Pietisten

Is God Interested in Real Estate?

by Arthur W. Anderson

Is God interested in real estate? From the perspective of the theology I hold, I believe He is. God is the creator, the center of whole universe. When He drew back to look at what was done, He said it was pretty good. I’m grubby enough to appreciate what that means. In a class I had with him, the late Dr. Joseph Sittler, burst out with the amazing statement: "Every chink of human existence is Christocentric." I believe that!

But when I look at the question from a practical point of view, I have some misgivings.

Let me explain. Just recently we moved from Youngstown to Aurora, Ohio, from being a property owner to a renter. We put our home up for sale in July, scheduled as we were to move right before Thanksgiving. I fully expected that the house would be sold by the time we moved. More than sixty parties toured the house, most of whom were very impressed. But no offers. Septem-ber 11th changed the whole world for all of us. We knew that buying a house was not uppermost in prospective buyers’ minds.

Meanwhile, I really did pray that someone who would love this house as much as we had for over thirteen years would seriously consider it. But many questions of God’s role in this matter began to unsettle me. How could I pray for our home to be sold when millions around the world had no real home? God has much greater concerns than ours. He wanted us to be involved in them. I felt spoiled. I’m still a depression kid and live with a conscience of scarcity. Why should God have the slightest concern about my real estate? That was confirmed for me more and more as nothing happened with the passing of time.

Well, I started to lighten up a bit. I took my sweaty palms off the matter entirely. Whatever happens will happen. And just the thought of that made me more sporting. Faith helped me let go. Life became more fun.

Letting go meant spending the Christmas holidays with our youngest daughter and her husband in Kansas City—Lee Summit, Missouri, to be exact. On New Year’s Eve day, a phone call woke us up. The caller informed us that we had an offer on the house. Jubilant, we were ready to bounce out of bed when a second call came saying we had a second offer on the house. I may still not know how God relates to real estate, but if He had anything at all to do with it, and I have to believe He did, He has quite a sense of humor!