“In Him was life and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:4 NIV)
My family has spent the last two days hosting a moving sale. It’s no small thing, pulling up stakes in Iowa, loading all our earthly possessions into a 26 foot U-Haul and relocating to southern Texas. We’ve whittled our holdings down to the essentials: beloved books and coffee cups. Most everything else we’ve sold; ready to start in the cutest postage-stamp of a cottage as a family of three. I don’t care who you are, a move like this requires faith. A minister or an army brat, a migrant worker or a wind-mill engineer, it takes courage and a belief in something bigger than yourself to leave the place you know and love and to set out in trust that God has made space for you elsewhere. It’s always an act of faith to set out in a moving truck across the country.
Our hundred year old house has been for sale since July. They say it’s a buyer’s market in Algona right now. What they mean is that there are currently about 100 houses for sale in our town of five thousand people. I don’t know how many houses stand in Algona, but it feels like abut 8% of the homes are up for grabs. You can’t walk more than two blocks without spotting a few for sale. Rumor has it that the local realtor offices are out of signage. We’ve known this would be an obstacle, but we’ve been praying and believing in two things 1) our calling and 2) God’s working on behalf of His children.
Friday afternoon we were just getting our sale set up when our first ‘customer’ strode up the driveway. He surveyed our meager sampling, (bought nothing mind you) and then looked over our house with critical eyes and made a pronouncement: “You’re never going to sell that house in this market.”
I was taken aback and said something like “If God wants to sell it, He will.”
Apparently this was just the set up he was looking for. The man, nearly eighty-one by his own admission, went off. He first lambasted my ‘naivety’ – pronouncing that God-belief was a man-made affair meant to appease the masses. He monologued about how he knew of at least five or six houses in our town that had been for sale for years without a nibble and how we’d still be here trying to sell in a few years. Without further prodding or breath he declared the earth was fifty million years old and I’d better ask my preacher about it. He kept monologuing from there but all I heard was pain. The old man was like an open sore in my front yard, spewing bitterness and black hopelessness all over our things before the sale even began.
I’ve been praying for him. I don’t know his name but I know he was sent to my driveway on a Downstair’s mission. I refuse to take the bait he offered: doubt. Instead, I believe even more strongly that our God, the Father that cares for me so fastidiously, is sending a buyer, maybe even two, to take this lovely home off our hands and free us up to follow Him to our next assignment in Texas. What might be of even greater importance is that this nameless man would see the ‘sold’ sign in our yard and his heart would soften as he recalls his diatribe against the One True God. I pray that he finally opens up to the light that is the life of Jesus, that he’d discover the joy and truth and purpose that are only found in Him. I pray the man would meet his Savior before it’s too late to make right a decision about who He is and that in that introduction he would experience hope that would shatter all the darkness that has held him fast for so many decades.
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
(John 1:5 NIV)
Lord, today we pray for the unbeliever, lost and left fumbling in the dark. Send fear scattering as You light up their souls with truth from within. Give us Your Spirit as we speak patient, gracious truth to persons hard-set in the cold stone of disbelief. Change hearts as only You can, Lord. Amen.
**PS; we’ve had two showings this week and one couple is coming back to look again this afternoon. Can’t wait to see what God is going to do!**