I have been looking for a house for over a year.
I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted: something smaller, cozy, simple, with trees, a big yard, a place to spend time outside. A house that would support the simple life we’ve worked pretty hard to create.
I’ve tried to buy that house three times.
Someone else got it every time.
And now I am sitting here looking at a house that is available.
It solves some very real problems for us. The commute would change dramatically. There is a three-car garage. It would make hosting easier. It would change our daily life in ways that could be really good.
It also violates some of my most important house criteria.
It is bigger than I wanted. It isn’t the outdoor-living house I pictured. It isn’t the cozy little house with the expansive yard and trees that I have been looking for.
And I’m tired.
I’m tired of the search. Tired of endless open house tours on Saturday. I’m tired of the dizzying commute. I’m tired of trying to figure out whether the next house is going to be the one.
Mostly, I’m tired of trying to figure out what God is doing in all of this.
Because there is a Christian phrase that has been running through my head this entire time:
Don’t get an Ishmael because you got tired of waiting for Isaac.
If you’re familiar with the story, you know what that means.
God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son. They waited. And waited. And eventually they took matters into their own hands, with Abraham having a child with Hagar.
I have heard the story used countless times as a warning:
Don’t get ahead of God.
Don’t manufacture what God has promised.
Don’t settle for an Ishmael because you’re tired of waiting for Isaac.
It’s good advice.
But I’ve started wondering if there is another side to it.
What if I have mistaken my preference for God’s promise?
That’s the question that has been bothering me.
I genuinely want a smaller house.
I have good reasons for wanting one.
I think it would fit our life well.
But somewhere along the way, did I move from:
“This is what I want.”
to:
“I think this is what God is leading us toward.”
to:
“God is leading us toward this.”
to:
“Why hasn’t God opened the right door yet.”
Those sound like small distinctions.
They aren’t.
Because once a desire becomes a perceived promise, everything that doesn’t look like the promise starts to look like a closed door.
And eventually, our desired outcome acquires spiritual authority.
That’s where I think I may have gotten myself into trouble.
What happens when you’ve waited for something you genuinely wanted, and you finally have to consider that maybe what you were waiting for wasn’t actually something God has for you at this point in time?
I’m not going to pretend I know.
I’m going to tell you what I’m learning while I wrestle with it.
Because this isn’t just about a house.
It’s about wanting something badly, waiting for it, being disappointed, watching other people get what you wanted, comparing your story to theirs, being afraid of making the wrong decision, wondering when discernment becomes control, and eventually having to decide whether you can accept reality without giving up on the life you want.
And underneath all of that is an uncomfortable possibility:
What if I Mistook My Preference for a Promise?
When Everyone Else’s Story Seems to Make Sense
It doesn’t help that I know people who have lovely stories.
You know these people.
They found their dream house.
They prayed.
They waited.
They made offers.
Doors closed.
Other houses fell through.
Something that looked impossible somehow worked out.
And eventually they got the house they had hoped for.
They tell me these stories because they love me.
And I believe them.
God was faithful to them.
And I am still holding out hope that in another season, the door of my dream house will open to me.
But there is a subtle danger in hearing enough of these stories.
Someone else’s testimony can start to sound like a promise.
God did it that way for them, so He’ll do it for me.
They waited and got exactly what they wanted, so I shouldn’t stop waiting.
Their closed doors were protecting them from the wrong house, so my closed doors must mean my right house is still coming.
Maybe.
But maybe not.
God’s faithfulness to someone else doesn’t tell me exactly how He will work in my life.
Their story is their story.
It isn’t always a prophecy about mine.
And I think I need to be careful not to turn someone else’s experience of God into a formula for how God is required to work with me.
Because the life I am actually living is not their life.
When Waiting Becomes Its Own Form of Control
I have also been asking myself a very simple question:
Are you at peace about this house?
No.
Heck no.
My whole body is saying, Wait.
This house is too big.
Too expensive.
This isn’t the simple life you wanted.
You’re going to destroy the life you worked so hard to create.
That sounds pretty convincing.
