Now I Need a Hungarian Wife

Today I started to write something negative about the way the entitlement mindset has driven fast food companies to replace people with machines, but I think instead I’ll write about the presence of God.

This week I hired an appraiser to check out a property my dad and I looked it. It’s one of the farms we visited in Marion County. I wrote about it and posted a photo before. I will repost it here.

A short time ago I was very excited about the possibility that I might end up in Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale’s county) on two acres. Now I’m comparing properties that have ten to twenty acres, much farther north. It’s a wonderful change.

We visited seven or eight places. Several were very nice. Some were hopeless. When it was over, I had three real possibilities. I didn’t know how to choose. I wanted God to help me, because I knew that if I let my flesh make the decision, I would end up in the wrong place.

Finding God’s guidance is a real challenge for me. In America, a man is expected to lift himself up by his own bootstraps, make a plan, and force it to come to pass. To refuse to do that is to court shame and criticism. People will accuse you of cowardice and laziness. For the last few years, I’ve had to sit back and do what seems like nothing, while I’ve waited for guidance. Sometimes I’ve wondered if I was in denial. I wondered if I was destroying my life through passivity.

After we looked at properties, I refused to choose one. I waited for guidance and confirmation. Sometimes I couldn’t help worrying that the best one might get away while I fooled around. I prayed to be led, and I waited.

The other day, I took the photo above and made it my PC desktop. I wanted to think about the pleasant future, not the stress of being in Miami. When I saw the picture blown up to 55″, I was shocked. Peace swept over me.

Every time I look at the desktop, I feel a sudden burst of peace. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s as if a peace bomb had gone off on the screen, and the shock wave had crossed the room and hit me.

At first, I dismissed it, thinking any picture of a rural property would do that to me. I was wrong, though. There is something about that picture. I found myself sitting and staring at it. I couldn’t tear myself away. It was as if the strength left my body.

My friend Mike came down to visit. He slept in the room where I keep the computer. He started telling me how he couldn’t stop looking at the picture. We both sat here like idiots, staring at it.

My friend Travis came over for a prayer session. He felt the same thing.

When I pray by myself, I use the computer to play Christian music, and of course, I leave the desktop on. It’s mesmerizing. The presence of God is so strong here now. I feel his presence so quickly when I’m looking at the picture. It’s bizarre.

Yesterday I was thinking about my choices, and I realized something. There are other properties that seem like they would be more suitable after a lot of work, but this one is pretty much turnkey. I’ve had to struggle here to get the house that used to belong to my sister ready to be rented, and I’m working to get my dad’s poorly maintained house ready. I don’t need another project! Simply moving will be hard enough. Maybe that’s why this property is right for me.

I hired an appraiser to look at the place in the photo, and once I get his report, we’ll make an offer or move on to something else.

I felt tremendous peace when I was on the property. There was no noise at all. No traffic sounds. Just birds, bugs, and the breeze. It was wonderful. I felt good on the other properties, too, but not as good. Maybe God is telling me something.

The presence of God is now much stronger for me than it was before, and I am able to receive it more quickly and more often. I believe we are supposed to live in God’s presence as much as we can. We are always in the presence of spirits, and they’re either good or bad. It makes no sense to put up with the bad ones all the time and make no effort to be with God.

I believe that when God is with me, he does things for me. He breaks down walls and shows me paths. He destroys my problems and gives me peace. I don’t think he would simply sit here with me and make me feel good while my problems increase. In the Bible he says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'” To me, that says that merely being with God brings us protection and victory.

That makes sense, because the Bible never tells us to earn anything. It tells us to humble ourselves and let God do the work.

Miami always feels like it’s under a dirty, moldy blanket of spiritual oppression. The air here smells like sweat and fungus. On the farm, everything felt clean and fresh. I wonder if that would be true after I had been there a year, as well as on the first visit.

I don’t know where I’ll end up, but even if I don’t get that farm, I’m keeping that picture!

I’m going to post this and look at my desktop for a bit. I really need it.