When we were looking for a house Marianne and I had lofty and grand expectations. You know, that “dream house” each of us can describe right down to the door knobs.

Reality, however, kept those dreams in check.

I can clearly remember saying that we needed to look at houses and see the potential in them.

Thus, the four room house we have come to call home became our reality.

Yes, there was a kitchen and a living room downstairs and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs.

The entire house was about 900 square feet.

Doesn’t sound like much potential does it?

It took a long time but in recent years we added an addition to the home. It is the largest open space in the house doubling the downstairs and includes a high cathedral-like ceiling.

The ever existing potential and dream would be to add a smaller two story addition to the front of the house, expanding the master bedroom (which now is only about 10×15) and adding a small sitting area to the dining room.

As the old joke goes, “Our bedroom is so small I need to go outside to change my mind.”

The one thing we have always had was hope and the ability to see potential.

I believe that is what Marianne saw in me. She’s still waiting.

But isn’t that what life is all about?

The problem many people have is that they want what they want and they want it now.

Yes, as believers we are told: Matthew 7:7-8 (ESV) 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Now taking that literally makes God appear to be an ATM machine or that rich relative we all hoped would appear in our lives.

The truth is God wants us to dream big, aim high and reach beyond our grasp. But like a good and proper parent, you won’t get everything you ask for. A good parent will give you what’s good for you in measures that won’t harm you and in the proper time and place.

We, in turn, may be disappointed, but we continue to trust and believe in that parent. In the long run we realize, that what was given to us, as what was held back from us, was for our own good.

Although our “dream” home we longed for was perfect in every way, the home we have grown into and expanded was made perfect as we learned to live with and appreciate all we had.

I believe that God sees in you right now the potential to grow into the life you dream of no matter how young or old you are.

You are constantly under construction, God is the contractor and you the sub-contractor. He supplies the materials and you the labor.

“Ask and you shall receive” is a truth we need to better understand. The beauty of which evolves into a partnership, like marriage, a relationship like parent and child and the reality of seeing “Four rooms with potential.”

Bob Perks 2believe@comcast.net