Except I have learned something about myself over the years.
Anxiety does not always mean no.
There have been other decisions I was deeply anxious about that, looking back, I don’t believe were wrong.
I’ve heard plenty of Christian teaching about paying attention to peace when you’re trying to discern God’s will. And I understand the wisdom in that.
If I am praying about a decision and everything in me feels settled, that matters. If everything in me is screaming, Don’t do this, I shouldn’t casually dismiss it.
But then I think about Paul.
In Acts 21, Paul is determined to go to Jerusalem. The believers around him warn him about what is coming. Agabus gives him a specific warning about the suffering he will face there. People plead with him not to go.
And Paul goes anyway.
He isn’t unaware of the danger.
He isn’t pretending the road ahead will be easy.
He simply doesn’t interpret the warning as a command to turn around.
That story makes me much more cautious about treating anxiety as an automatic no.
So I can’t simply make a rule that says:
Peace means yes. Anxiety means no.
Sometimes fear is a warning.
Sometimes fear is resistance.
Sometimes fear is what happens when we’re about to do something unfamiliar.
And sometimes fear may accompany obedience.
Feelings are information, but they aren’t necessarily the final authority.
So now I have to ask a harder question:
What exactly is my fear telling me?
Is this house actually too much?
Or am I afraid because it isn’t the house I imagined?
Those are two very different things.
I need to listen to my body without making my body God.
And I need to pay attention to peace without turning peace into a formula.
I keep thinking about something else I’ve learned from a pastor I listen to on YouTube.
The dogs of doom live at the gates of destiny.
If you have guard dogs, where do you station them?
Where something valuable is.
And I have experienced enough fear around important decisions to know that fear showing up doesn’t automatically mean I’m heading in the wrong direction.
Sometimes the dogs bark because something matters.
That doesn’t mean I should blindly walk through the gate.
It means I probably shouldn’t run away from the gate simply because the dogs are barking.
I need to look.
Pay attention.
Ask questions.
Get wise counsel.
Pray.
Tell the truth about what I want and what I don’t want.
And then make the decision in front of me.
This is the part I’m still wrestling with.
We talk a lot about waiting on God.
And we should.
But what if waiting can become its own form of control?
What if I am no longer waiting because I genuinely believe there is something else ahead?
What if I’m waiting because I have decided what God is supposed to give me?
Not the same thing.
There is a difference between saying:
“God, I don’t know what is next, so I’m willing to wait.”
and:
“God, I know what You are supposed to give me, so I refuse to accept anything else.”
The second one sounds a little less like surrender when I say it out loud.
Maybe I have been beating my head against a closed door simply because I decided that door was supposed to open.
And maybe the open door in front of me deserves more consideration than I’ve been willing to give it.
Not because an open door automatically means God opened it.
But because it is actually there.
Giving Up or Letting Go?
This may be the hardest distinction for me.
When is acceptance really resignation?
Fine. I didn’t get what I wanted. I guess this is good enough.
I don’t want that.
To me, acceptance sounds more like:
“I have genuinely pursued what I wanted. I have learned what it costs. I have encountered what is actually available. And I am now willing to make a decision in reality rather than continuing to live inside a hypothetical future.”
That feels different.
I’m not saying the smaller house wasn’t worth pursuing.
It was.
I’m not saying I shouldn’t have waited.
Maybe waiting was exactly what I needed to do.
I’m saying that after over a year of looking, three lost houses and a very real opportunity sitting in front of me, I have to be willing to reconsider whether my original picture was a promise or simply a preference.
A good life isn’t necessarily the life you originally designed.
That is a hard sentence for me.
Because I don’t want to use “acceptance” as an excuse for passivity.
I don’t want to stop caring what kind of life we build.
I don’t want to become someone who says, “Well, I guess this is what we’re given,” when there may still be wise, courageous choices available.
So maybe the question is:
Can I let go of the life I pictured without becoming passive about the life I’m actually given?
That feels much closer to the real issue.
Maybe surrender isn’t only saying, “God, I’ll wait for what You have for me.”
