There is a poem that was written by a Scottish man named Robert Burns called, "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough" where the famous quote, "the best laid schemes of mice and men often go astray (Go often askew)" came from.
In 2005, the year my mom died, Robert and I bought a house. We didn't ask God if we should buy the house. We didn't consult him about our job decisions at the time, about starting our own business, or about much of anything that we were going through except help in making it through the stress of it all. We just thought it all sounded good and moved forward. The housing market was booming. It was the obvious choice for a newly married couple to do in that particular year in that particular city. Every investor would have said you were crazy not to take part in the feeding frenzy that was the Phoenix housing market. When we got to the table to sign, the broker sprung a whole new set of numbers on us that included a much higher interest rate, payment, and a 2-year prepayment penalty...aside from asking for dishonest documentation in order to close the deal. We were left with a choice to make. At that table on that particular day, that still small voice inside me was screaming, "DO NOT SIGN THIS DEAL!" My mind at the time couldn't rationalize not signing it though. We were up $50,000 if we signed. We would lose the house if we didn't. The mortgage broker had waited to the very last minute that we could possibly sign the documents before he told us we were approved, so we didn't have any more time to rework the documents in order to get a new loan for the house. The seller was about to pull the sale from us and resell it for more money if we didn't close on the house by the next day. I thought I had no choice. I rationalized it by thinking, we were going to be making so much money in the long run. I could say hindsight is 20/20, but I could also say I was warned. Five years later, after having to rent the house because we couldn't sell it for what it was worth, then having to short sell it and take a hit on our credit because it went from being worth $230,000 to $75,000 and we had no way to maintain it, sell it, or rent it from another state, I can say I was warned. The problem is that I had a desire to have something that overshadowed the warning that God gave me. I had watched that house be built from the ground up. I had picked out the flooring, the layout, the color of the paint, the landscaping. I loved that house. When it came right down to it, I chose the house over God's plan for me. I made that house my rock for a time and put it above my creator.
I can say that God ended up still using it for good and it was a blessing at the time. I grew close to my sister-in-law in the house and we were able to help her out in a time when she needed help. We were also able to help a young lady move from the east coast to Phoenix where she may have had difficulty otherwise and she ended up being a very good renter. I also have a lot of good memories there with great friends. Financially though, we had high hopes for that house. It was well thought out...fool proof. That was at the time in Robert and my life when we were really concerned with money. We hadn't made the decision yet to give God control over our finances. So we were really excited about getting our little nest egg started. We didn't ask God though...we just assumed that it would be a good choice because everyone said it would. Then when He warned me, I ignored it.
Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
This is what God has been putting on my heart lately. He not only wants me to give him my finances, my marriage, and my faith; but he wants me to give him every part of me. My time, my food, my trust, my marriage, my money, my fears, my failures, my hurts, my insecurities, my judgments, my anger, my thoughts, my all, and my love. He wants my everything. He doesn't want all this from me so I can live a boring, smug, religious life sitting in my house, reading my bible, and watching TBN. He wants my everything so I can become a radical barbarian for Christ...a believer in his son who wants to run and shout it from the mountain tops...who wants to feed the children in Uganda, dig wells in Haiti, free children in India, help prostitutes in China, whatever he calls me to do. He wants me to say, "yes Lord, I want to be that for you because you already gave me everything I could ever need. You died on a mountain top 2000 years ago so I could be free, you gave me living water so I could live forever with you, and you opened my eyes so I could see how much you love me and all of your children here on earth. I want to go to the ends of the earth for you and live a dangerous life because I'm already accounted for, but there are billions out there who aren't. Billions who don't know your name, what you came to do, what your fight is about. They don't know that you came to stomp out oppression, to cast out fear, to lead an uprising against the evil that is trying to take over this world. They don't know that you already have a plan that was laid down when you created the world. They don't know that Christ died for them 2000 years ago. That you new the number of hairs on their head before they were born and you still do. That you know everything they have ever said, thought, done, etc and you still love them dearly and are waiting for them to come to you and say, "Abba, Father, I know that I am a sinner and I believe that you sent your son to die for me on that cross to save me from my sins. I want to know you, I want to have you come into my heart and be the lord of my life. Thank you so much for saving me! In Jesus precious name!" Oh how I long to hear that you prayed those words! I long to know that everyone prays those words.
John 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Fortunately, God's purposes always come to pass.
Proverbs 19:21 NIV
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
