Finding the Right Place: What We Learned from our House Hunting Journey

Stephanie Muiña:
So, and even in our search, we were like, God, how come you're giving houses to. To people in the world? Like, people our age are buying houses in the. In the neighborhoods we want. And we are faithful in our tithes and our offerings.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
We're abide by the principles of. Of our finances.

Christopher Muiña:
It's so true.

Stephanie Muiña:
Like, God's going to do it for us, too.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Like, don't look at. To the left or to the right. Just keep our eyes fixed on what God is doing in our life.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And he will make. Foreign.

Christopher Muiña:
This is Stephanie Munya, along with my husband, Christopher Munya. And welcome to the family business with the Alessies. We are so excited to dive into today. First of all, thanks for tuning in. We are so grateful to all of our listeners and subscribers. We are closing in on 1 million views on YouTube. That is huge. So thank you for sharing.

Christopher Muiña:
We gotta keep growing that number. We gotta keep pushing it because we have so much wisdom that we're sharing. So at least today, share with two people who you think would benefit from this podcast where we are gonna talk about what we're currently walking through, which is seeing God's hand in these adult seasons of life. We're both. I'm. I'm almost 30. I'm in my. I'm gonna be 30 in June.

Christopher Muiña:
So we're. We're like in our late 20s and 30s. We just bought our house. We're renovating the house. We have two kids.

Stephanie Muiña:
I feel like we've had, like, a little mini season going on of, like, the house hunt. Oh, my house. Well, we haven't told the viewers yet, but we found a house. We closed on the house a couple days ago.

Christopher Muiña:
Yes.

Stephanie Muiña:
And now what we're in now, so it's kind of like just a continuation of what we're talking about.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
So anybody who's been following our house search and is in that search might be. They might be wanting to tune in and share with others.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And then also what is involved in that, like now our season of life, of. Of what we're having to do and.

Christopher Muiña:
Just learning all of these new lessons as adults together, married. And I think anybody would be encountering these same problems, these same questions about life, these same little hiccups, whether you're married or not married or whether you're buying a house or not buying a house, or we're just going through the notions of life, and it comes with so much wisdom and knowledge. And I love it. I love learning about all of this with you, but I Would just love to expand on it. And you and I share. What are the lessons that we're learning? What are. What are. What are some reality checks that we have had about life that are different from our expectations? What are ways that we've gotten over it? I mean, we've seen a lot in the last couple months.

Christopher Muiña:
We've run into a lot of walls, we run into a lot of closed doors. But it has only been the Lord's projection protection and his redirection. And what has that done to us? How has that helped us? What have we learned?

Stephanie Muiña:
I think, number one, we've had to always go back to, hey, God is in control. He's guiding us in this, so we just. We trust him in this.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But I know a lot of people say that.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But we've actually had to, like, put our money where our mouth is, in a sense.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
When it comes to that Christianese terminology.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go back. What's. What was our story of finding this house, buying this house? What happened? You are the real estate guy, so you can explain it probably better.

Stephanie Muiña:
So we found this house. It was everything we wanted that we believed.

Christopher Muiña:
After nine months of searching.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah. You walked out of the house and you were like, I need to have this house. This is our house. So we put a super aggressive offer, one that involved some high risk for us. But we believed, hey, God's in was within the means of what we could afford. You know, it wasn't a foolish decision, but it was high risk and it was very aggressive. And then throughout that process, until closing, the next 30 days was. It was a little stressful because of the risk involved in our contract.

Stephanie Muiña:
And we just had at least me, because I kind of oversaw. I had to keep going back to God. I'm trusting in you. You've brought us this far. You're not going to fail us yet. And it was down to the wire. The day of closing. It was such a relief and a celebration of, wow, we did it.

Stephanie Muiña:
God did was like, we were a little bit. It was a little surreal. We didn't really realize what had finally happened.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And then the work began.

Christopher Muiña:
Right. And it has still continuing.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah.

Christopher Muiña:
And I remember that weekend because what happened? Oh, my gosh. We found a house that was right down the street from my parents. You loved it. I did not like it. And you. You thought that it was perfect for that next season. And because we couldn't find anything, we said, you know what, let's just go forward with it. I don't really love it, but it's, It's.

