I recently had the ‘joy’ of speaking to a number of mortgage lenders and advisers. All of them gave me the same prognosis: You don’t have enough for us to lend you more. Matt and I don’t have a huge monthly income but we also don’t have huge monthly outgoings. We have been told over and over again that we need to be earning twice as much as we currently do to be able to borrow the amount we would need to buy a 3 bed house. Lender after lender told us we didn’t have enough to repay the mortgage even thought our current rent is more than the mortgage payments would be.
There are all sorts of flaws in the affordability calculations that lenders run and we do not fit the mould when it comes to our finances. All of this has combined to make the last few weeks very frustrating. I have found myself feeling like there is little or no hope for us ever owning our own home meaning we will always be lining the pocket of a landlord. I have also found myself questioning if we do have enough money, which is silly.
Two weeks ago I wasn’t questioning our finances; I was living them, knowing that we budget carefully, live within our means and trust God to cover any unexpected expenses. I thank God regularly that we have an amazing group of individuals, organisations and churches who cover us in prayer and financially underpin us also. But being told we don’t have enough was making me wonder if we did in fact have enough? Maybe we need more? Maybe we should both get ‘proper’ jobs so our household income is boosted? Are we satisfied with what we have? Is what we have good enough?
Thankfully there was one conversation with a wonderful lady at Kingdom Bank which snapped me out of it all. If you haven’t heard of them, Kingdom Bank is a Christian savings and investment bank with a passion to see churches, charities and Christian workers thrive. It was so refreshing to have a conversation with an advisor who understood our financial situation, who sadly was saying that they still couldn’t lend us the amount we needed but who could suggest ways of reaching a point of being able to do that. The end result of the conversation was that we need an extra £64,000 to be able to buy a house that we liked the look of. I laughed a bit and said “Really only £64,000?” She heard the humour in my voice mixed with a bit of sadness. I was thinking ‘How are we ever going to raise that much??’. I suddenly remembered a fridge magnet that we have, it is a picture of a cow and simply says ‘The cattle on 1,000 hills are his’. As though she knew what I was thinking, or maybe God put the same thought in her mind, Jackie said ‘I know £64,000 might feel like a lot but the cattle on a thousand hills are the Lord’s so £64,000 is nothing. Pray about it and tell your supporters the need. You never know what will happen until you make people aware of the need. You would may be amazed by how generous people can be!’
That conversation with Jackie stopped me in my tracks…why was I questioning if I had enough? The God I am in relationship with owns the cattle on a thousand hills (that’s approx 1.5 billion according to the World Animal Foundation). He is providing for my every need and more. Jackie reminded me that we need to play our part, that we need to express our need and trust God to provide. Now, he might not do that how we expect, but he will provide. I am challenged to continue to live into God’s generosity. Instead of seeing how I can scrimp and save, I am pondering how I can be generous with what God has given me whilst being a good steward of it all.
The house we liked has gone. Someone made an offer and we weren’t in a position to match it. We refuse to allow that to shape how we live though. We do not live in scarcity but in abundance! How are we going to share our abundant blessings with those around us!?
This post was originally written in August 2023. We are still renting and are continuing to pray hard about our housing situation. Although nothing is changing right now our landlord could choose to raise the rent at any time, like he did shortly after writing this reflection. It is not a comfortable position to be in but we know God calls us out of our comfort zones so here we are. If you want to know more about our housing situation, our hopes for the future and what needs to happen for us to get there do get in touch, we would love to share more details with you.
