, Recently my husband and I took a trip to Tucson, Arizona. A place we both love. A place where we had planned to retire. We both knew this was exactly what we wanted, warm winters, dry air and the panoramic views of the desert with the Saguaros standing stately in all their glory.
Several weeks before we left on our trip, we seriously started seeking God’s will in this. We have learned that no matter how badly we want something, or how badly we THINK we want something, it won’t turn out right if God is not smack dab in the middle of it!
Our prayers seeking God’s will continued, something like this . . .”Father God, we come before you seeking your wisdom in this big step we are about to take. We specifically invite you into this area of our lives. We will not make a decision without your approval. We ask that you open our eyes and open our hearts to your will in this. We pray that you will overcome our emotions in this decision, because we know that our emotions can be deceiving. We thank you for revealing your truth to us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen”
We had talked about how humid it is here in the Houston area, how it rains so much. How cold and wet it gets in the winter. How our bones hurt from the dampness and how hot and humid it gets in the summer and how wonderful it will be someday to retire to an area with very little rain and no humidity. We talked about the fact that we don’t see our kids or grandkids very much even though we live in the same community. They live busy lives, and we seem to get leftover pieces of their time, but not real quality time. So we might as well move somewhere more comfortable and make friends with people who will have time to spend with us. People in our peer group.
We arrived in Tucson. It was warm in the high 70’s. It was dry. By the next day we were dry. Our skin was so dry, it was flaky, and our hair was so dry it was overcome by static electricity so badly, it stood on end. So much for getting out of all that humidity!
As we met with a realtor and started looking at some of these beautiful desert lots, we soon discovered our shoes were filled with sand and we had thorns and stickers all over our shoes, all over our jeans and all over us. We spent a lot of our time there pulling stickers and sand burrs out of body and clothes.
This was not fun . . This is not how I remembered it.
We spent our days busily tracking down potential properties. We were like a hound in the hunt. By evening we were pretty tired and just wanted to clean up and get something to eat. Momentarily forgetting that we were about 1100 miles from home, we automatically thought about calling some of the kids to see if they wanted to eat with us . . . it dawned on us . . . we would be dining alone, just the two of us. This felt eerily strange. This feeling that we had, was not something that could be described in a real estate brochure. It was an empty feeling, a feeling of separation from everything that was familiar. We know that we can make friends easily and jump headlong into community activities, we had both spent years of our lives in the military lifestyle and was used to making geographical moves and making new friends. . But this was different . . . this was something else.
We believe it was the Holy Spirit allowing us to see some of the reality that we had prayed for. At home we have a hospitality ministry. We bring every one to our house, we feed lots of friends and family members, we have a large circle of influence and as the Bible would say . . . we are known in the gates. We own a business in our community and have hundreds of friends. We are able to bless others through our business as well as receiving blessings from all these great friends that we have developed over the past 12 years.
There is a light at the end of this hot, dry tunnel! We slowly start to realize that we have everything we are looking for right at home. We already own it. We don’t get to see our grown kids as often as we would like, but “some time” is better than “no time”. If we moved we might see them twice a year. . Now twice a month is starting to not sound so bad. Maybe I could see them more if I made more of an effort to get us together instead of waiting for them to call me and feeling sorry for myself when they don’t, because they are so busy working at their jobs and taking care of their kids, household chores and serving at church.
You Think? What a revelation. God can stop our stinking thinking if we let Him!
I truly believe we would not have received any of these revelations if we had not prayed and invited God specifically into this area of our life. God is a gentleman, He does not bulldozer His way into our lives. Remember, He says . . . behold, I stand at the door and knock . . . He doesn’t kick the door down. We need to purposely, and specifically ask God into each aspect of our life. Verbally say the areas that you want God to be involved in. . . .Our marriages’, our finances, our children, our church life, our purchases (yes, especially our purchases) God will bring you to the reality of whether you really need what you think you need. Sometimes the answer is yes; sometimes the answer is no, but sometimes the answer is not now. Learn to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit after you pray for God’s guidance in a particular area.
One thing for sure. Never trust your emotions! Trusting emotions is like being on a rollercoaster ride. One day you’re up the next day you’re down. Emotions are very deceiving and Satan has learned how to manipulate our emotions to his advantage and to our destruction! That is why you read and study the bible, so that you will know God’s truth, so that when a counterfeit comes along, you will be able to identify it immediately. This is why we have to realize that “Love” is not an emotion, Love is a decision. With God it is a covenant, a forever decision.
When you see love in this way then you will be able to love your spouse or your children or your friend and maintain that decision to love, despite the emotions you feel at any particular moment. Because emotions are deceptive.
We realize that taking the time to pray over our retirement plans brought us to some awesome truths that has saved us potentially more than $300,000, saved our relationship with our kids, grandkids and friends and has stopped some of our emotional stinking thinking. God will always be faithful in honoring your prayers.