Christopher Muiña:
It's a beautiful home. It checked off the boxes. You know, it was a good house. It wasn't my. It wasn't anything that excited me, but it checked off the boxes. So we both said, you know what, we're just going to move forward with it until God says no. Well, God said no. We reached out to the real estate agent.

Christopher Muiña:
We pushed, we pushed, we pushed, and it was a no. And something that I've learned in this season, when God says no, there's no changing it. Like, of course some things can. Can move around. Like, I've heard of people first getting that rejection and then later on the door opens back up again. But it was so wise of us to just move forward. When we got that rejection, when we got the email back, it was better for us to just keep going. And I did not want to keep going.

Christopher Muiña:
We had this hard conversation, which, I don't know, that just changed my. My life. Honestly, when you and I had that hard conversation where I said, babe, maybe this is God telling us to take a break. Maybe the. The Holy Spirit's trying to tell us that this isn't the right time. Also, our house that we were currently living in was already under contract with. I was so happy with how that worked out. And I was thinking, maybe this isn't the right time.

Christopher Muiña:
Maybe we need to cancel that contract. Cancel looking, let's not do this. God is telling us. And I was trying to make it a God thing, and you just got so strong with me. And you said, steph, we are not backing down. Now. Dave Ramsey says if we have a plan, we stick to that plan and we execute it and we follow through with it. And our plan was to sell our house and to move.

Christopher Muiña:
We have grown out of this house. It's time to. To go. And I actually thought, like, oh, my gosh, you are disobeying God. And I could not be further from the truth. Because, you know, there are times where wisdom and the Holy Spirit, you do not choose one over the other. There are certain seasons where they. They partner together.

Christopher Muiña:
And it was this moment of man. Draw the plans. But the Lord establishes their steps. And you don't back off. You don't back down from that plan. And the Holy Spirit is telling us to follow his word, which says, you keep walking and the Lord will establish those steps. He did not establish the steps when it came to that other house. So a redirection, which means you keep going, you keep moving forward, you keep taking Steps and the Lord will establish them.

Christopher Muiña:
So I was ready to give up that. The following weekend, we looked at three other houses, like, four houses back to back. It was raining. I was so sad.

Stephanie Muiña:
It was a dead. A dud day.

Christopher Muiña:
A dud day. All of those houses were awful. Not for us. And you're also walking into, like, random people's houses, and they're there, and you're like, I don't want to know you. Like, this is so awkward. You're a strange person. I don't feel comfortable. And I just remember being so sad.

Christopher Muiña:
And I think there was, like, two weekends of that, and there was a Saturday night that I was just laying on the couch. You were on your laptop, trying to look for houses, and I was just curled up on the couch, like, I'm done. I don't want to look at another house. I don't think there's anything out there for us. And then I hear my phone ring, and I knew it was Madeline, our real. Our agent that we were working with, and I knew it was her. And. And I was like, she just sent us a house.

Christopher Muiña:
I know she just sent us a house. And you pulled it up, and you said, hey, did you see what she sent us? And I. I just said, I don't want to look at it. I'm done. I don't want to look at another house. Well, then, of course, I looked at it, and it was beautiful, and it was exactly what we wanted in the price that we wanted in the area that we wanted.

Stephanie Muiña:
We had to take turns because the kids were asleep in the car when we went to go see it the next day.

Christopher Muiña:
Well, wait, wait, wait. Don't. Don't rush to it, Don. Rush me. So we opened it up, and I thought, okay, you go see it. I'm done looking at houses. I don't want to see it. The next day, it's Sunday morning, we go and we.

Christopher Muiña:
We go to church. And you were like, just come. It doesn't. You have to come anyways.

Stephanie Muiña:
You're not in one car.

Christopher Muiña:
You have to come with me. So I'm like, whatever. I'll stay in the car, and you can go. Just throwing a fit. Okay. And then go.

Stephanie Muiña:
So I went in, looked at it. I liked it. I. As soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, this is nice. So I came out, and I was like, I'm not going to tell you anything. I'm not going to give you my opinion yet. Just go in and look at it.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And then you went in?

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And Then.

Christopher Muiña:
And I. Right when I opened the door, I was like, okay, so this is my house. This is it. This. I know that this is going to belong to us. I don't know how we're going to get this, but this is my house. Just this 100% certainty we were going to be living here. So then I got back in the car, and then.

