When I was telling a friend of mine this story the other day, he said, “Man, that’s cool. God likes you.”
I don’t believe that good things or bad things happen to us depending on how God feels about us on that particular day. I know that as a follower of Jesus, my life will be full of both good and bad. I do have to say though…there are times like this, where I really do sense that God likes me…that he truly, genuinely likes me.
On July 18, Kristy and I put our house up for sale. As soon as we put the ‘for sale’ sign in our front yard, we began looking for a new home. After walking through more than 30 houses and looking endlessly for 2 weeks Kristy and I had narrowed it down to 2 homes. There were only 3 problems.
Problem #1: Until we actually sold our home, we could only put a predicated offer on a new home. This normally would not be a big deal, except that the market for selling homes has been so bad lately, that most sellers weren’t even entertaining predicated offers.
Problem #2: Although we had narrowed it down to 2 homes, the problem was that I really liked one home and Kristy really liked the other. We weren’t on the same page.
Problem #3: Even if we had sold our home, the homes that we liked were out of our price range. Not only that, but on one of the homes, we already knew that the seller had already rejected an offer that was just $5,000 less than his asking price.
So, we started praying.
On Monday, August 4 around 3:00 pm, I uttered this prayer – “God, we really need an offer on our home. Could we get an offer tonight?”
At 6:00 pm, my phone rang. It was our agent saying that we got an offer on our home. We put it under contract that night.
Two days later, Kristy and I still weren’t seeing eye to eye on which house to pursue. I started to become very frustrated and on my way to work on Wednesday, August 6, I simply asked God – “God, would you please help Kristy and me come to some agreement here. Give us some direction here.”
A few hours later, as I sat my desk, around 10:00 am, my cell phone rang. It was Kristy. She said, “I just called to tell you that I trust you. You always look out for our family and you make good decisions. I trust you.”
After wiping the tears from my eyes, I got all excited and started to pursue the home that I thought would be the best long term fit for our family (just for the record, Kristy liked the house. There were just a few things about the other house that she liked a little better.)
The house that we began to pursue was listed at $15K more than our budget would allow. This was the house that the owner had already rejected an offer of $5,000 less than his asking price. So, I prayed and asked, “God, would you give us this house?”
About the time we were getting ready to make an offer, our agent called me and said, “I was praying about it this morning and I think that you should write a letter to the home owners to go along with your offer.”
I figured, what do we have to lose? So, I got to writing. I wrote about our family, our 3 (soon to be 4 sons) and how we would love to raise our family in this home. I asked the home owners to humbly consider our offer and to sell us their home. We then offered them $17K less than their asking price. They counter offered at $15K less (right at our budget ceiling.) We signed the contract. We got the house. (It turns out that the couple who owned the house lived there for 22 years and raised their 4 sons in that home.)
Hurricane Gustav caused our closing on the new home to be postponed. To most people, this would seem like a nuisance. To me and Kristy, it was a blessing. The interest rates were at 6.6% on the day of our originally scheduled closing. Since the storm pushed our closing back, when it was time to close, the rates had dropped to 6.1%. We got the new rate.
On top of all this…when I was working in the new house the other night, my wonderful wife brought me a Subway. I peeled off the little sticker on my sandwich wrapper…It said – YOU WIN! A FREE 6” SUB!
When I was telling a friend of mine this story the other day, he said, “Man, that’s cool. God likes you.”
I don’t believe that good things or bad things happen to us depending on how God feels about us on that particular day. I know that as a follower of Jesus, my life will be full of both good and bad. I do have to say though…there are times like this, where I really do sense that God likes me…that he truly, genuinely likes me.
On July 18, Kristy and I put our house up for sale. As soon as we put the ‘for sale’ sign in our front yard, we began looking for a new home. After walking through more than 30 houses and looking endlessly for 2 weeks Kristy and I had narrowed it down to 2 homes. There were only 3 problems.
Problem #1: Until we actually sold our home, we could only put a predicated offer on a new home. This normally would not be a big deal, except that the market for selling homes has been so bad lately, that most sellers weren’t even entertaining predicated offers.
Problem #2: Although we had narrowed it down to 2 homes, the problem was that I really liked one home and Kristy really liked the other. We weren’t on the same page.
Problem #3: Even if we had sold our home, the homes that we liked were out of our price range. Not only that, but on one of the homes, we already knew that the seller had already rejected an offer that was just $5,000 less than his asking price.
So, we started praying.
On Monday, August 4 around 3:00 pm, I uttered this prayer – “God, we really need an offer on our home. Could we get an offer tonight?”
At 6:00 pm, my phone rang. It was our agent saying that we got an offer on our home. We put it under contract that night.
Two days later, Kristy and I still weren’t seeing eye to eye on which house to pursue. I started to become very frustrated and on my way to work on Wednesday, August 6, I simply asked God – “God, would you please help Kristy and me come to some agreement here. Give us some direction here.”
A few hours later, as I sat my desk, around 10:00 am, my cell phone rang. It was Kristy. She said, “I just called to tell you that I trust you. You always look out for our family and you make good decisions. I trust you.”
After wiping the tears from my eyes, I got all excited and started to pursue the home that I thought would be the best long term fit for our family (just for the record, Kristy liked the house. There were just a few things about the other house that she liked a little better.)
The house that we began to pursue was listed at $15K more than our budget would allow. This was the house that the owner had already rejected an offer of $5,000 less than his asking price. So, I prayed and asked, “God, would you give us this house?”
About the time we were getting ready to make an offer, our agent called me and said, “I was praying about it this morning and I think that you should write a letter to the home owners to go along with your offer.”
I figured, what do we have to lose? So, I got to writing. I wrote about our family, our 3 (soon to be 4 sons) and how we would love to raise our family in this home. I asked the home owners to humbly consider our offer and to sell us their home. We then offered them $17K less than their asking price. They counter offered at $15K less (right at our budget ceiling.) We signed the contract. We got the house. (It turns out that the couple who owned the house lived there for 22 years and raised their 4 sons in that home.)
Hurricane Gustav caused our closing on the new home to be postponed. To most people, this would seem like a nuisance. To me and Kristy, it was a blessing. The interest rates were at 6.6% on the day of our originally scheduled closing. Since the storm pushed our closing back, when it was time to close, the rates had dropped to 6.1%. We got the new rate.
On top of all this…when I was working in the new house the other night, my wonderful wife brought me a Subway. I peeled off the little sticker on my sandwich wrapper…It said – YOU WIN! A FREE 6” SUB!
When I was telling a friend of mine this story the other day, he said, “Man, that’s cool. God likes you.”
That is pretty cool.
3 comments:
I love this Brian! Thanks for sharing. I like you too!
You know what's even cooler? That you were aware and acknowledged God's influence in these situations...I think sometimes we pray and ask God's influence on a situation and when our prayers are answered, we forget to acknowledge God and thank him for it.
Good stuff and congrats on the new home!
There are so many good points to that story.
Lower interest rate
Lower selling price
Free 6" sub
I can't decide which is best! (leaning towards the sub)
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