house

When we were kids, my mother insisted on the wisdom of buying a house early in life.

Something else mum insisted on was that no matter what we were to end-up doing in life, we first ought to get some sort of work qualification behind us - so we'd have something to fall back on if we ever needed to.

Mum also insisted, "If you start something, finish it."

I can also remember that feeling sick was no excuse not to go to school. She made us get up and go anyway. There was simply no way she was going to allow excuses to be instilled into our character.

So by the time I was twenty I'd already bought my first house.

"Just trust me - I'll provide everything"

The day God called me to give-up my job and go and serve the Lord, He told me He would provide everything.

That included providing the money I needed each and every week to make the loan repayment - even though I now had no fixed income.

I resolved that if I ever missed one repayment on my house, I would go back to work.

Somehow week by week the money was always there to make the payments.

At one stage, for a few weeks the money only just came in at the last moment. The uncertainty of it all made me question whether I should go back to work.

Then one morning when another payment was due, this time I was way short of the amount I needed.

I got up thinking to myself, "Well I guess I better go and track down some money". But I had no where to look for money (I'd resolved never to ask anyone for my own needs).

So there was nothing I could do other than roll the burden off onto the Lord, and leave it with Him.

I had no idea where the money could come from. I said to myself, "If the money gets provided this time, I'll probably never question again whether I should go back to work".

That morning I cleaned-up my desk, and I found an uncashed cheque that someone had sent me. Then I had reason to visit my sister-in-law, and after we left her, she called me back inside - and handed me $50. Later in the day, another friend gave me $50.

I added these amounts to the little I already had, and it amounted to the exact amount I needed - and all by 11am. I was able to make the payment, and I've never seriously questioned again whether it might be God's will for me to go back to work.

Again and again, God always provided every bill for my house, often just in the nick of time.

Even while I was overseas as a missionary, my mother told me that each time a repayment was due, somehow the money was always there in my account.

Making Things Worse

There was a brother in the Philippines who needed to purchase a jeepney so he could pick people up for church on Sundays. The vehicle could also be used commercially on week days, to earn some money. The brother explained how impossible it was for him to obtain a bank loan in the Philippines, and asked if I could obtain a loan for him from Australia, and he promised to pay me back monthly.

Something inside of me said, "You can do that".

At that time I was on course to have my house paid off much earlier than the 20-year term of my loan. And because I was ahead in my repayments, I was able to re-access the money I'd paid off on the principal.

Of course, doing so was not a good idea financially. It meant I would effectively be increasing the principal on which I was paying interest - and it meant I probably wouldn't be able to close the loan earlier like I'd hoped.

But I decided to do it anyway to help the church in the Philippines; and I made it a point of faith that God would enable me to close the loan no later than I would have had I not done this deal. So I sent the money over to the Philippines.

Some years later I was sitting in a church service when Norm Robertson was taking-up an offering.

He said, "Don't just put your money (seed) in - name the harvest you want to reap".

So I said to the Lord, "I want my house paid off by the end of this year", then I put everything I had in the offering. (I think it was only about $40, but it was everything I had.)

As the year went on, I completely forgot about that transaction with the Lord.

Then one day towards the end of that year, I picked up my Bible and it happened to fall open at the verse where God told the prophet Jeremiah to obtain the title-deed to a block of land.

And the next day, my Bible fell open at the same verse.

When my Bible fell open at the same verse the third day, I gathered God was wanting to speak to me about something through this verse. So I sat down at my desk and asked, "O.k. God - what is it?"

At first I started looking for some allegorical meaning to it, but then God spoke to me and said, "No - you're literally going to have the title deed to your house by the end of the week."

Well that particular week it so happened that on the day my loan repayment was due, I didn't have enough money to make the payment. It was the first and only time this ever happened. I immediately said, "Ah, God - looks like I'm going back to work, hey."

I went to the bank to try to negotiate something. I told the lady behind the counter, "I don't have the money to make today's payment - but I should have the money in a couple of days". I said that by faith, not knowing where the money might come from.

She replied, "What's your account number - let's have a look".

She looked it up on the computer then she said, "According to our records, your next payment isn't due until the year 2006". (This was in about 1997!)

Unbeknownst to me, I had gotten that far ahead in my repayments even though I'd taken the backwards step of reaccessing off the principal. This was because although the interest rate had dropped considerably since I first bought the house, I had made a point of continuing to pay the same amount each week.

So technically speaking, I had not actually missed a loan repayment that week, which meant I didn't have the right in my deal with God to go back to work.

But I went away from the bank telling God that I still wanted something to happen by the end of that week.

A Miraculous Provision

A couple of days later someone came up to me and asked, "How much do you still owe on your house?"

When I told them the amount, she said, "Well we want to pay it out for you".

But I wouldn't allow her to do it.

A couple of days later she broached the subject again. This time she insisted that I take her to my bank to pay it out.

So I took her to my bank, and she closed the loan - paid the whole thing off for me!

I received the Title Deed to my house.

So the one and only week that I thought I'd missed a repayment - God actually paid the whole house out for me.

What's more, I closed the loan earlier than I would have had I not reaccessed that large amount off the principal.

Finally, I remembered my prayer to God when I placed that offering in the church. God indeed paid my house off by the end of the year!