Christopher Muiña:
What did I tell you? You forgot.

Stephanie Muiña:
Then I wanted to take a look at a few other things before we left. So I was like, I'm just gonna run in and look at one more thing that I didn't really look at in detail.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
So I came back to. After I saw it, came back in the car, and you're already talking to Madeline saying, how can we. What's the most aggressive offer we can do to get this house? And I'm like, wait, we haven't even talked about this.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
You know, and that's how. That's how it started.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. I. I got in the car. You went back inside the house. And I said. I put. I picked up my phone and I texted Meline and I said, we are going to make the strongest offer we've ever made. Let's do it.

Christopher Muiña:
I want this house. And she goes, okay, let's go. And we went full throttle. That day. They had eight appointments scheduled. And for the following week, they canceled all. All the appointments because they knew, okay, we closed. It's your house.

Stephanie Muiña:
We have a buyer. Which normally you wouldn't do that. You would continue to entertain other offers and other people interested in the house, usually until you close.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But for some reason, they called all their other appointments and canceled them. And it was. It was great.

Christopher Muiña:
It was God. It was God. It was amazing what happened.

Stephanie Muiña:
But just going back to what you're saying about when you felt like giving up, we both had those moments in that search where we would be like, I gotta go take a walk. And it was just us talking to God. And it was like, we would just be real with God and be like, God, what are you doing?

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Why is no door opening? Like, every house is a closed door. Like, what is going on up there? We're here. We have a timeline on our townhouse that is already under contract. We're going to be without a house soon.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But I just. I felt like, hey, God, it was time for us to move forward, to grow in our home. And we. We can't go backwards.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
That would be like, did we mishear God? Is God not in this? Like, no. We're as believers we're moving forward.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And it just might be a little bit of time that we have to wait or a redirection, like you said.

Christopher Muiña:
And I think what this whole thing taught me was that everything good in life comes with a whole lot of work. Now, God will give you the grace to do the work, and he gives you the peace, and he gives you the resources to do the work, but you got to do the work. It doesn't come easy, but it does come with a lot of peace, with a lot of grace, with a lot of the resources, and with a lot of the energy to do it. And that was a really big. A big lesson for me, because I guess in my 20s and even in my teenage years, I always just assumed that if God wanted me to do something, the door would be wide open and it would be easy, that the opportunity would fall into my lap. And I learned that if I wanted a larger harvest, if I wanted more in my life, if I wanted more for my family, if I wanted more for my marriage, it went back to the sowing. Like, you don't just reap things without you sowing the seeds. And, you know, it just.

Christopher Muiña:
I had to hang on that verse. There's a time to sow, and there's a time to reap. There's a time to mourn, and then there's a time to dance. And you have to be aware with your spiritual sensors, but also just looking at the season that you're in, looking at your age, looking at what your. Your spouse wants to do, looking at the dreams that you have, you have to be able to read, okay, the season of reaping is not here anymore. We are now in the season of sowing. And I also noticed that those seasons can kind of play at the same time, there are some areas of our life where we're reaping. Like, we have these beautiful children.

Christopher Muiña:
We were. We. We had kids. We were able to grow our kids. That's a. That's a reaping season. That's a harvest. But as we're having our kids, we're searching for a home, and we're sewing and we're sewing and we're saving and we're searching and we're negotiating, and we're picking up the phone and calling, and we're looking for other jobs to bring in more income so we can afford the house that is the sowing.

Christopher Muiña:
And I don't know why I always thought, no, if it's not coming easy, then it's not God. And I guess I Just had finally come face to face with, well, if you want to reap a big harvest, then you have to sow a big harvest. And it's going to take a lot of work that I have to do. No one else can do the work for me. My parents can't do the work for me. You can't do the work for me. I have to do the work. I have to do the late nights.

Christopher Muiña:
I have to do the double jobs. I have to figure out where to put my kids while I do the work. It's got to be up to me, because the Lord has placed these dreams in my life. He's placed these dreams in both of us. And if we want to achieve those dreams, then we. We partner with Heaven. He opens the doors, he establishes our steps. But I draw up the plans.

