An empty house and trading

Isn’t it amazing what God chooses to use to move us?

Rewind to the summer of 2008 and God was churning in Chandra’s heart to consider a move for all of the typical reasons-- the kitchen was too small, the bedrooms weren’t quite right.  We were a family of six in a comfortable home in a comfortable part of town.  As God would have it we were looking at some land with a friend of ours when we stumbled upon a foreclosed house that sat empty.  It appeared massive.  It was ¾ of the way completed without any furniture.  Six bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, huge marble columns in the foyer and a large, very large kitchen and dining room.  But the picture that stuck in my head that day was the huge kitchen and living room.  Oh, and did I mention that it was empty?

Fast forward 1 weekend and there was still this insatiable thought in my head—What a ministry it would be to have a house like that and fill it?  I could picture standing in the kitchen with little faces all around thae table waiting for a pop tart or cereal bar.  On the way home from work one day I said to Chandra, “What did you think about that house we saw last week?”  Her response was eerie.  She said, “I just keep having this picture in my head of many little faces sitting around the table.”  I still remember sitting in a traffic jam on the way home and smiling, not yet ready to admit it but knowing what God was calling us to.  As we discussed it further we both felt the same.  It was one of those Amen thoughts-- a thought where God was speaking the same thing to both of us. 

How could this be?  We were still in the midst of dealing with difficulties with one of our adopted sons.  And if we knew what was yet to come--the endless physical therapy appointments, inpatient psychiatric treatment, counseling for him and us—we would have ran the other way.  But still the calling was there, and we couldn’t deny it.

As we started to look for a house, we could never find just the right one.  There was always something not quite right.  “What about building a house?,” Chandra said one day.  I believe my response was something like, “No, we don’t have time for that.”  Then the thought that brought everything into focus:  “Let’s build the biggest box we can afford, and fill it with kids.”  From that came the push that I needed to be able to see the house matched to the calling.  Eight months later we moved into that house with an unfinished basement, partially finished upstairs, and main level that had work to do in every room.  I call it the five year project, and we are currently in year 3.

So I come back to the question…  Isn’t it amazing what God chooses to use to move us?  Looking in the Bible I see that God raised Moses in a palace to use him in a desert.  He raised Joseph in a desert to use him in  a palace.  In the case of David God raised him as a shepard to use him as a king.  In our case He used an empty house... to give us a picture of what a full house might be.

What has God used in your life to encourage or to clarify a calling?  An unrelenting thought, a casual statement, a time in the desert... or an empty house. The facts are His ways are always higher and much better than ours.