Stewardship

Hello, friends!
Guess what?!  Meg and I found a place to live!  Yups, she will be moving in next week and I will be moving in after the wedding.  Isn't that exciting?  =0). 

We looked a ton of places.  Ok, maybe not a TON, but a dozen or so, which may as well have been a million.  There were houses, apartments, flats, townhomes, and even one building (I refuse to call it a house) that didn't even have a bedroom!  Needless to say, we aren't going to be living there. 

It came down to two places.  Both were in great locations for what we wanted.  One was a house and one was an apartment.  The apartment had everything that we wanted, laundry on site, good location, 2 bedrooms, living area, plenty of counter space in the kitchen, and things like that, but it was missing one thing... it didn't have the space of the house.  On the other hand, the house had the space we wanted but was going to cost us about $3000 more per year, not including utilities.

Our dilemma was this: do we pay more for the luxury of space?  Now, it isn't a TOTAL luxury.  Hospitality is a huge part of international student ministry, so having more space would be great for Meg as she has students over and things like that.  But, the question is whether or not that was enough of a pull to draw us there. 

After thinking, praying, and talking about it, we made our decision.  We are going to be living in the apartment.  Ultimately, for us it came down to stewardship.  Yes, the house would be more spacious, and probably more comfortable, and both were within our price range.  But, the idea of being good stewards of our resources played very heavily for both of us.  Just because we CAN spend the money doesn't mean we HAVE to.  Especially in this season where we are fundraising right now, it seemed like God was pulling us toward the more modest space so that we would have more resources to devote to other things that would further the kingdom. 

So, there you have it!  It was a pretty good feeling filling out the lease application and knowing that this was going to be "our" place.  Hooray for doing life together! 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam