Pam Padgett ... teacher
The community I live in was built around a golf course and my house
backs up to the golf course property. But a few years ago the owner
closed the golf course and said he wanted to sell it. A neighbor
told me that the community home owners association was holding
meetings to see what could be done to prevent the owner from selling
to a developer who might fill what had been open land with houses.
I started getting caught up in all of this, thinking it important to
keep the land open as it had been ... until I turned to God.
When I turned to God I heard that people try to keep things of
this world from changing as much as possible. But all that we see
with our eyes is temporary and will be destroyed at the end of the
world.
This showed me God's view of the situation.
This is all temporary and will be destroyed by God. It takes me the
wrong way to try to cling to these things and think they are
important.
Also it stood out to me that God knows what is best for me as I live
on this earth. I don't know what is best, but God knows. And God
provides all that I need now and in the future.
My well being is of God as I seek to follow HIM ... not in
things of this world such as whether or not houses are built on the
property behind my house.
Focusing on these things helped me keep my flesh under control. And
my thinking was changed from how those of the world see this
situation, to how God sees this.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And
be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
I did not get involved in the home owner association meetings to try
to keep the golf course owner from selling the land to a developer,
and am so thankful to God to have been kept from the strife and
futility in all of this.
Last fall an email was sent announcing that the property had been
sold to a developer and that some houses will be built. But this
wasn't upsetting to me. There really had been a change in me
because of what God has shown me and has been working in me.
There have been thoughts, such as how noisy it may be during
construction. But when I take these thoughts to God, I have always
been helped. Multiple times I've been reminded that God will never
leave me nor forsake me ... Let your conversation be without
covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he
hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Heb.
13:5)