A couple of weeks back, I sought the advice of a property expert - recommended to me by two different sets of friends who had both bought their new homes with his help. This man was not the least bit surprised to learn that I had spent eleven months looking for a home and not managed to find anything at all. He said he knew a dozen people in the same situation, and his advice to me was rather shocking, “Stop looking!” In today’s climate, he advised me, it’s very unlikely that I will find a house to rent unless I can prove a monthly salary of several thousand euros.
A far better idea, he counselled me, would be to consider whether I could contemplate buying a property instead of renting one. But there’s no point in even starting to look, he said, unless you already have the money available to purchase. The Spanish system of making a 10% down payment on a property you want to buy means that there is too much risk of losing that deposit if you don’t have assurance that the full amount will be available within a few weeks - either from the sale of another property or because the finances are provided for you in another way.
“Stop looking, “ he said, “until you have your ducks in a row!”
It was very hard to hear that, after the countless hours I’ve spent
this year in looking for a new place to live.
But what does it mean to have my "ducks in a row" ?
It means first of all that I need to know whether God is asking me to trust for a huge increase in income so that I would be able to afford a monthly rental contract…. or whether He is asking me to take a step of faith and trust Him to provide me with a home of my own. This would be a big step to take; I’ve never bought, sold or owned a house in my entire life, and for all of my life I have lived on a regular income that is “below minimum wage.” But, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, my fruitless search for a home to rent has led me to suspect that God’s solution might be for me to own a home instead. I’ve lived in rental accommodation my whole life, and having a home of my own could also be God’s provision for my old age, when I no longer have regular missions support coming in.
And so, as a long and challenging year moves towards its conclusion, that's where I'm at. I believe that throughout the year I've taken steps that were the right steps at the time. The long months of searching for a home to rent have been the experience I needed to confirm to me that renting a home is probably no longer the way forward for me. It's really looking as if I'm moving into a new season where I need to trust God to show me how to take new and unfamiliar steps forward.
I feel a little like the Israelites must have felt when they were crossing the Red Sea or crossing the River Jordan. At one point, God said to them, "You have never been this way before." (Joshua 3: 4) Or perhaps it's more like Peter who, amidst the storm of circumstances, chose to step out of the boat and walk on water to be with Jesus. (Matthew 14)
Read on below for some water walking reflections from my quiet time this morning.
