PROVERB 3 IN ACTION!

Good Morning, My Friends.  As I mentioned in last week’s blog, the past few weeks in the Presgrave household have been emotionally charged – to say the least! – because we have been in the process of downsizing from our current home, selling it and buying a villa. Those of you reading this who have been through the ordeal of buying, selling and moving know exactly what I’m talking about. The good news is…we are only moving three miles away, but none-the-less, it has been frantic at times; stressful at times; and tedious all the time. But during this whole experience there has been a confident expectation on our part that things were going to work out just as we had hoped they would.  Let me tell you why we were peaceful on the inside, even though most of the time it was an emotional roller-coaster on the outside.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible is a book of wisdom. It touches on all aspects of living a godly life while on this earth, as well as how to be assured of a life here-after. Proverbs 3 is about trusting and honoring God, and verses 5 and 6 formed the foundation of expectation with which Pam and I entered into this endeavor. “Trust the Lord with all your heart; do not lean on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do (some versions say, “acknowledge him in all you do”), and he will make your path straight.” I love the simplicity, beauty and assurance of those words, but I especially love the truth contained therein.  “Trust the Lord”…just be still and know that He is God.  Know that: He is Love; He is Goodness; He is Truth; he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, Alpha and Omega, the Godhead of the Trinity, Creator of the Universe!  Yet, we are His proudest creation; He delights in us; it gives him pleasure to bless us. WOW!

“Do not lean on your own understanding” means trusting God rather than trusting yourself.  We realize our own insufficiency, so we get out of the way and call on the Holy Spirit to empower us with his wisdom – and in my case…his patience. “Acknowledge” literally means “to know”.  So when we “acknowledge Him”, it means we are in relationship with Him…we know Him personally. And finally, “make your path straight” means the obstacles will be cleared away.  Now we can move forward.

Let me point out one other scripture that was also a plank in our foundation of faith for this endeavor.  “And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28-29)  Think about the incredible power in those words.

Ever since Pam and I have been married, we have always vacationed where there is ocean, sand and palm trees.  That’s us.  We love it!  So it has always been our dream to someday live on the east coast.  Well, Pam plans to retire in 2020, so we decided to downsize now, cut our mortgage almost in half, and move into a villa.  Our plan is to put that savings away and use it toward our final villa in five years.

We have prayed earnestly about this move and have asked God to guide our path. We anticipated our house would sell fast, so we started looking first at a property to buy.  We probably visited about fifteen of what seemed like possibilities, but none filled our need or “turned our crank.”  We did, however, look at a villa in the same neighborhood (Villa du Pre) in which we finally made our purchase, but it was in need of a fair amount of rehab, and that definitely is not my forte!  I’m looking for “turn key”. Our realtor told us one other villa was going be on the market soon, but thought it would most likely be out of our stated price range. Needless to say, we were discouraged.

After a bit more looking, we started re-evaluating our plan. Perhaps this was not God’s will.  We had been asking him that if this was in line with his will, please open the necessary doors.  But none seemed to be opening, so we were preparing ourselves to “stay put”.

Then about a week later when we sat down at the computer to look at the current listings for the day, we saw the villa listed that was mentioned above. It was going to be “open for visitors” the next day, and to our surprise the price was right in our range. So because we have two dogs, I decided to drive out and check out the back yard to be sure there was enough space for Cliff and Glenn.

When I got there, there were a lot of people working on the villa.  I asked the gentleman in the driveway if he were the owner, and he said, “No”.  I then asked if he minded if I looked around.  Again he said, “No”.  So I gave myself the grand tour.  It was perfect…just what we were looking for.  I called Pam, she came out and I gave her the grand tour.  We both were convinced, so we put a contract on the villa that afternoon. After a two day bidding war, we owned the villa. Yea God!

A few days later we put our house on the market.  We suspected it would sell quickly, but this blew us away.  The first person through the door bought our house!  Wow! Talk about the faithfulness of God…  Needless to say, we were sky-high and praising Him!

But the scenario isn’t over yet.  The inspection of our new property revealed some problems…a couple big ones.  We still wanted the villa, but only if the owner would tend to the repairs, and it was going to be costly.  If he said, “No”, we were prepared to walk away from the contract, but that prospect was nerve-wracking considering we had already sold our house!

Our realtor submitted the list of things that needed to be fixed on Monday morning.  We, including our realtor, were afraid he was going to say “No”. After all, he did have others who were interested in the property. Or… perhaps he would only agree to “some” of our requests. What then?  Monday, no answer. Tuesday no answer. Wednesday, no answer. I kept reassuring Pam this was going to work out good for us, but by Thursday we were talking about starting to look at properties again. Yuck!!

Well, late Thursday afternoon I was in the front yard when Pam pulled into the driveway.  I could tell when I looked at her red, puffy eyes she had been crying.  She asked me if I had talked to Heather, our agent.  I had not.  “Well”, said Pam, “they agreed to fix everything we asked for.  Everything!”  WOW, again!

I am reading a book now called “The Grave Robber” by Mark Batterson.  It is about Jesus’ miracles in the book of Matthew.  The author makes this statement more than once, “Not only does God show up with the miracle, but sometimes he shows off”.  That’s how I felt when I heard Pam’s news.  God is a faithful God; a trust-worthy God; and an awesome God…and I love it when he shows off!

I wanted to share this story with you, because last week I wrote about standing on the promises of God, and that is what sustained both Pam and me through this whole ordeal.  Did we have our moments of stress?  Absolutely.  But not for long, because we kept going back to the truth of His Word and confessing those words aloud to “fill us up”, and also to refute satan.  THE TRUTH IS… God DOES work for the good in all things for those who love him and are called to his purpose.  No doubt both of us love God, and both want to bring honor and glory to him in everything we do…including making our future plans, and purchasing and selling real estate.

As the book of James tells us in 4:10, “When we bow down and admit our dependence on Him, he will lift us up and give us honor.”  We saw that Scripture come alive throughout this whole process of buying, selling, and moving.  Nothing enhances your faith more than experiencing the truth of His Word in your own life.  Our God is an AWESOME God!

So my question to you is…Do you have your own platform of faith on which to stand?

Feel free to respond to this posting, and please “like” and share it with other social media friends.

May God Bless Ya…

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)