Mountain Number Three: Letting Go Of Our Treasures

We had already begun our application process through World Gospel Mission, so when we got back it was just a matter of waiting.  In the mean time, we had some friends of ours come to us and ask us if we were still interested in selling our farm.  The sign had been down for some time by this point and the housing market was falling rather quickly.  We prayed about it and felt that it was time.  Joe had a harder time with this then I did.  This was his dream since he was a teenager.  I remember him telling me when we were still in high school that someday he was going to get me that place.  The only thing that really interested me in it was that it was the joining farm to my grandparents farm.  Needless to say, he got me that place and together, room by room, we made it our own.  Joe always had dreams of raising our kids there and then having them bring the grand kids back to play and climb the same trees our kids climbed.  Yet deep down he knew that someday the Lord would ask for it back.  In fact, I remember him telling me shortly after we moved in, "you know, someday the Lord is going to ask for this back" as if to prepare me.  The Lord knew Joe needed to be prepared as well.  One morning, as the day of signing the papers was drawing near, Joe woke early as he was struggling with the idea of giving it back. He was praying to God and his prayer went something like this: "Lord, if this is all me, just losing my mind, stop me now cause I really don't want to let this place go."  The Lord spoke to him when he saw, in his minds eye, himself giving God this great and wonderful thing...his farm, his home, his treasure. Once he put it into God's hands, it all turned to dust. Then the Lord said to Joe, "you give me your dust and I'll give you a treasure that will last forever."  So that is what we did.  It wasn't hard for me, until it was gone.  Isn't that so typical...you don't appreciate what you've got until it's gone.  But all that being said, we can look back and see how we are so free without it.  Two weeks later we were officially accepted by World Gospel Mission and 1 month after moving out Joe was laid off from his job.  We were so thankful for the Lords perfect timing and how our downsizing made his year long layoff seem actually as a blessing.  The job he took in that year taught him so much.  He was cleaning carpets, but what he learned was so much more then that.  Joe has always struggled with being outgoing and with speaking.  This job put him in peoples homes everyday and with many elderly people who just wanted to talk.  The Lord knew that Joe would need to develop these skills as we prepare for fundraising with speaking at churches and also for the time on the field.  It has all been in His perfect timing with His perfect plan.  Only He could sell our house in the midst of the housing slump and he didn't need a FOR SALE sign to do it.  Only He could know that we would need the financial freedom and the freedom from all the stress of the farm so we could concentrate on our biblical classes we needed to take.  Only He knows which mountains will come and what the best plan is for either a removal or an ability to persevere as we push past them.  My next post will be about pushing past...for this next mountain he chose not to remove.  He knows what is best and what we need to learn through the mountains.