House Hunting
by Mike James
You might wonder how a blog on house hunting can get spiritual. Well, please give me some time to explain.
It all began on a Saturday night in June as I decided we should drive all night to get a good head start on our cross-country drive. The destination was California to search for a home. We made it in about 53 hours with one hotel stop somewhere in Oklahoma. We were driving from Maryland. Upon our arrival in California we set out on three consecutive days of house hunting for about eight hours per day. By the end of that first weekend on the trip we put bids in on two houses.
We traveled from a hotel room to my brother’s house in Glendale, CA, about 60 miles from the house search location. We spent about four days there involved in a bidding war on the homes and we lost.
Now we would have to start all over 60 miles back and a new hotel. As we started to reach about 30 houses viewed, my daughter, my wife, and I had different ideas on what was a suitable home. I was ready to bid on homes that they did not want to. I won’t get into all the details, but family cohesion was beginning to fray a bit during week two of our adventure. All of a sudden we found two possibilities on the same day. We put in the bids and this time we had to choose between the two homes. Finally, after 19 days, we could head back to Maryland and prepare to move out of our home for California in August.
A number of lessons, each having a spiritual analogy, were learned during this trip. The first one has to do with endurance. The Bible teaches us that the life of a Christian is one of endurance (Matthew 24:13). I have driven cross-country before, but it took me a week to do it, and I went at my own pace. Doing it in 53 hours is a different story. I thought it would be more of a burden than it was. My wife helped a little, but I put in about 18 hours of driving during our first 24 hours. That is the most I have ever driven in a 24-hour period. I slept well that night, but looking back on it I was okay. The lesson for me is sometimes what we think is difficult is not as bad as we imagined it. We need to think about that in regard to our fears about taking on a task we have never tackled before. Getting started is sometimes the most difficult part. Once you make the commitment and go for it you may find it’s over before you know it. Christ (Luke 23:33-43) and Paul (2 Corinthians 11:25-29) went through much more than we do. Remember what they endured—it may help you push through when you need it.
Another lesson on this trip was maintaining focus. Despite all the work we did to find the first two houses we lost them. But we got right back to the search, looking up houses at night and sending them to our real estate agent, who set up viewings for the next day. For a number of days we did not do much else. The lesson here is it sometimes takes focus to reach a goal. Remember Matthew 6:33, which is about seeking first God’s Kingdom and everything else will just fall into place. That verse implies the need for focus on that one thing. Putting more focus and intentionality into your goals can help you achieve them. We were definitely pushed along by the fact our Maryland house is sold and we have to be out of it by mid-August. Having a little pressure on yourself can definitely help you with focus.
When we did have a family breakdown during the middle of our journey for a house the main culprit was stress. The loss of the first two homes created a little anxiousness. Would we have to head back to Maryland and then rent first in California? Would we have to store our household items and then move them into a home? Would we lose the next homes we bid on? Will we find other houses we can all agree on? And this is a lesson we have probably all experienced. When there is stress we more easily fall into bad behavior. What can help is constant communication (1 Thessalonians 5:17; Philippians 4:6). Due to some communication breakdown in the family and with the realtor, there was more stress than there needed to be.
I hope my trip report can help you think about how to apply endurance, focus, and communication in your life to enhance your spirituality and relationship with God and mankind.