This week, I thought I would write about moving house. I have heard people use the phrase “I’m in transition” several times over the last year or two. We often use this to indicate a time of particularly significant change and it often involves bigger life decisions. The truth is, as Christians, we are always in transition because we are constantly changing. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul says, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Change is here to stay! We need to get used to the idea of change as God’s plan is to change us so that we look more and more like Jesus. That is good news! I have moved house many times but four times in just over five years means I have been “in transition” in a more intense way for a while. I have changed a lot in that time, hopefully for the better. I have certainly learned a lot, about myself, and God.
After my marriage ended, I had to sell the family home. It made sense for my daughter and I to move to the local town for school and work. God asked me to wait to start looking for a place, so I duly waited until I got a green light from him and then went around the estate agents in town explaining my budget and my requirements. They all told me my expectations were unrealistic, but I had worked out what I needed, and I know I have a big God. A three-bed flat, or house, in town, in budget, please. The only one who gave me anything, gave me a brochure for a two-bed flat which I didn’t look at.
Over the next few weeks, I kept looking but nothing came up except one incredibly small, dingy place that was not suitable at all. Three-bed flats seemed to go quickly and were always over my budget. The week before the move-out date, I booked the removal van, in faith. All I was able to tell them was that I was moving into town and the date. I had no other details. On the Sunday at church, I remember telling people that I felt like I had jumped and was hoping God would catch me, like a child that launches themselves off the stairs in confidence that Dad will catch them.
The following day, I rang round the estate agents again, wondering if I was going to end up moving everything into storage and staying temporarily, in a room shared with my teenage daughter, in someone’s house. Not a prospect that either of us would have been delighted with. The only estate agent who had anything was the one who had given me the brochure at the beginning. She said, “I only have the one I gave you the first time, and to be honest, I don’t know why it hasn’t gone already.” It transpired that it had the wrong information on the brochure; it was a three-bed flat not a two-bed. Thank you, God, for keeping it for me. We looked at it on the Monday night, agreed to have it in what was a bit of a whirlwind and hoped the paperwork would go through in time. It did, with a couple of days to spare.
God, being the amazing God he is, undertook to catch me in my stepping out, as I tried to be obedient to his timing and his instructions. Being the abundant “more than you can ask or imagine” father that he is, he exceeded my expectations by giving me trees out of the back window which he knows I love and was going to miss by moving into town. The flat was within budget and had space for us all (including my son when he moved back in). Amazing. God so encourages us in our faith steps by wowing us when we do step out. Faith is spelled R-I-S-K, but I have not yet known him to let me fall flat on my face when I choose to trust him. So, it is a risk but not a recklessly stupid risk, rather a calculated risk based on what I know of his character. He is a good father.
Fast forward a year or more, and God began to speak about moving again after my daughter had left for university and I had overfilled the flat with different people! So, the journey continued. This time there were different lessons to learn. Again, we had a last-minute rescue as time ran out although one of the lessons learned was that I had set limitations on where we were looking that in retrospect were probably not right. Consequently, we ended up in a house that was an opportunity for more learning. There was no sense of punishment from God but there are always consequences to the decisions we make. There were many good things about the time in that house, as God blessed us. There were also things that brought frustration and confusion and taught us much.
Gradually over the space of the next year or two, we went our separate ways, and God moved me from one room in a shared house into a two-bed house out of town, on my own. I was aware that he was “setting me apart” in the natural but also that he was starting a process spiritually too. He blessed me with the money to furnish my whole house replacing what I had given away as my living circumstances had changed so much. The time in this house was precious and it felt like a “me and Jesus” time apart as he deepened my relationship with him and taught me new things about being on my own with just him.
Back in January 2017, God had first mentioned Scotland to me through a prophetic word from someone. At that point, it had felt like a random curveball as I had no connection there and no interest in it. As time progressed, God began to connect me with people over the border. I received other prophetic words and God spoke to me personally about Scotland, gently to start with. Then as 2019 moved into 2020, the words seemed to come thick and fast from different, unexpected directions and, in March 2020, I received a very direct confirming prophetic word that I was to go to Scotland.
God had already been speaking to me from Genesis 12. The story of Abraham being called to leave his family and “go to a land I will show you” seemed to keep popping up, in sermons, in my bible reading, in prayers people prayed for me, in emails. It was like I couldn’t escape this story for a time. Sometimes when God is speaking, he is very insistent. I think he needs to be. It made no sense in terms of my family situation, or work, for me to up-sticks and move. To be honest, I didn’t want to move. I had been at the same church for the whole of my Christian life. I was quite at home there. It felt safe.
Then God began to shake that comfortable feeling and I began to feel very unsettled. I didn’t know why. I didn’t like feeling this way. I thought I needed to “get my heart right”. I spent some time checking my heart motivation, my attitudes to everyone and everything, making sure that I wasn’t just dissatisfied in some way, that it wasn’t an issue of mine. I spent uncomfortable weeks arguing with God about it all. I told him the timing was wrong and that I needed to be near my parents at this time. I told him that I had no job in Scotland. I told him I liked England!
However, I have chosen to follow God. I have surrendered my whole life to follow where he leads. If God says, “This is what I have for you next.” I can’t really imagine a situation where it would make sense to say that I know better than the creator of the universe! So, I agreed to go. I started the process of disconnecting with things I was doing but leaving a church family of over 21 years, never mind natural family, is not a speedy process and so it was late autumn 2020 by the time I was ready to move.
Moving to a different town is one thing but moving to another country felt big. How do you decide where to be? I travelled around hoping a six-figure grid reference would fall from the sky. Then I remembered, God had told me to go and join the people he had connected me with so that narrowed it down to a city. I’m not a city lover so this prospect did not fill me with joy. A little village in the Highlands would be my preference. Nevertheless, Genesis 12:1 says, “a land that I will show you” not “a land that you choose”. He has a plan and I know it is good. I choose to trust him; he has proved himself trustworthy so many times.
When I came to look around the city, in an echo of a previous time, I had set a budget and an area, but God challenged me about my parameters, so I repented of setting limitations on how this would work. Then, in a situation that felt like the first move, where houses were gone in a flash, where I wasn’t even getting viewings and worse, this time I was grappling with the issues of having no job and no way of convincing people that I was a good prospect as a tenant, God parted the Red Sea with a flat that was somewhere I hadn’t considered and is better than I had imagined. I looked around, had a conversation with the agent, and was told on the spot I could have it, with no other recommendations than that conversation. Again, because he is a good Father and knows what I like, there is a huge country park within walking distance so I can breathe my fill of country air, despite moving to a city. What a good father!
The night before I moved up here, the people that moved me, who I had never met, rang to arrange the time they were arriving and totally unexpectedly, offered me a part-time job, before I even crossed the border. Let the next adventure begin! Following God is at times be uncertain, scary, exhilarating, adventurous, and exciting; it is certainly never boring.
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