Jeff listened to the sermon by Jamie Rassmusen gave this past Sunday about decision making. In this sermon Jamie talks about integrity and defines integrity as making the right decision regardless of the consequences.
Through the death of Jeff's dad, God has blessed us with some extra money. As many of you know, we've been persuing a short sale on our house, hoping to avoid foreclosure (a loan mod is not an option for us). This extra money has actually put us is a very difficult decision-making position. Do we use the money to come current on our house, knowing that in the near future, we may end up back in the position of losing it, or do we save the money and pay off other debts, like our cars, thus creating a more stable financial future.
We've spent weeks in prayer seeking God's answer to this. We've sought the council of some amazing people God has put in our lives during this time - Tim Kimmel, John Gilligan and Ray and Nancy Davis. Here is the decision we have come to: If being a person of integrity means that you do the right thing regardless of the consequences, then how can we choose not to come current on our house? We made an agreement to pay, to the best of our abilities, our mortgage. If we have the money to pay it and choose not to because of future financial benefits, how is that being a person of integrity. Most of all, how is that trusting God to provide for us and our future?
While this may seem an obvious answer to some reading, and if it is, I envy you. We have received very conflicting council on what to do especially since the decision we are making could leave us in a situation with no savings and no house. But even if we do loose our house, we do so knowing we did EVERYTHING in our power to prevent it and can know for sure that it is God's design for our lives, not us willfully making another bad decision. But most of all, we know that we made a decision that has integrity and that is what is most pleasing to God.
PS: We found out from our lender that they will still approve a short sale on our house even if we are current on our loan. A blessing, absolutely - especially since it's unheard of in todays lending market.
Hey Abbi,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to encourage you guys. Luke and I are still trying to do a short sale on our house and avoid foreclosure but we were in a very similar situation back in March. We received our tax return and had to make the decision weather or not to use it for getting current on our mortgage or saving up for the expenses of having a baby and maybe paying off other debt. We knew that in the long run we would probably lose the house, but made the difficult decision to pay what we had to get our mortgage current. IT was really hard to do but we did it because we knew that it was money that God had provided for us that we would not otherwise have had. Now we haven't been able to pay on it since then and we will probably still lose the house, but we do that knowing full well we tried everything to avoid that happening. We have nothing saved now, and are looking at a rough time financially, but we are ok with that. We know that God has provided abundantly for our needs and that He will continue to take care of us. We have learned to live off of far less than we ever have. We have had to become totally dependent on God in a way that we never were before. I pray that you do not come to the point of losing your home, but know that regardless of what happens you will be blessed because of your decisions. We love you guys.