Where are you sitting right now?

Ok, so many of you know that our house is on the market. We've been trying to sell our house for over four months now. A little frustrating, yes. A little stressful, yes. But all the while, I've been reminding myself that God will send the right buyers to us at the right time. And He'll send the right house for us to move to. It will all be fine. He's in charge. And I have felt such peace about the whole thing. It's actually been kinda nice in a way ... other than the annoyance, of course, of having to maintain a clean and "perfect" house (despite two preschoolers and a toddler) so that we'll be ready at the drop of a hat when that agent calls and asks to show it to a client in 10 minutes! But we finally painted that last couple of rooms and replaced the kitchen vinyl and the bathroom tile where it needed it. We got rid of all the clutter that I now realize was so suffocating. And to top it off we hired a company to stage our home so that it looks more appealing to prospective buyers. I've LOVED living in my house this last few months! It's great! It's so much more beautiful and comfortable! But nevertheless, I HATE living in limbo. I can't do things I would normally do because I don't want to mess up the house. We have moved all of the kids big toys to storage and kept just the toys that fit in a few small bins in the corner. And I am constantly losing things because when people do call and want to see the house, we scoop up everything that's not nailed down (laundry, mail, misc. papers, books, etc) and hide it so that the house looks nice and clean. Then once we come home, I can't find things because I've hidden them - from myself!!! Ok, so that's my gripe session. Makes me feel a little better to fuss a touch. On to the real topic at hand....

After the turn of the year, when traffic started picking up and we started showing our home more, our real estate agent recommended that we get out there and start looking at houses so that we would know what our options are once we do get a contract. Sure! Sounds reasonable. However, I've begun to stress over this!! Our first weekend out, we found THE PERFECT HOUSE! I was flipping out! On the way home, I was trying to figure out if we could "float" two mortgages! This is something that no, we can't do and no, we don't want to do and no, this doesn't feel like I'm trusting the Lord! This feels like I'm trying to manipulate things and force them to fit MY plan. So, I smacked myself around a little and straightened up. Then our agent sent us several more houses to look at. My husband latched onto a fixer-upper and was rather interested in it but only if we could get the price down and some repairs done. That didn't pan out so no big deal. Then this weekend, I went out with our agent and looked at two more houses (while John stayed home with the sick kiddos). The first was really nice but the neighborhood was "eh." The second one, however, was a great house, in the perfect location, in a beautiful neighborhood, with more room than I'd know what to do with! It's a foreclosure so it's a good deal, although it has lots of repairs needed, but oh my word, the potential!! So, for the last two days my mind has been racing! I've been seriously glued to this house! How much would all of the repairs cost? Can I knock out that kitchen wall to make it open up to the living room? How can I find out if that's a load-bearing wall? What if that damage to the porch door really is termites? Can you still buy a house that's had termite damage? How much would new carpet cost? Can we afford a home equity line for all of the repairs over and above our mortgage? How much could we talk the bank down on the price? What are other houses in the neighborhood selling for? Can we "float" two mortgages so that we can go ahead and buy this one now and start on the renovations so that we'd be ready to move in once we eventually get a buyer for this one? Good grief! It's so easy to see now that these are rediculous questions! Why am I stressing so much over this stupid house? And note-to-self: there's something about all this finagling that isn't feeling quite "right." I recognized this afternoon what I was doing (again). I realized that I had basically decided that I was smarter than God and was trying to bump him out of the way so that I could do things my way. Picture, if you will, standing next to someone and doing that little hip-bump that knocks them off balance and out of your way (or that reminds you of the school dances in junior high where the girls are all giggling as they bump-bump each other's hips to that funky beat - yes, I'm still a dork). So, I realized today that I was trying to bump God to the side. Then tonight at small group, I asked for prayer to help me remember to keep God in the driver seat. We were all laughing about my rediculous thought processes when one of the guys said, "Just don't go. " We kept laughing and continued on with prayer requests but my mind stuck on those words. Well, duh! Ya know that makes a whole lotta sense!!! If I'm stressing over the houses that I go look at, then (Dork!) DON'T GO LOOK! I was praying about it on the way home and got a new image in my head. Rather than me simply offering a could-be cutesy hip bump to God, what I was really doing was more like the following: rather than sitting in my passenger seat, with my little seat belt on, hands nicely clasped in my lap, looking out the window and enjoying the view, here I was arms and legs outstretched as I lean over, clamoring and scratching for the steering wheel, trying to shove my foot over the console and down onto the pedals and trying to wedge my butt into the seat and shove God right out the door! Hmmm... Now, that's just not cool. Does that sound respectful of God? Does that sound faithful of his sovereignty? Is that trust? Or is that some totally dispresctful show of arrogance that I should know how to drive better than He? He sees the full portait on this huge canvass. I see my mega-pixel splat of color on my wee little corner. So, this whole, long, rambling story was to simply ask you where are you sitting? Are you sitting in the passenger seat, politely and faithfully enjoying the view as you allow God to lead you where He wants your life to go? Or are you grabbing at the wheel, shoving your foot down trying to reach the pedals and trying to butt God out of the way? Needless to say, I apologized to God tonight.