Jesus is the

Reason for

the Season By Freelance Writer: Linda Hollibaugh, ABOC, RDO
Recently my husband and I took a trip to Tucson, Arizona. A place we both love. A place where we had planned to retire. We both knew this was exactly what we wanted, warm winters, dry air and the panoramic views of the desert with the Saguaros standing stately in all their glory.
Several weeks before we left on our trip, we seriously started seeking God’s will in this. We have learned that no matter how badly we want something, or how badly we THINK we want something, it won’t turn out right if God is not smack dab in the middle of it!
Our prayers seeking God’s will continued, something like this . . .”Father God, we come before you seeking your wisdom in this big step we are about to take. We specifically invite you into this area of our lives. We will not make a decision without your approval. We ask that you open our eyes and open our hearts to your will in this. We pray that you will overcome our emotions in this decision, because we know that our emotions can be deceiving. We thank you for revealing your truth to us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen”
We had talked about how humid it is here in the Houston area, how it rains so much. How cold and wet it gets in the winter. How our bones hurt from the dampness and how hot and humid it gets in the summer and how wonderful it will be someday to retire to an area with very little rain and no humidity. We talked about the fact that we don’t see our kids or grandkids very much even though we live in the same community. They live busy lives, and we seem to get leftover pieces of their time, but not real quality time. So we might as well move somewhere more comfortable and make friends with people who will have time to spend with us. People in our peer group.
We arrived in Tucson. It was warm in the high 70’s. It was dry. By the next day we were dry. Our skin was so dry, it was flaky, and our hair was so dry it was overcome by static electricity so badly, it stood on end. So much for getting out of all that humidity!
As we met with a realtor and started looking at some of these beautiful desert lots, we soon discovered our shoes were filled with sand and we had thorns and stickers all over our shoes, all over our jeans and all over us. We spent a lot of our time there pulling stickers and sand burrs out of body and clothes.
This was not fun . . This is not how I remembered it.
We spent our days busily tracking down potential properties. We were like a hound in the hunt. By evening we were pretty tired and just wanted to clean up and get something to eat. Momentarily forgetting that we were about 1100 miles from home, we automatically thought about calling some of the kids to see if they wanted to eat with us . . . it dawned on us . . . we would be dining alone, just the two of us. This felt eerily strange. This feeling that we had, was not something that could be described in a real estate brochure. It was an empty feeling, a feeling of separation from everything that was familiar. We know that we can make friends easily and jump headlong into community activities, we had both spent years of our lives in the military lifestyle and was used to making geographical moves and making new friends. . But this was different . . . this was something else.
We believe it was the Holy Spirit allowing us to see some of the reality that we had prayed for. At home we have a hospitality ministry. We bring every one to our house, we feed lots of friends and family members, we have a large circle of influence and as the Bible would say . . . we are known in the gates. We own a business in our community and have hundreds of friends. We are able to bless others through our business as well as receiving blessings from all these great friends that we have developed over the past 12 years.
There is a light at the end of this hot, dry tunnel! We slowly start to realize that we have everything we are looking for right at home. We already own it. We don’t get to see our grown kids as often as we would like, but “some time” is better than “no time”. If we moved we might see them twice a year. . Now twice a month is starting to not sound so bad. Maybe I could see them more if I made more of an effort to get us together instead of waiting for them to call me and feeling sorry for myself when they don’t, because they are so busy working at their jobs and taking care of their kids, household chores and serving at church.
You Think? What a revelation. God can stop our stinking thinking if we let Him!
I truly believe we would not have received any of these revelations if we had not prayed and invited God specifically into this area of our life. God is a gentleman, He does not bulldozer His way into our lives. Remember, He says . . . behold, I stand at the door and knock . . . He doesn’t kick the door down. We need to purposely, and specifically ask God into each aspect of our life. Verbally say the areas that you want God to be involved in. . . .Our marriages’, our finances, our children, our church life, our purchases (yes, especially our purchases) God will bring you to the reality of whether you really need what you think you need. Sometimes the answer is yes; sometimes the answer is no, but sometimes the answer is not now. Learn to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit after you pray for God’s guidance in a particular area.
One thing for sure. Never trust your emotions! Trusting emotions is like being on a rollercoaster ride. One day you’re up the next day you’re down. Emotions are very deceiving and Satan has learned how to manipulate our emotions to his advantage and to our destruction! That is why you read and study the bible, so that you will know God’s truth, so that when a counterfeit comes along, you will be able to identify it immediately. This is why we have to realize that “Love” is not an emotion, Love is a decision. With God it is a covenant, a forever decision.
When you see love in this way then you will be able to love your spouse or your children or your friend and maintain that decision to love, despite the emotions you feel at any particular moment. Because emotions are deceptive.
We realize that taking the time to pray over our retirement plans brought us to some awesome truths that has saved us potentially more than $300,000, saved our relationship with our kids, grandkids and friends and has stopped some of our emotional stinking thinking. God will always be faithful in honoring your prayers.



Jesus is the

Reason for

the Season