Where is God?

It’s a question we often ask I expect: where is God? Often it’s hard to know. And it’s often equally as hard to now what he’s doing. Or at least it is for me! If I’m honest, I find it hard to answer these questions. We like to think we know. We like to tell others what God is doing. We like to confidently assert how God is active, although more usually in someone else’s life rather than out own. We like to do it when we gather together for worship. And, sometimes, maybe we do know what God is doing and where he is doing it. I’m wondering if I’ve seen it in the last couple of weeks myself. We’ve just bought a house! We had one a long time ago but sold it when we were convinced that was what God was leading us to do. We gave the money away, to the church! Now we have to think about where we will live when ministry in the church comes to an end. Which it will, one day. So…we’ve bought a house. It’s only possible because mum died. And mum only had a house because dad died. Funny how God works. And here we are, buying a house, a house that we can’t actually afford to live in. We’ll have to wait and hope in order to live in our house. And I’m wondering if we’ve done the right thing: we’ve taken on a big debt and everything has to go to plan in order for it to work - tenants, interest rates, pensions…But here’s the thing: it may be true that God is at work. And here’s why I say that. We weren’t read to buy a house. We only went looking because my mother-in-law was with us over Christmas and she likes looking at houses. So we booked a few viewings and looked at some houses. We were the first to view one house. We really liked it but didn’t think we had a realistic chance of buying it. But, reckoning we had nothing to lose by putting in an offer, we put in an offer (even though we didn’t know if we could get a mortgage at this stage). We pointed out that we had no chain and could wait because we didn’t actually need to move in! To our great surprise, our offer was accepted. All we needed then was the mortgage! We got that in less than two weeks. So, all of a sudden we bought a house! It also turns out that the family selling the house are moving in with his parents and buying a house together, so there are in fact two houses to sell. But that house sold to first time buyers and the house they are all moving into is vacant possession - which means there is no chain in the whole process! It’s not supposed to be that easy is it? And for us, because of my age, time could have been critical in being offered a mortgage. And it’s left me wondering what God has been doing. Within two weeks of looking at the house, when we weren’t really looking seriously because we hadn’t really thought about the whole thing, or expecting much to happen, we’ve bought a house. I’ve come to the conclusion that God has been kind to us and has been at work in ways that we weren’t aware of. This house is going to cost us everything we’ve got. But perhaps God has been at work. And at this time, in this process, maybe we really have been able to see where God is and what he’s doing. I think so.