as I have looked on Zillow ™, I have found a few other houses that seem to fit us, which are “for sale by owner”, where they publish their phone number or email. As I began to think about them, the Lord said “Pray for them.” I was also reminded of a prayer partner Internet list of which I am a member. You are given 2 email addresses each day (unless there is a special concern), one has a prayer request, and the other is just a person’s name and email. With both, you are given direction of “You may contact this prayer partner” or you may not contact this prayer partner. It is really a good list, faithfully run by Rod Peeks.
Sometimes, I reach out to the Lord to listen to what is in His heart, specifically asking if there is a message (word of knowledge / word of wisdom / prophetic word 1 Cor 12:5-11) that He wants to communicate. When I get something clearly, and share it, I am blown away by the response. Usually people are so grateful. I am amazed that the Lord would care that much that He would use me.
So, I feel a stretching time. I need to pray for the owners of homes for at least a week, doing exactly that, and recording what I sense Holy Spirit is saying to me. Then I can contact them, and say that I have been seeking the Lord for them, based on the Zillow(tm) listings where they had made their contact information known. If they recognize the Lord’s hand in that, they may seek His heart for us. If not, it is a wonderful opportunity to pray for seeds to be planted.
Jesus Day by Day 