God Led Us to Buy a House in a High-Risk Fire Zone and on a Major Earthquake Faultline

(Please read through to the end. The bottom line on this story is probably different from we you are expecting.)

Unexpected Wrightwood snowstorm in November

During the height of this summer’s California wildfire season, God clearly led us to buy a vacation home in the high fire danger zone of Wrightwood, California. As a bonus, our new house is also on the San Andreas fault. We learned about this property on a Monday, put an offer in the next Friday, and had it accepted three days later.

Are we crazy?

No, not really. Despite the breakneck speed and the risky circumstances, we immediately recognized this as a remarkable answer to several years of prayer. Both of our children’s families live in the Los Angeles area, and, since we live outside Atlanta, we have been seeking ways to be more involved in their lives.

Over the years, we thoroughly explored housing options in Greater LA, but the combination of extremely high prices and choking congestion left us seriously discouraged. Additionally, none of the areas we considered would have any draw for our kids, and we feared setting them up for guilt trips, making them feel obligated to “visit the old folks.” Furthermore, we hated the idea of leaving Marietta, GA, our charming city with a great small-town feel.

The Wrightwood house checks all the boxes:

• It’s in an attractive mountain town close to both families and is literally four doors away from one of our son’s best ultramarathon running buddies.

• Real estate costs in Wrightwood are about half of what they are in LA.

• Our vacation house creates a “home base” for family gatherings and also serves as a weekend getaway place for our children.

• This solution allows us to visit three or four times a year and yet remain fully engaged with our church and friends in Marietta.

I would say this whole experience is one of maybe half a dozen times in my life where God’s will was indisputably clear. 

You may think I’m relating all this to point to God’s great goodness to us. Certainly, this is an aspect of the story I’m delighted to tell. However, there is a far more important lesson here:  once God makes his will known, you must be all in with no looking back, regardless of the direction things ultimately take.

Our decision to buy the house set in motion hundreds of decisions, some of which took us well beyond our comfort zone. But if God was truly leading us, what else could we do but move forward and trust God?

As an example, there was a last-minute communications hiccup that left us without fire insurance for the first 18 hours we owned the house. Remember, we are in a high fire zone, and this was while the California wildfires were making national news every single day. Since we were 100% convinced that God was leading us to buy this house, that means everything – both positive and negative – that happened as fallout from this decision is, by definition, part of God’s will. Even if the house had burned down before the insurance kicked in, we would have to embrace that terrible outcome as part of God’s plan. In fact, ironically, it would probably have reinforced our trust in God’s sovereignty if it had been destroyed. What are the chances that a house that stood unscathed for 53 years would randomly burn down within a random18-hour period in 2020? We would have to believe that God had ordained that incredible timing.

Please don’t miss the significance of this perspective. If we are committed to doing God’s will and carefully and prayerfully seek to discern what it is, we must embrace all that results – even the parts we don’t like – as part of God’s plan.

In his awesome book Trusting God, Jerry Bridges drives home three powerful points about God:

He controls absolutely everything.

He love me completely.

He knows what he’s doing.

If you truly believe this, I defy you to come to any other conclusion than that we must embrace every downstream consequence of the decisions God leads us to as being part of his will.

What Does God Expect of You in These Tumultuous Times?

The last four months have delivered a global pandemic the likes of which we haven’t faced in over 100 years, a level of social turmoil unseen since the 1960s, and economic pressures that we rarely experience. Although it would be easy to get overwhelmed and depressed, we should remind ourselves that, as difficult as these circumstances are, God is still in control. Completely.

Some people take very seriously the world’s ills and feel obligated to address them. This is admirable. But don’t overdo it. In reality, the weight of the world is not on your shoulders. You’re not responsible for – nor are you capable of – solving every global calamity.

We each have 168 hours per week, and the majority of those hours are spent maintaining family relationships, working, and sleeping. Practically speaking, you must ask yourself, “What would God have me do?”

Perhaps Micah 6:8 answers this question better than any other Bible verse:

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

                                              Micah 6:8 (ESV)

Doing justice addresses our public “face” and involves actively interceding on others’ behalf. Unfortunately, our world is rife with countless examples of injustice. Complying with this directive might require you to speak up when you see someone being mistreated, challenge a discriminatory policy, join a group actively promoting greater equality, or participate with any number of other worthwhile initiatives. And recognize that doing so may cost you personally and require sacrifice.

Loving kindness (or “mercy” in some translations) focuses on my demeanor, personal behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Are you gracious and compassionate? Are you dependable? Do people know they can count on you in a crisis?