It may also mean saying:
“God, I don’t know what You have for me. So I’m going to stop pretending that I do.”
There is another passage I’ve been thinking about.
In John 21, Jesus is talking to Peter after the resurrection. He tells Peter that when he was younger, he dressed himself and went where he wanted to go. But there would come a time when someone else would lead him where he did not want to go.
The passage is specifically pointing toward Peter’s death, so I don’t want to turn it into a cute house-buying metaphor.
But I can’t stop thinking about the larger picture.
Following God doesn’t necessarily mean getting to design the road.
And maybe maturity isn’t learning to want nothing.
Maybe it’s learning to hold what I want differently.
I can know what I want.
I can pursue it.
I can pray for it.
I can believe it would make a beautiful life.
And I can still follow God if the road doesn’t end where I expected.
Maybe there is a kind of growing up in faith that looks less like getting everything you once imagined and more like becoming increasingly willing to receive the life that actually unfolds.
That doesn’t mean I stop having preferences.
It doesn’t mean I stop making wise decisions.
It doesn’t mean I call every outcome “God’s will” simply because it happened.
It means I don’t have to turn my preferences into promises in order to trust Him.
He Is on Both Sides of This Decision
There is something else I keep coming back to.
In Christianity, isn’t God’s presence supposed to be the gold standard?
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God Himself is supposed to be the ultimate good.
So what am I actually doing when I say I want the dream life?
Because maybe the deepest dream isn’t a particular house.
Maybe it is God.
That sounds obvious when I write it down.
And yet I don’t want to use that truth as a tidy spiritual answer to a very real earthly question.
I still want the little house.
I still want the trees.
I still want the big yard.
I still want the life I pictured.
I don’t think wanting those things is evidence that my faith is weak.
But maybe I am learning that I can genuinely want a particular life without making that life the thing I ultimately trust God to give me.
The house is not God.
The family life isn’t God.
The simple life isn’t God.
Even the life I have carefully designed isn’t God.
God is God.
And if that is actually true, then perhaps I can hold the rest of my desires with a little more freedom.
I can want something deeply without requiring God to give it to me in order to believe He is good.
A very wise friend said something to me while I was in the pit of a different difficult decision:
Rest in this: He is on both sides of this decision.
That sentence has been sticking with me.
Because I think I have been acting as though there is one secret correct answer and my job is to figure it out.
As though God has selected one particular house somewhere in North Texas and I need to be spiritually perceptive enough to identify it before I sign anything.
That is a lot of pressure to put on a house.
And perhaps a lot of pressure to put on myself.
Scripture tells us to trust God rather than leaning entirely on our own understanding, and to ask Him for wisdom when we lack it.
That sounds less like being given a secret blueprint and more like learning to walk with God while making actual decisions in an actual life.
Maybe I don’t need to know whether this house is my Isaac.
Maybe I need to stop assuming that every house that isn’t my dream house is an Ishmael.
Maybe I need to ask a simpler question:
Can I receive what is in front of me without pretending it is something it isn’t?
And can I walk away from it without believing that I’ve somehow failed God?
And for the record, I am not suddenly floating above all of this in some state of spiritual enlightenment.
As I write this, I am still checking Zillow.
Regularly.
Like, what if the little house with the big yard close to work and school hits MLS at 11:59 p.m. of the option period?
I’m still looking.
I’m still hoping.
I still want what I wanted.
I don’t think surrender means pretending I don’t.
Maybe it means I can want it without making it a promise.
I can pursue it without believing I have to have it.
I can receive something different without calling it second best.
And maybe I can trust that if the little house appears at 11:59 p.m., God will still be God there, too.
I wanted one thing.
I have pursued it.
It hasn’t happened.
Something else is available.
Am I settling—or am I refusing to accept reality because I am emotionally attached to the outcome I imagined?
I don’t know yet.
I’m still wrestling with the house.
But I’m starting to wonder if the thing God is asking me to surrender isn’t the dream.
Maybe it’s my insistence that I know what the dream is supposed to look like.
