This morning I consider the past 11 years of my life with a different perspective than I had just 1 year ago. There have been many many changes my family and I have walked through which no doubt would have gone without God's blessing (there is a difference between provision and blessing) had we not waited upon Him. I quickly remember praying for the Lord to bring me companionship, but not just that, a bride who would honor Him first of all and would together walk with me alongside Jesus. The Lord completely blew me away when He blessed me with Charis' hand (8 years now). He promised with each of our children that He would teach me how to love them as they needed, to be the father He desired me to be. Then, there were jobs the Lord brought my way, each one I hardly felt qualified to hold. There have been very meaningful, sometimes tender, conversations which required special care and attention. All of these required in one way or another me to wait upon the Lord, sometimes just for the sake of timing, but often because of what He was doing behind the scenes. Although I believe I've understood this value of waiting upon Him I now have new appreciation for it as we seem to be experiencing it in an entirely different dimension.
It was nearly a year ago when the Lord first spoke to Charis and I about moving away from Utah and into California to connect with another church family. I immediately recognized I would need a new job, my daughter a new school, and something that has proved to be the hardest part of all. We would be leaving the most precious church family we'd ever known. Some of the dearest people in the world to us, and closest friends, would of course remain there while we set out for some place unknown to us then. Yet, we knew with certainty what the Lord had spoken, so unmistakable was His message to us. We began to prepare ourselves as well as we could for the eventual transition. However it would be about another 3 months before we were sure of the place God was leading us. In January we drove out to Bakersfield, CA, as it seemed this was where He had in mind for us. By the time we left there, after attending several services and spending time with some of the folks from this new church, we knew this place would eventually be our new home.
It was both a great relief to actually know where we'd be moving to as well as a deep sadness because it represented a further assurance that we would indeed be leaving the place we had called home for so long. For whatever reason I had expected everything to move very quickly after that visit. However, it felt like anything but quick. First, we tried selling our house on our own. After 3 months of trying this, and without anyone coming to see it, we finally decided to call our friend Mitch, and have it listed. After about 2 months, and 6 or 7 showings, we finally had an agreed upon offer.
Still, there was still the matter of finding a job. I had done numerous job searches but could find very little in or near Bakersfield, in my line of work. Somewhere around March a couple of folks talked to me about the possibility of working from home and with 1 of the businesses who are a part of the organization I supported. This sounded like a great idea and after talking it over with my wife, and praying about it, I told them I'd be interested if such a possibility presented itself. Well, it would be about 3-4 months before there was anything concrete. In the meantime I had taken a voluntary demotion so that my replacement could be trained. Then, as we approached our closing date on the sale of our home the job finally came through. Whew, talk about last minute!
When the dust finally settled (for the most part) we had landed in Merced (about 2.5 hours north of Bakersfield) so that we could be near to some very close family here while we began looking for homes down the road. We had determined several weeks earlier that we would home-school our little girl for now and through the moving out/in process we crazily figured it was the right time to start. There were definitely a few bumps early on, but we felt this was the route the Lord wanted us to take for her schooling, at least for now, so we persisted. Thankfully, a few weeks into Charis and Caitrin have begun to hit a groove.
Some of our dust will continue settling for sometime now I'm sure, especially considering we haven't made it all the way to Bakersfield just yet. However, the Lord has been abundantly gracious to us. Even in the midst of all this change, our lives truly feeling uprooted, He has continued to work things out for us in such a way that has become increasingly clear that our waiting upon Him has been very important. Early on in this process He spoke to me a passage from Psalm 37. He told me to "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him". I continued to speak this to me throughout the entire process, and each time there was a sense that He wanted to do something within me.
So, while I couldn't control the pour housing market, the lack of jobs, or simply the difficult timing of it all I could do one thing. I could repeatedly yield myself to His plans and his timing. This I've chosen to do and will continue to. While He's worked out some very cool things for us in terms of practical needs, the most valuable things have been the changes I've sensed within. This has also been some of the hardest change, as it's required the depleting of my pride and selfishness and stretch my faith, and then stretched it some more.
Still, I will continue to be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. For, as the minister spoke of a preferred future verses God's promised future while I drove through Merced I knew exactly what He was talking about.
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord,
and wait patiently for him
Psalm 37:6-7a