Both of the preceding behaviors find their roots in living humbly, trusting God. He is God, and you’re not. He is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-wise. Even when you face terrible circumstances, God is still in control and, as promised in Romans 8:28, is working all things together for good for those who love him. Can you joyfully embrace that? I mean, can you really embrace that? I mean really, really embrace that? Doing so is evidence that you recognize your place and are walking humbly with God, even when you don’t like your situation. Never doubt God’s love. As Tony Evans reminds us, “If someone loves you enough to die for you, he is for you.”

If you are doing your best to comply with these three requirements, and if you are sincerely seeking God’s direction for which one, two or three of the literally millions of the world’s problems he is calling you to address, you can move forward, confident God is using you make a difference within your sphere of influence. You can’t do everything, but you can and must do something. Your job is to determine God’s will for you without deciding what he wants others to do. That’s between them and God.

If every member of the Body of Christ were to live according to Micah 6:8, collectively, we would be the hands and feet of Jesus and make a difference in this totally messed up world.

I encourage you to pray through Micah 6:8 to evaluate how well you are living up to God’s expectations. But please don’t do it out of a sense of guilt or compulsion. Instead, ask God how – in your own world – he wants you to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. And then enjoy watching him use you as an instrument of his grace.

One of the Most Inspiring People I Know

Chris is a likeable, unassuming, down-to-earth building contractor.  I met him about six years ago in men’s group where he spent the whole meeting sitting silently in a corner with his hoodie pulled tightly around his face, hiding everything but his nose and mouth. Having raised a teen-aged son, I knew that any time a male sits with a hoodie obscuring most of his face, something is going on.

I invited Chris to breakfast, and the next week over IHOP pancakes, he told me his wife of 20 years just kicked him out and invited another man to move in. To make matters worse, she was putting all kinds of roadblocks to prevent him from seeing their kids. In order to provide for his ex-wife and his children, Chris generously signed over virtually all their assets and for a time ended up sleeping in his truck.

But this was just the beginning of his story. As we continued to meet over the next few months, I discovered other incredibly unfortunate aspects of his life:

·       His mother was an explosive bi-polar, and his father was a narcissist who constantly berated him.

·       His only sibling is a brother who is estranged from the family and has a college-aged daughter Chris has never even met.

·       His ex-wife did all she could to turn his children against Chris. He spent many thousands of dollars and almost two years battling to get custody of his middle-school-aged son.

If all these problems weren’t enough, on January 30, 2018 Chris was driving on a two-lane road when the driver in front of him decided to perform an illegal U-turn. Chris T-boned him and came within inches of being crushed to death. He suffered severe head injuries and, to this day, has to wear sunglasses both day and night to combat the constant severe glare.  Additionally, he frequently has trouble formulating his words because of the brain injury.

These conditions have affected his ability to secure construction jobs. As he puts it, Who wants to hire a contractor who can’t get his words out and always wears sunglasses like he’s a drug addict? Furthermore, he has other physical ailments like a torn rotator cuff and serious hip issues that make it hard for him to heft plywood sheets and roofing material for his construction work.

The other driver’s insurance company refused to settle the claim for nearly two years, and once they finally did, Chris didn’t even get enough to cover his huge medical costs. He has been forced to consider selling his work truck to pay off some of those bills.

The latest chapter is that Chris has been renovating his frail elderly parents’ house at his own expense so they can continue to live there. His reward? His dad turned him into the state, and Chris is currently under investigation for alleged elder abuse and stealing from his parents.

I don’t think I have ever known anyone who has had thing after thing after thing go so wrong like Chris has. If there is a “Society of Job” in heaven, Chris will be a shoo-in once he arrives.

The reason I describe him as one of the most inspiring and impressive guys I know is that in the six years we have been meeting, I have never heard him once express bitterness toward any of the many people who have so consistently mistreated him. Disappointment, frustration and mild anger, yes. But never bitterness. I have not met many people whose hearts are as pure and generous as Chris’. Furthermore, he has never questioned God’s goodness, and the personal sacrifices he has made to get custody of his son speak volumes to the young man about how much his dad loves him.

During our last call, Chris used the word blessed several times and once even referred to himself as very thankful and super-blessed. After all, he said, I should be dead, so everything else is great! He then added, His grace is sufficient. Chris is truly amazing! I promise you, I would not demonstrate half of Chris’ faith. And I don’t know too many others who would either. He is a genuinely remarkable man of God.

As a takeaway, I urge you to evaluate your current and past circumstances against Chris’ and also the degree to which you consider yourself as super-blessed as Chris does. He is a super role model!