The dream house (and when God makes you wait!)

I hate waiting. I am really quite bad at it. I hate waiting in queues, I hate waiting in traffic, I hate waiting for people to arrive when they are late. I hate waiting. But waiting is a very normal part of every day life - I don't think that a day passes without us having to wait for someone or something. So if it is normal, why am I so bad at it?

Well, I guess if I'm honest, I may be a little (a lot) on the impatient side and I think things through quickly and often can't understand why others haven't arrived at the same conclusion as me yet!

So, transfer this onto waiting for God to come through for you on something and well, it's hard.

I haven't blogged for a while, mainly because I am frustrated at having to wait and disappointed that we don't have a house in London yet. If you've been following these posts, you will know that my last one was about praying through the night and inviting you to join us. It was amazing that we had over 70 people praying for us at different points from 8pm on the Friday until 8am on the Saturday - I don't think we anticipated that so many of our friends and those that we don't yet know would sign up to stand with us in prayer - seriously humbling and amazing. (Was quite glad that my friend, Kate, in New Zealand took some of our middle of the night slots!!) And I was expectant that there would be some breakthrough - over 70 people praying for God to provide us with a house in London over a 12 hour period...surely something would happen as a result of that? Part of me seriously expected a courier to arrive on our doorstep at 8am on the Saturday with a set of house keys!!! Sounds ridiculous? I know. But it's hard to balance the full of faith, full confidence in who God is and what He can do level of expectation against the reality of what does or doesn't happen. It's actually exhausting unless you find a place of peace in it, which isn't always easy.

So where are we at? Well, we are still fully confident that God has called us to move to Camden this Summer. We are also fully aware that it is now the Summer and we don't have a house in Camden to live in. Yep...it's pretty fun in the Green household at the moment! Esther said to me this evening before she went to bed; 'Ok, Mum, seriously - do you honestly think that God is going to give us a house to live in before the Summer holidays are over?' And my answer was that it simply doesn't make any sense if God doesn't.

I felt God give me a picture on our night of prayer. It was of the game show 'Catchphrase' which you may or may not have watched before...it was better in the days of Roy Walker...but I digress! So, in the show, contestants have to guess catchphrases from visual images and pictures. If they guess correctly they can have a go at the bonus picture, which is hidden behind 9 squares on the screen - they press the buzzer and one square is revealed each time. There is usually one key square that makes it obvious what the picture is of and this is usually the last one to be revealed. Got it?!! Ok, so this is what my picture was of; that bonus screen with one square remaining and this last square resolved the rest of the picture. I felt that God was saying that we had to wait for it to be revealed. (Yep...thanks God, I just love waiting).

Now that is an encouraging picture, but it becomes even more so because when we (unexpectedly) went to newday (a Christian festival for about 7000 young people on the Norfolk Showground) last week, a friend of ours came up to me and said that when he had been praying for us on our night of prayer, he had felt God give him a picture...

Can you guess what it was?!

Yep. It was exactly the same as my picture from the show Catchphrase! So, God had given both of us the same picture on the same night. Again if you've been following these blog posts, you may remember that this isn't the first time this has happened. Two people gave me the same picture from the Indiana Jones film (clearly my friends watch too much TV!).

And that Catchphrase picture is EXACTLY how life feels at the moment. So much else has fallen into place, like all the other squares being revealed;

- Esther has a school place - remember how amazing that was?

- Tim has work in London starting in September

- I have a space in the Revelation Church office to work from

- Our very close friend, Kerry, is also moving to Camden at the same time as us - hurrah for God's kindness in our lives intertwining again.

- ALL of the pictures / words etc that people keep giving us are all saying the same thing which is to...

WAIT.

Waiting is rubbish. A couple of weeks ago, I was ready to stuff it and just try and rent (£3500 per month!!) - let's just get there and make it happen and trust that God will provide us with the money. But then we were challenged about holding onto God for His provision and promises and not to try and attain it ourselves. To wait.

But, I desperately want to be in London. I want to have our dream house, whatever that looks like. I want to start to build a home where my family can flourish but also where others can come and be loved and accepted and fed and cared for. That Isaiah 35 house, where lives can be transformed. Not because we are anything special because we really really aren't. We are an ordinary family. We have everyday challenges, our kids misbehave, we argue with each other, we mess up daily and yet by the grace of God He has called us to partner with Him on this adventure. I cannot transform anyone's life, but I can open my home and cook someone a meal and tell them my story of how Jesus has been real in my life. The transforming part is God's responsibility. So that's my dream. I wrote a blog post a while ago about daring to dream. It's something I find hard to do. If you dare to dream, there's potential for huge disappointment and my reaction is to protect myself from that. My adult life began with God speaking huge promises over mine and my ex-husbands life about church planting and leadership and one by one over the next 10 years, those dreams died. They didn't fade and die, they crashed spectacularly and died a horrible death. A bit dramatic? Well, it was all a bit dramatic and traumatic...but that's another story entirely. I guess my point is, that at this point in time, aged almost 40, I have begun to dream again. I'm a little scared that I will feel disappointed but I am confident in my Father and know that my dreams are important to Him.

And so we wait.

The picture at the top of this post is one that Jemimah drew in her kids group at newday. An amazing guy called Wouter was leading the 5-7's group in some prophetic stuff and she drew the house - the wording says; 'God told me that he has found a new house'.

I have no idea how God is going to do it. But I know He will.