Saturday, November 3, 2012

ACTUALLY HEARING GOD SPEAK

One of the things my husband and I used to do was to buy a lottery ticket on Saturday while we were out riding and talk about what we'd do when we won. And of course, we just knew we would win...one day. Our list always started with pay our tithes, pay off everything, help the kids, help certain family members, build my cousin a new church, find some property we could use for rental property, etc. At the end of our ride the last question we would ask each other is where we would live when we won. Certainly we wouldn't stay where we are. Both of us want to be closer to family members but can't really see ourselves living in the places where most of them live; some of those places have too much snow, the cost of living is too high in others, one of the places we just don't want to live. But all the while we talked about where we would like to live we were disrespecting God for giving us the house we live in now and the city where we live.

Early in our marriage we visited Memphis, loved it and prayed to move there. The Lord answered our prayers and provided my husband with a job that moved us within 3 months after visiting. We learned when God works He works fast! We lived in Memphis in the early 90's until both of us decided to quit our jobs and move to Florida. We wanted to live near the water or so we thought. We explained our moving away by telling ourselves "God told us to move." Neither one of us had actually heard God tell us that. After a couple unexpected hurricanes came so far inland to Orlando, we packed up and moved to Georgia. Things were so expensive there we were miserable. Jobs weren't as plentiful as we thought they would be. While living in Georgia, my husband got a call from a good friend about a great job that brought us back to the Memphis area to live. Right back where God allowed us to move earlier.

The second time we moved to Tennessee we must have looked at 1000 houses. We even put offers on 3 or 4 which were pulled off of the market before the deal could be consummated. One house we found, we loved but it was far from my husband's job and the back yard wasn't great. Then I did hear from God...I kept hearing Lyon's Gate. I had seen something about Lyon's Gate but the only thing I could think of was the movie production company. One Sunday morning while watching HGTV and what people could do with their homes, I jumped up and said let's go for a ride and find Lyon's Gate. We had on nightclothes under our coats determined just to ride and find something..anything that said Lyon's Gate. My husband was driving so fast I couldn't look from side to side fast enough but suddenly I saw a sign...LYON'S GATE! "Turn around! Turn around!" I cried out. We found Lyon's Gate. And it was a subdivision owned by the same people who owned the property we liked with the ugly back yard! And when my husband went in to the model home (yes, he went in with nightclothes on under his coat!) the same agent was sitting there! She showed us the house and we put in an offer that day!

So do we move when we get some big money? Not unless the Lord says the same. In fact since we came to the realization that we were being blasphemous against God and what He had in store for us we even quit playing the lottery. For surely if could give us the house we wanted out of all of the houses we looked at then He will take care of the rest of our needs.