God Sells Our House
In August 1995, God led us to put our house For Sale By Owner. This was by the Spirit, and we did not advertise or use a realtor to help us, all we did was put a sign in the front and back of our house, and believe the gospel to perform it. JR and I had bought our house a year after we were married, in June 1979, and lived in it for almost l7 years.
During those 17 years, we had tried to sell our house on more than one occasion. Before coming to Water of Life, we had tried to sell it and we were thinking about moving to Rockwall, Texas so we could be close to the church we were attending at that time. Thank God He stopped that and never let us sell it and move there. I never could understand why things never worked the way they did on our house, because most people I knew, when they got ready to sell and move, it just happened. But God was in control of our life even way back then and we did not know it. At one point, shortly after coming to Water of Life, we had a contract on it, but at the very last minute the lady who was going to buy it was declined on her credit approval, and she even had a co-signer and the same thing happened to him. God was in this, even though my heart was devastated when this happened. I was so ready to get out of our little 1350 square foot house, and when this happened I felt like God had let us down. I remember Doyle saying to us, "God always gives you the victory." I sure did not see how this could have been victory, but it was. God's plan is always greater than ours, even though it may not seem it at the time. But after a period of time, God brought my heart to a place where I was totally content with that house. In my heart (and that is the only place where it counts with God) I was thankful for it and was willing to stay in it as long as God wanted us there. God has a purpose in everything He does with our lives, and it is always for our good if we will believe Him, and it will also work righteousness out in our hearts if we will stay with it.
So when God said 'sell your house', my first thought was, "Well, praise God, we are finally getting ready to move up and get a bigger house, and it probably will not take long at all before it sells." I was wrong on both accounts!! It ended up taking nine months before we overcame and God brought us the lady He wanted to buy it, and then God put us in a 2 bedroom - 900 square foot apartment! During that nine months before it sold, there were things that God had to work out in all of our hearts, and when God does it by the Spirit, He makes sure you have overcome by faith what seems like even the smallest little details in your heart. He also makes sure you are in faith in your believing Him to do it. I have said before, and it is in my spirit now, that everything God has done in my life by the Spirit has been a fight. I wish this were not so -- no, I am thankful that He has made me fight in faith until I could overcome, because that is how Jesus walked and if we say we abide in Him, we will walk even as He walked - I John 2:6. (God just corrected my little heart right then and there!) Praise God. You know, that is the love of God and I thank Him for it. These righteous paths are to perfect our faith and love and to deal with our doubt and unbelief. What God will do is prove your faith -- to you. He already knows where it is.
Anyway, we would have quite a bit of activity on the house and then there were times when it would slack off. My faith would be real 'high' during the active times, then it would 'waiver' during the slower times. So there was a work of righteousness going on there until I overcame that part of it. We had realtors come and offer to help us sell it, but this was not even a temptation because we were going to let the power of God move in this situation, no matter how long it took.
So in April 1996, there was a lady who came to see the house. Shortly after she came to see it, I received a phone call from her saying she wanted to buy it. I asked her if she wanted to come and see it again, and she said, "No, I knew when I walked in and saw it the first time I wanted to buy it." We kept talking and she asked me how long we had had it for sale, and I told her since August (1995) - this was the last of April 1996. She was stunned. She told me she had started looking for houses at that time and never had noticed our house being for sale, and yet she saw it every Sunday because her church faced the back of our house. All I could think, was an angel must have blinded her eyes until God was ready for her to buy it. But the reason it took that long was because of the things in our heart that had to be overcome. And when we finally overcame, she bought it and the whole transaction was smooth.
The day we were to close on the house, we had no idea where we were going, other than we were pretty sure God was moving us to Plano. We lived in Garland, which is about 10 miles south of Plano. God told Abraham to get up and move, and by faith he obeyed, not knowing where he was going--Hebrews 11:8. This was exactly where we were.
Prior to moving, someone had told JR about these apartments on the west side of Plano. In this particular apartment complex were a few 'corporate' apartments which were fully furnished apartments for 'short-term' housing. Some apartments have these for people transferring from out of state, etc., until they find a house. They have everything from bed linens to bath towels to dishes and a totally equipped kitchen. And you do pay for that convenience! But when God puts you there, He pays. I will say, I had somewhat of a struggle with that and told God so more than once. The size of that apartment and the price of the rent did not go together in my eyes-- it seemed absurd , but that did not move God one bit!