Christopher Muiña:
I start to sow the seeds. And that was just a really big way that the Lord expanded my knowledge this year where I have to put the work in and those desires that I have, those he gave to me. But it's up to me to do the work and then trust him with how he opens that door. Because I also don't want to be striving. I don't want to be trying to make it happen in my own power. I have to trust that he will open the door at the right time with the right situation. But I have to be willing to push forward and move forward, you know, and build the house and wait for the harvest.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah. So we bought the house, and now we're stepping into a new season.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah, it's.

Stephanie Muiña:
It's. It's kind of like when you. When you're a senior in high school, you're the top dog on campus, and then you graduate and you go to college and you're the freshman. You're nobody, and you don't know anything. You get lost going to class. It's kind of like where we were at. Where, when we were in our previous home, our. Our finances were.

Stephanie Muiña:
Were strong. I mean, they're. They're fine. But like, we had expendable income.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Just to go on trips and, you know, go shopping whenever you wanted. We jump into the next season of, of growth and stretching and just a different capacity.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And now we're like, all right, we got to hunker down. Our budget's going to be tight because now we have a new mortgage. And it's just. It's just the growing in our life.

Christopher Muiña:
It is.

Stephanie Muiña:
It's signs of good things, signs that we are. Are pushing and we're we're trusting in God for more in our lives.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. No, and it's, it's, you know, I look at businessmen and we talk about this all the time, like successful businessmen that grow multimillion dollar companies. They aren't looking for the perfect green light to move forward. They aren't waiting for the perfect emotion to feel like, okay, now's our time, let's go. They just have the dream and they go and they keep going. And I'm not even talking about like men out in the world. I'm talking about even men in our church, men and women that grow businesses in our own church that are so successful, they just keep going. They keep sewing, they keep working hard, they keep saving.

Christopher Muiña:
It's like it, it never ends for some of these people, you know.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah. They believe in the principles of investing or putting in the effort, and then that harvest will come. Like I remember in the beginning our prayer was, this is a lot of people think this way of, I just want that miracle home or I want that miracle spouse. I want that God ordained person to be dropped from heaven or that home to have, like to glow and to be shielded from everybody else. And it's just for us. And it's like, I don't know if that's really the way God works. And we started to change our prayer to, I want God's hand to be in our search. I want God's hand to be in the purchase of our home.

Stephanie Muiña:
You know, that he will lead us. We would be at complete peace with it. That's the miracle in a sense, that he would meet all of the desires of our hearts exceedingly, abundantly. More we can ever ask, think or imagine, but, but it's not like some like imaginary thing. No, we just want God's hand in our life and what we're doing in those steps to be established.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. And to do it with a pure heart as well. Because we both also had that conversation of like, hey, you know, we could be wrong about the market here in Miami. We could buy this house and then tomorrow something change and the market get way better and the prices go down and now you can afford a bigger house. But we even had those conversations and came to the reality of it. And we said, okay, even if that happens, we're okay, we're at least going to choose our hard because everything would be hard. Everything could change tomorrow. But this is our plan.

Christopher Muiña:
This is what we know the Lord is calling us to do. And this is what we know is wise for us to do. Just, just following wisdom and following the smarts of investing and where to put our finances, where we've gotten advice from people we listened to. We asked so many people for advice. We, people that, that did really well with their money and with their houses. We asked so many questions and we knew, okay, this plan is, is like Teflon. We like this plan even if something changes, even if it doesn't seem like the smartest plan later on, where the market changes, we can afford a better house, then we will eat that when it comes.

Stephanie Muiña:
Well, fear is the destroyer of faith. It's the complete opposite of it. And fear. Letting fear creep into your mind, whether it's with a house, whether it's with a baby, whether it's with your spouse, whatever it is, letting fear creep into your mind can completely paralyze you from ever moving forward in faith, in your faith. It's the. What if the market crashes right when we buy our home?

Christopher Muiña:
Yes.

Stephanie Muiña:
What if something happens? What if the baby inside of me isn't healthy? What if I never find a spouse? That fear, and it's all fear driven, that's just the enemy just trying to creep, just cancel out the faith that we have and the trust in God that we have that he's going to see it through.

