(Im)Patiently Waiting On The Lord

Once again Ron and I were disappointed. We had a showing last Friday in which the people "absolutely LOVED" the farm. This was a first! Apparently, they didn't love it enough. I guess the lesson for us is to learn to "patiently wait on the Lord and His timing."

When I was driving back from Colorado last August, I had one of those moments in which God clearly gave me a "suggestion" about life in general. For the first time ever, I happened upon "The Dave Ramsey Show" on the radio. He's a Christian based how-to-use money guy. The key word is Christian. He contrasted our culture's way with money vs. the Lord's way with money. Certainly, we aren't anywhere near the cultural norm of a variety of debt, but we aren't in the Lord's norm of Zero Debt, either. Upon arriving home, I ordered some of Ramsey's books and undertook to, as Dave says, "Live like no one else, so we can live like no one else."

The first decision was that even though we weren't moving West any longer, we would still sell the farm in order to down-size our debt. The second decision was to truly follow a budget. We've always had a budget, but it was more a matter of form than function.

Dave said that people would think we were crazy when we said we can't spend $10.00 - $20.00 for dinners, extras, etc., OR when we refuse to take out credit lines or use credit cards to get into debt for vacations, Christmas, birthdays, etc. I didn't really think it would be true, but it has been. Both Ron and I have had experiences in which we've been "pressured" to spend money or get into debt, because "surely, you can come up with $10.00 or $20.00" OR "surely you qualify for a loan." Our counter of "no, we can't and won't" has been met with disbelief and a feeling of exasperation. People (e.g. Ron's co-workers) expressing exasperation with our budget, while odd, seems to be proof of the cultural norm of spending when one doesn't have it. We are definitely bucking the cultural norm.

I guess we are impatient in now that we've changed our lifestyle, we want to make the huge change of downsizing our mortgage ASAP. I also guess we figured since this is a righteous desire that perhaps God would move things along. We both have had the experience of God moving things along very quickly when it's time. Apparently, it's not time yet. And even though it's frustrating, we are rather excited because He must have a better plan. We wonder what it is. In the meanwhile, we'll live to our budget, learn to wait patiently on Him and be grateful to Him for this experience.

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