Can’t believe how quick these kids grow up!

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Welcome to my new church home. Very, very pumped to be in Seattle and with a church that is killing it on the college campus.

It’s hard to believe our little girl is 5. Kindergarten is just around the corner. So blessed to be her father and pumped to be a part of it all.

In hindsight it all seems to have been a little presumptuous. We flew to Seattle in hopes of finding a home to rent in 3 days. What I didn’t realize is how competitive the market would be due to the high prices and the extremely run down places.

If, by chance (a very small chance), you actually found a “nice” place; the rent would be sky high. If, by chance (an even smaller chance), you actually found a “nice” place and the rent was reasonable, the line would be out the door with people trying to get it first.

We had a location grid we wanted to be in so that I would be able to bike/bus/walk to work. Also we wanted to live where we minister and hoping to find ourselves in a district with a good school for our new kindergartener, Lily.

DAY 1.

The first place we looked at was a prime location, high rent and was absolutely awful looking, run down by Univ. of Washington students over the years. We searched hard all day and found a place that we really liked. A little higher on the rent but a great location and Kelly was happy with it. We expressed a lot of interest and said we would be in touch.

That evening I emailed the guy letting him know we hoped to make a deal, he didn’t respond so we went to bed.

DAY 2.

I had an email from him saying that they wanted to show the house for another week and he’d be in touch. Bummer! Our desire was to have a place secured by the end of the weekend so that we felt good about packing up and moving across the country in 3 weeks. So we went out for a 2nd day of hunting.

The hunting did not produce anything. We looked at a lot more junk and nice things that were WAY outside of our budget. By the end of the day we were exhausted. Our expectations for the trip were beginning to fall dramatically. I told Kelly that I thought we just needed to realize that we didn’t have a chance of finding the same type of deal that other church staff had found because we just didn’t have the same time to give to hunting. It would be best if we up our budget and settle. There was an upside and that was a promising open house on Saturday, Day 3.

DAY 3.

We set out again on the house hunt. Early that morning we arrived at the open house and found what we thought was “THE ONE”. A quaint little tri-level, clean, spacious, back yard (unheard of in the city), fairly priced and districted for the best elementary school in the city. We quickly began an attempt to land it with the owner when another couple indicated a willingness to sign a 3 year lease. We had nothing left to negotiate with. She said she’d get back to us later that day and we left.

The search continued all day but we were distracted by the possibility of getting “THE ONE”. Either way we hit it hard through lunch to try and find something only to find more and more junk. We headed back to the place we were staying for a break before a showing we had scheduled at 4 o’clock. The house didn’t look promising at all but we had no option but to try.

Still Day 3, I woke Kel from her nap and we set out for the showing. As we were driving Kel spotted a small sign the said, “For Rent: Open House —>”. We couldn’t stop because of the appointment so I asked her to right down the intersection and we’d come back after.

At the 4 o’clock showing we nearly threw up. I don’t want to waste words describing it but it was awful! Imagine awful, that was it. So we left discouraged and decided that we would give the owner from “THE ONE” a call to check on the status. She said that she was still working on it and would call me back.

I called a guy to see a house that I had seen on Craigslist. I GPS’d the location and we were off. Then Kel said, “Are we going to go by the one we saw on the way here?”

“Right! I almost forgot. Let’s go by there first.” I said.

We found the For Rent sign, turned down towards the house and pulled up in front of the very nice home. As I put the car in park my phone rings. It’s the owner from “THE ONE”!!! This could be it! Are we going to get it?!

Owner: “Jimmy, I am really sorry but I am going to have to go with the 3 year lease. You understand, right?”

Me: “That’s really sad for us but I understand. Thanks for the call.”

We were completely deflated. Almost 3 full days of hunting on Craigslist, Zillow and scouring the city and we had nothing. We drug our heavy feet up the sidewalk to the front door of the house we had come to see. The front door was open and a sign was in the front window that read: “2 Bedroom + den”.

“Dang it! We need 3 bedrooms.” Let’s go in and see anyway. We met Margaret who owns the house and asked about the “2 bedroom +”. She said that it was really a 3rd room but it didn’t have a closet in the room so she listed it as 2 bedrooms. We counted it as 3 and so we toured the house.

The house was by far the cleanest we had seen in all 3 days. The rental price was on the sign so I knew this home was in our budget and I engaged the owner about making a deal. Here was the kicker. Within the rental price she included ALL utilities, cable and internet. Those 3 things in Seattle run somewhere between $325-450/month.

So here we sit in the best house we’ve seen the entire time and looking at the potential for the best financial deal we’d seen as well.

We built rapport with Margaret around my job, her being a christian and showing her pictures of our children (she LOVES kids). We filled out some paperwork and agreed to talk the next day to follow up on the place.

As we were leaving, having sensed my stress in finding a place, she exhorted me to trust God with it all. I thought, “does that mean we got it?” We headed home for the evening.

DAY 4.

Mars Hill U-district worship service to start the morning. Afterwards we follow up with Margaret and she lets us know that the place is ours pending a credit check. WOW!

Here’s what this means. The last place we looked at is the place we got. Not because we had no other choice but because God had closed doors (literally) for 3 days and in the final moment opened the best possible door to us.

It was the cleanest, as spacious as any, 10 min bike to the church, a yard for the kids, 2 car garage (even though we only have one), 2 blocks from a park, minutes away from church staff families, near the heart of the Univ. District, $400/month cheaper than the best we’d found AND 5 blocks from the best elementary school in the city for Lily!!!!

In the end, we will pay less money for housing in Seattle than we have been paying in Gainesville. Seattle’s cost of living is about 15% higher than Gainesville.

Throughout the last few days I have wrestled with God and myself to believe that He could and would provide for us. He has been good to us and we are thankful for His grace towards us and patience with us as we waited for Him to come through in a massive way.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20,21

The following is my dinner time conversation tonight…

Me: So you guys know how God made everything that we can see, right?

Lily: Does God have super powers?

Me: Not really, He has ALL the power.

Abby: (with a little panic and starting to cry) NO! He can’t have ALL the power. That’s not fair.

Me: Why baby?

Abby: He has to share.

Me: What do you mean, why does He need to share?

Abby: Because I want some power too.

What a halarious exchange and insight into so much of our struggle as followers of Jesus. How often do I want to take God’s place, to have His power, to control my own life.

Of course this isn’t exactly what little Abby was thinking but one day she’ll know this power struggle all the more.  God definitely is ALL POWERFUL and in control of all things.  What’s awesome is that is does share that power with us through the Holy Spirit.  That power is in those who know Him through His Son, Jesus, and is used to appropriate His glory in our lives.

What’s more and overwhelming is that we have a Saviour that set aside this power to become a servant to us that we might share His eternal reward.  Read Phillipians 2.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

I am so thankful for children that teach me about my God and more thankful for the God they teach me about.

More than ever, I am Thankful for my children. Happy Thanksgiving!

It is truly a blessing to serve God at the University of Florida.  Here is a snapshot of what He is up to.

I can’t hardly sit still or gather my words thinking about this simple leadership idea.

Thank you again Gary for the trip up and to Jordan Smith with Green Flamingo for the picture shoot and editing!