Christopher Muiña:
And our, our generation deals with that so much. And it frustrates me because there is an issue. There is the failure to launch issue, like in our generation where no one is at least just trying, at least. Or it takes them until their 30s to start trying. Whereas back in like the 80s and 90s, you started when you were in your 20s, where you started that business, you tried that new technology, you opened a restaurant in your 20s, and now it's getting pushed to your 30s. And it's just simply this fear of, what if I fail? What if we lose the money? What if we. This was a dumb idea and it was, it was a mistake. But I've seen again, I look at successful people, they choose, they choose that outcome.

Christopher Muiña:
They know this could end any of those ways. This could end with us losing our money, this could end with us maybe losing, looking like a fool, having to, to move forward with it. But they, they wrap their head around it, they come to peace with it, but they also know that they're partnering with heaven and that God, he's faithful to the righteous, He's. He's going to stick by you if you trust in Him. And I also read in the, in the Psalms, the righteous will inherit the land. So I don't know how it's going to happen. I don't know how he will do it. But what I set out to conquer, I know the Lord's going to make me victorious in it.

Christopher Muiña:
And it may be different in how I originally planned it, but I know that I'm partnering with Heaven. And I know we cannot fail when we do this. And it's not me striving, it's not ego. It is full trust in God that He has called me to be purposeful. He's called me to use the gifts in my hands. He's called me to set out and to produce fruit with the gifts he's given me. So I can't live just remaining dormant. I have to go and produce fruit.

Christopher Muiña:
I have to go and try. Even if I fail, I'm going to give myself two to three years to at least try and to work hard. And if there's hiccups, if there's rejections, then. Then I continue to trust in the Lord and have faith that he has a plan in all of it.

Stephanie Muiña:
Well, that's the Psalm. Psalm 37 is what you're referring to. And we kind of like held onto that chapter throughout this whole process. And it talks a lot about how the unrighteous succeeds and the unrighteous has all these things, and if they have it, then God. And that verse is saying, like, hey, don't worry about that. The righteous shall inherit the land. You know, the righteous shall prosper. And even in our search, we were like, God, how come you're giving houses to people in the world? Like, people our age are buying houses in the neighborhoods we want.

Stephanie Muiña:
And we are faithful in our tithes and our offerings. We abide by the principles of our finances.

Christopher Muiña:
It's so true.

Stephanie Muiña:
Like, God's going to do it for us, too. Like, don't look at to the left or to the right. Just keep our eyes fixed on what God is doing in our life, and he will make it happen.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. You know, at the same time that we were looking for a house, that's when I was battling with songwriting and what to do about songwriting. And I had a friend come into town and we went out to lunch. And she was really good at writing songs. She's writing songs out in the world, and she's super successful in it. And she just worked her tail off for 10 years writing songs. And it's what opened the door eventually to her working with huge names and writing music for the world. And when I met with her, what stood out the most to me was not her talent, it was not her song ideas.

Christopher Muiña:
It was not her strategy. What stood out to me the most was her attitude about it all, that she just doesn't even think about the rejections. And she gets rejections all the time. Like she had this idea for a really, really big name, and then she goes, I want to show it to them. And I have a write in a couple weeks, and I'm so excited. I followed up with her on that and I said, hey, did you ever write with them? And she said, no, it hasn't happened yet. They're probably changing it. And it took me by surprise because if that happened to me, where I was so excited to have a write with this big name and I had a song idea to show them and then the label switched it up on me and canceled the write, I would be so embarrassed.

Christopher Muiña:
I would be so disappointed. Where I would start to think, maybe it wasn't God, maybe it wasn't the timing. But she just didn't even respond that way. She goes, oh, it hasn't happened yet, but it'll come. She just keeps going and she keeps thinking of ideas, and it's like the rejection doesn't even phase her. And it just reminds me of the verse that says to count it as all joy. And, you know, you and I, we've been running into some hiccups lately in this. We are in such an incredible season of joy.

Christopher Muiña:
We have had so many good things happen to us, but we. We had a small hiccup in our personal lives. And as much as I wanted to pause everything and slow down, I knew, no, this is just part of it. This isn't a sign to stop. This isn't a sign to slow down. I have to count it as all joy. The Lord, he sustains me. His grace is enough for me.