On the morning we were moving out of our house, JR and I went there to see if they had any of these 'corporate' apartments available. (Usually they stay booked --- unless it is God.) They had one available. All we ended up moving there were our bodies and our clothes. God had led me to go through my clothes weeks earlier, and I ended up giving about half of them away to the mission we have at the church, not even knowing what was ahead concerning closet space. We were going to put our furniture in storage for a couple of weeks until we found a house. But Doyle called us and told us he had prayed something through concerning our furniture, and if we wanted, we could store it at the church on the north side (there were several empty rooms we could put it in.) Remember -- a 1350 square foot house of furniture is all we had. We were very appreciative of this, because now we would not have to stack our furniture up in some storage place. And also, this was only going to be for a couple of weeks at the most!! This couple of weeks turned into almost 2 1/2 YEARS. Hard to believe -- but that is true.
Never in my life did I consider God having us go 'down' in the size of our living quarters before He let us go 'up', but He did. From 1350 square feet to 900 square feet and four bodies living there. There were some real 'low' days to say the least. But Philippians 2:5-9 says Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross - and that was 'low', (and we sure did not have to go that low by any means), but because of it, God highly exalted Him. Our walk with God in the Spirit has been no different. To go up with God, you will always go down first. God will humble you and prove (try) you to know what is in your heart, whether you will obey Him or not (Deuteronomy 8:2). And this is what happened with us. We did not have to live this way, but it was the will of God for our lives at that time and we obeyed Him. Quite frankly, I thought I had already been proven enough to know I would obey Him after all these years, since 1985. But God is God and He does with us as it pleases Him.
This move also exposed some spirits in a lot of people, because many people gave their advice to us and tried to be 'God's little helpers' in finding us a house, and it was nothing but the Jezebel spirit trying to control our lives and interfere with what God was doing with us. God was the one who put us there, and God was the one who was going to get us out, and He did not need anyone's help. It even made people mad that we had to live there and they did not believe it was God who put us there, and the reason was because they would not have wanted God to lead them the way He was leading us. I told more than one person that this was God and they had better leave it alone. So there was definitely some spirits I overcame in that regard.
Another big overcoming while living there was with some people who moved in below us. This was a three story complex and we were on the second floor. This was towards the end of this nearly 2 1/2 year period, and the devil really tried to discourage me over this one. One night after coming home from church, Amy and I walked in the door, and the whole apartment was filled with the smell of cigarette (or some kind of ) smoke. We nearly gagged when we opened the door. It was like a room full of people had been in there smoking one cigarette after another, all at once. It was absolutely nauseating. We finally talked to the apartment manager and they came to the conclusion that this smell was coming through the pipes in the downstairs apartment, and they wrapped our pipes with tape. But that did not help at all. This was a distraction of the devil, no question, trying to offend me, and it took a while before I could even get a hold of my heart and not let it bother me. We would bless them, but inside of me (and even outwardly), I was angry at this whole situation. I mean, fed up!! I had even considered us moving to another apartment, but I knew that was not right. I knew that God was going to have us overcome this by faith, not by running from the problem. When you run from a problem and do not overcome it with faith, you will end up getting in a worse situation than before. Not until I finally came to the place where I said to the Lord, "If this does not bother you for us to have to smell this nauseating smell and live like this, then I am not going to let it bother me," did I finally overcome this spirit, and God moved them out. It took almost two months. You have no idea what a victory that was! God saw to it that there were numerous overcomings during the time we were in these apartments, but these were just a few of the one's God wanted me to share with you.
You know, in Luke 4, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and one thing I will say is, my walk with the Lord has been no different. This was a wilderness experience I would have preferred doing without, but it was God's plan to perfect - yes, you guessed it, - some more of my faith and love. I just thank God that His grace is always sufficient in whatever situation He leads us in, and that His grace is sufficient for us to always overcome so we can gain the victory every time. And in September (1998), we got the victory and overcame by faith. My next testimony will be a continuation of what took place during the last few months before we could get out,and what God blessed us with after we got out.
This gospel always gives us the victory if we stand fast in our believing. So be encouraged, because God is for us, He is not against us. He has a perfect plan for every one of us, and He knows exactly how to bring us into that plan. In Romans, it talks about there being a good, an acceptable and a perfect will of God. It is His desire to bring us into that perfect will in every area of our life, but you will start out in the good, and then the acceptable until you finally overcome to where you are living in that perfect will. God spoke this verse to me 9 or 10 years ago about some specific things in my life. And what I will see is God's perfect will for my life performed. Praise God!
