A new house, for a reason

The past few weeks have been busy.  We bought a new house two weeks ago and we're now busy putting our old house up for rent.  Many people told us how stressful house shopping would be.  Our goal was to find a house we thought we could be in a while, with a neighborhood and community that is safe and play-friendly for our kids.  Shortly after we began looking for a house to buy my wife and I sat down at the kitchen table one morning and I shared a passage of Scripture with her.  I thought it would give us peace during the potentially turbulent time ahead.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:24-27

It is assuring to me to know God himself marked out our appointed times in history and the boundaries of our lands.  That single truth instills so much peace over my life.  We could look for a new home knowing God himself would determine the house we move to, just as He determined the house we're moving from and how long we'd been there.  Yes, God is more involved in our lives than we could possibly understand.  During the tense negotiation process with the seller my wife and I would constantly need to remind each other, "God will put us in that house if He wants us to be there.  Remember Acts 17:26?"

Now that the house-buying process is behind us, my family moves excitedly on to the house-living experience.  And yet we still have to remind each other about that passage in Acts 17, because more important than where we are is why we're there.  God puts us where we are so that we would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us (vs 27).  We are where we are for a reason: So that we might seek God.  Perhaps we seek him through being thankful for where we live, or perhaps it's through relying on God to get us through just another day where we live.  Either way, no matter where we live God has put us there so that we would seek him, reach out for him, and find him.  I encourage you to remember that the next time you think "I love my home" or "How can I live here another day?"