The Quiet Game

Genesis 24:21 -- "The servant watched her in silence, wondering whether or not the Lord had given him success in his mission."

The moment we stepped through the front door I was in awe. Excitement welled up and a big grin spread across my face.  The house had more than I had ever wanted. Five wonderful bedrooms, a huge kitchen with lots of pantry space, three full bathrooms, no carpet, lots of glass to let in natural light, a huge back yard right on the water way with a giant deck for sunning and grilling.  Gorgeous!! I asked question, we started crunching numbers in our heads, and we calculated how far it would be from Steven's office.......

Ah, bliss. Or was it?

When we made the decision to move more than a year ago, we prayed and prayed, asked friends to pray, and then prayed some more.  I'd been looking for the right place for months. I needed room to continue our home based education, and wanted extra space to have family from out of town comfortably stay the night with us from time to time. The giant fridge and modern appliances were a plus - but not necessarily a requirement.  The fact is, the very first home we toured had me in complete awe, hypnotized by the location and the space - ready start moving in right away. Surely THIS was the answer to all of our prayers.

So blissfully excited, on the ride back home I asked all three of my guys what they thought about it.  Of course it was unanimous, we all loved it.  The numbers were on the extreme high end of what we'd planned for a budget but we fell in love so quickly with the space that we kept coming up with reasons to talk ourselves into taking the financial leap.

Back home, packing up more boxes, the reality of the situation set in. The hoops we were going to have to jump through to make that specific house a reality were just too great in number and too high above our heads. We could have contorted ourselves like members of a crazy circus act - twisting around the double deposit and the cost of moving supplies, the additional deposits required to switch utilities to a new county, the fact that a property management company wasn't involved,  and the fact that we would have to take the interstate just to go grocery shopping -- but would that really be wise?

Steven and I both reached for the tape to close the box now filled with hard-back books by my favorite authors. In a pause, we both looked at each other in silence and mentally connected in a way that years of marriage affords a couple .... we both resigned ourselves to the notion that our search wasn't over. We were back to the drawing board.

Here's the thing: so very excited to make the move, after hours of prayer beseeching our Father for the right place for the right price within the right number of miles from Steven's office....I had answered our prayers on my own.  I didn't take the time and the quiet I really should have to allow GOD to do the answering. I raced in at full speed so excited to get the ball rolling, that I overlooked some of the obstacles, the HUGE hurtles we would have to jump in order to make the move.

In Genesis, Abraham's servant Eliezer had the exact right idea. On bended knee he prayed for God's help. He asked our Father to fulfill his need, for success, for the right bride to bring home to Isaac.  And Eliezer - soooo unlike myself - sat back in silence.  He didn't rush up to the well, camel skin in hand, waving it around to show that it was empty. He didn't approach Rebekah with leading questions, giving her clues so she could come up with the right answers and therefore solve the puzzle that Eliezer had devised so he could be certain of his choices. No. He watched her in silence. He waited for God to give HIM the answer to his prayers, rather than answering them on his own.

Last night, I spent a wonderful ladies night out with some of the most beautiful women I'll ever meet. These three precious ladies have known me a very long time, and I enjoy the comfort, the joy, the fellowship gifted to me through all those years. I was ready on time when one of them came to pick me up so we could drive on out to our rendezvous at Chili's. Do you know HOW she could come and pick me up? Because I live a few houses away from her. In THIS house, the answer to so many hours of prayer - I am close to one of my very dearest friends. I have never lived this close to a treasured friend before. I'm less than two blocks away from a grocery store.  I'm still on the water and have room for the class room.  And the numbers didn't leave Steven and I walking an impossible tight rope that would leave us dangling, clinging by a few exhausted fingers that would eventually slip and leave us splattered on the ground below.

THIS house, this place, this point in time .... are all GOD's answers to our prayers. Not mine. His timing is so much more prefect than ours. His plans are perfect. All we have to do, is sit back and watch in silence. Be still so we can hear His voice.