New and Noteworthy:
We have bought a used mobile home
We do not have it yet
Funny story but long and convoluted: neighbor is making trouble up at trailer so praying for protection and safety where it sits now (1 hour away) This has caused me to lose sleep. “Do not worry…”says Jesus.
My weather app says snow on Tuesday and Wednesday (oh great it happened and mud fest is here)
Having to build a driveway (Monday & finishing Tuesday or more) No small undertaking, best toboggan hill ever
Screwpiles to place the trailer on arrived Tuesday (weather and driveway permitting had to pull them in and they did not finish until after 11pm)
Trailer needs to be moved here and make it up new driveway
Working on off grid power supply – probably working and lots of praying on this one
Septic/Lagoon still need built
Have to order propane bullet and propane
Need a couple propane appliances
Need to skirt the trailer
Need to buy woodstove
Need to buy a large water tank (picked up 2 huge ones today!)
Need to build a shed around the water tank to prevent freezing. Outside dog water froze solid last night
Feels like a long list so far and we really cannot move in until this list gets done. Plus, this list seems like giant things which brings me to my next point.
EXPECTATIONS – THEY CAN KILL YOU, CAUSE YOU TO WORRY AND AGE YOU FASTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE
Expectations are the things that truly drive us crazy, make us cranky and get us into all kinds of trouble, except we all have them. Expectations are like giants in the land.
We look over our life’s landscape and when our expectation has not happened all of the sudden a giant pops up on the landscape that is bigger than we can see around. We cannot seem to go around it, move it or make it go away. We had an expectation, and it is stuck in our heart, lodged there.
We expect that our spouses will love, honor and cherish us – that is what they promised when we got married and that is what we promised them.
Our children will grow up and be adults who are toilet trained (this one usually happens)
Our children will grow up into polite, hard-working adults.
Our boss will understand when we have bad or off days. Our boss will notice when we work extraordinarily hard and show initiative and be thankful.
We expect that our Dr. will know what is wrong with us and be able to fix it.
I expected when I plugged in my blow dryer last night that it would turn on. Alas it did not and I tried every plug in in the trailer. It was 9:00pm and my hair was wet from my shower and I had to leave by 5:30 am. That leaves no time for hair fixing in the morning. So a new all time low was had… I laid on the trailer floor turning my head side to side over the heat vent. (it worked).
I expected to be in a home/house long before any snow hit the ground. (too late)
I expected to show you more pictures but I am having network issues and the above is the only one you get this week.
I expected that the neighbours would be willing to share their driveway with us for the winter if we offered to plow it.
Brian expected to take a short drive into town to the bank and back - his truck broke. We get to go and deal with that this morning.
I expected that since God said to move here to this property, He would take care of all the details.
Can you see what happened? I set my expectations upon someone else’s “actions”. I cannot control another person; all I can control is myself. When I set up my hopes, dreams upon someone else, it is almost guaranteed that it will turn out badly. The other person does not share my expectations and has a different version of their own.
What about our expectations of God? Are those not reasonable?
Well in all actuality they are probably not. I like to think that if I come up with a plan, then God will agree with me and move heaven and earth to make “my” plan come true. Silly girl, it does not work that way.
It turns out every time that I have a “plan”, God changes it all around and totally takes ownership over the plan. Really? Yup every darn time. Sometimes I think up a plan and then think about how God will change it over to a Plan B or C and you know what? He totally takes it to a Plan H. “His way.”
God has a lot of promises in the Bible and we should be able to count on expecting those – correct?
Yes and No. Yes, God cannot lie and He will carry out everyone of His promises. No – His promises are still going to be His way and we cannot impose His promises to get Him to do His plan our way.
For instance: God promises that He will never leave me or forsake me. I can take that and use it against Him when I sit in our holiday trailer feeling cold and lonely. Where is God? He is still right here. Just because I am cold does not mean God left. Because I feel lonely does not mean God is not around. It is me using my expectations of what I think God should be doing to get cranky at Him for not doing it my way.
Expectations: a sure way to have worry, anxiety and a broken heart when things do not turn out the way we would like them.
I think the Israelites thought that God rescuing them from Egypt was all hunky dory, especially after those 10 plagues that God sent to the land to teach those Egyptians a lesson, and then WOW the Red Sea parting was way above what they thought God would do. I bet after all those miracles the wandering around in the desert for 40 years was not quite what they expected. Do you know what they did? They got cranky, whined, and complained and turned away from God. God did not take that lightly and there was some discipline that happened out there in the desert. As a matter of fact, God took the whiners so seriously that only 2 got to go into the Promised Land, all the rest died in the desert before they got to the Promised Land. God was not fooling around with people that had expectations other than His.
This should be a wake up call for me as well. Where we want to put our mobile is the “promised land” but between it and me is about 1 km. of bush land. Between it and me is no driveway. Between it and me is a lot of work. This whole undertaking cannot be called “smooth”, nor can it be called “trouble free”.
When the Israelites finally did cross the Jordan River in a miraculous way that God out did Himself again by parting the waters, the Israelites stood there and looked around. The Promised Land was already being living in. There were people, animals, and a lot of things in the way before they could even begin to live in the land. They had to fight their way in, it was no easy ride. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, which was not pleasant, the Israelites had to now fight their way in.
My expectation was to have some of this journey be “easy”. The thought of a mobile home – completely finished and we could take and plunk it down and simply move in. But reality is, we will have to work for it, we will have to fight our way into the promised land, fight to get the home liveable and we will have to get a little dirty, make a little sweat and probably cry more than a few tears. But we will get there or die trying.
More than a few good meaning people have asked why we are willing to fight so hard to live on this land. The answer is more involved than I care to get into in this blog, but the short version is: “Because God told us to.” Some will roll their eyes at that; some will be incredulous, and some will totally get it and hopefully pray harder for us.
When God told the Israelites to go and take possession of the land there was so much more at stake than the Israelites themselves or even the land. God’s divine plan was at stake and whether the Israelites wanted to do it or not did not seem to matter, He removed those that did not. He used the ones that would follow, and the result was a nation that God promised would “Bless all nations of the world.” God’s plan was not only for the Israelites it was for the whole world, I hope you caught that.
Why are we fighting so hard to get the mobile onto the piece of land on the “other side?” God has not told us yet but He gave me a glimpse.
When I was in Israel a couple years ago, I had a dream 3 nights in a row. In that dream God and I were walking up a mountain, we got part way up and God told me to “go and look over the top.”
I looked at Him and asked if He was coming with me. He said, “no, go ahead and look.”
For 2 nights I refused to go up and look over the top of the mountain because if God was not going with me, I would not go. The dream would come back the next night.
On the 3rd night God accompanied me to the top. I looked over and was down hearted at what I saw, I said, “it’s just land” as my eyes saw little farms, hills, trees and looking over a valley. (I still apologize every time I think of this and my using the word “just”).
When we bought our property, we fell in love with the field that I have shared with you, it is breath taking view overlooking the hills in the distance. Absolutely gorgeous. We bought the field.
One day we went to the far part of our land, “over on the promised land” and as we were turning around, a break in the trees showed an incredible view of a lake, and a valley. We had no idea we had a look out with a view. We were ecstatic.
A couple of months ago my vision came back of the land that I looked over back in my dream in Israel. It was the same view as the look out on this land. I was dumbfounded to say the least. 3 years prior God showed me the same look out in a dream and it is in our possession, we just have to get there.
Now you know the rest of the story. (thus far)
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