As things started to flow again we began to see that God did
things for a reason. 2 Peter 3:9 began to ring in my mind:
Now the
Lord is not slow about enacting His promise—slow is how some people want to
characterize it—no, He is not slow but patient and merciful to
you, not wanting anyone to be destroyed, but wanting everyone to turn away from
following his own path and to turn toward God’s.
Everyone says “in God’s time” and we all use that to deal
with personal disappointments. But when you are sitting in another “deal” that
seems to be of God and you start to reflect you see God’s timing is really impeccable.
I thought back to the failed deal and realized if that had happened things
would have been a potential disaster. You may ask how is getting out of debt
and owning your building a disaster?
The first was the business, although it had saved us through
some very rough times it was not our passion. Although we liked cycling we
loved motorcycling and really had done the business more to support Devon as he
developed as a rider/skater. Once he turned pro he made it clear he did not
want to be tied to a shop. That and the economy had us close the business in
2010. If we had been “blessed” like we wanted, we would have a closed business
and the cost of maintaining a building that would have still had a hefty
mortgage. We would have been sunk again.
Also, we had been sitting on a huge debt and like before
this had been “handled” by windfalls and obviously my lesion had not be learned
since we kept getting into debt. I knew budgeting but never really too it to
heart once I embraced the concept of using other people’s money to make money.
My logic was if the money I borrowed was making 45% while only costing me 10%
and I was “turning” the inventory two or three times a year, this was wise.
As I said before in December 2008 we had $175k in credit
card debt and $400k in real estate loans with 3 rentals. The rentals were a
pain since they were falling apart and we never had full occupancy. Well after
embracing the Total Money Makeover we started chipping away debt. We lived frugally for years and was able to
settle some of the debt along with pay down the rest. I had finally realized
that cash was king and using other people’s money could get you in deep trouble
when economies turned against you.
So that gets us to our deal that is “perfect”. Well as it is
getting close to the contact end date it is obvious that the developer is not
doing their part of the deal. We are starting to see the deal fall apart and
started to freak out. By this time we had started to liquidate properties and I
forgot to mention a month after the deal was “inked” I was laid off again.
This again was “God’s Timing” to show His plan worked. Our
real estate deals happened early into the “boom” and therefore although we were
taking a large “paper” loss, since we had been paying down the mortgage we had “equity”
and cash to survive. The first home closed a week after severance finished.
That paid off the last of the credit card debt and kept us afloat to closing of
the land deal. Which was slipping and looking less “real” each day. So while
God is patient we were not and started to freak out again.
Once again we were fighting God’s timing and getting very
restless. The carrot was being pulled from our faces once again and that was
causing unrest. You would think after 40+ years of watching God’s timing work I
would be at peace with things not going as “I” expected.