Christopher Muiña:
His grace is sufficient so I can keep going. Even if the hiccups set me back emotionally for a bit, I can still move forward. I don't have to see it as a sign to stop or to pause. I think I need to rest. Definitely just take a moment to process and to rest in God. But if I'm counting it as all joy, then that's just more gasoline in my tank to move forward.

Stephanie Muiña:
I think a lot of Christians, they use that, well, maybe God's not in it as, like, a crutch for what you're saying of, like, well, maybe he wasn't in that. So keep searching for doors, keep opening windows. Keep trying to open doors to see what God is in.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
You know, keep persevering The Bible talks about how the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And perseverance is what makes us.

Christopher Muiña:
Gives you character.

Stephanie Muiña:
Character. Character produces hope. Right. You know the verse more than I do. But for real, like. And then you take it back to the parable of the talents. Like it was easy for him to just to dig a hole, put it in there and it was safe. And I think a lot of us grow too comfortable with safety and security and non risk taking.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Well, what that does is God will take your talents and what he's given you and he'll take it to the One, and he'll give it to the One who took some risks.

Christopher Muiña:
Yes.

Stephanie Muiña:
And invested and grew. But that came with like some uncomfortableness, some failures, some like. So it's a part of our Christian walk. Should be. Yes, we're trusting in God when you have faith that he's going to do it. But if he doesn't, that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. It just means that he. It wasn't that route.

Stephanie Muiña:
Gotta figure out another route.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Like we of all people should be growing in our life at a rate and a pace that far exceeds the people in the world.

Christopher Muiña:
Yes, yes.

Stephanie Muiña:
Because not only are we partnering with God and with heaven and what we're doing and he is establishing our steps, but we're abiding by the principles that lead to prosperity. I know prosperity has like a total bad connotation to it, but he wants us to prosper. He wants us to have homes, he wants us to do, to succeed in our life, to have big families. That is God's desire for us, how we get there and the rate and the amount. I think it's kind of up to us and him at the same time.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
You know, and I feel like the word that's been on my heart has just been capacity. Like what God is doing in our life as far as capacity. He's stretching us, but he's giving us more. And it feels a little like scary at sometimes, but that's how it is when you're growing your capacity.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah. No, and I also want to remember that we don't mean to hustle, hustle, hustle, where you forsake your rest because you and I are big on. Let's chill. I mean, the Bible talks about the Sabbath. The Lord created the Sabbath. He likes the idea. He created the idea of holy rest. But what you have to be careful with is not mistaking rest for comfort, because comfort can it.

Christopher Muiña:
When you get into A comfortable place. It is shocking how many years can go by and it goes by under your nose without you even seeing, oh my gosh, I've just been sitting in a comfortable place for years. We were talking about it, how it's not that it's slothfulness, because I know plenty of people that are hard working and they stay in the same home for a long time. But it is a moment of, is this comfort a place of rest because I'm sowing from God or. Or because I'm reaping from the Lord? Or is this comfort not pushing me to stretch my faith because we always have to be in the place of Lord? What do you want next for me? Where do I need to stretch my faith? Where is there more for me? Where can I continue to produce fruit like in the parable of the talents? Because those years of comfort fly by and that one year turns into two years turns into three years real quickly. And the Lord is gracious. You're not going to miss anything. But you will lose a couple years of not being able to enjoy something bigger in your life because we stayed comfortable for too long.

Christopher Muiña:
And I mean, there will be a day where you and I say, hey, this is a season of rest. Once we finish this house, once we finish the renovations, there's gonna. And maybe we get pregnant again, we're having another baby. That season of rest will come. But the Sabbath is only one day a week. It's only one year. After seven years, it has a time limit to it, that time of rest. Because then you need to be.

Christopher Muiña:
You need to have your ears open to what the Lord wants next for you. So I, I also wanted to clarify that there's a time to rest, there's a time to harvest, there's a time to enjoy, there's a time to sit back and enjoy your summer vacation. Like you need that in your life. But then once that day comes to an end, be sensitive to where the Lord wants you to go next or go back to your plan. What was your vision for the year? What was your vision for the next five years? What was the plan that you had in place to achieve the goals that the Lord set in your heart? You know?

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah. And I think we have, you and I have the personalities to be drivers and to want to just push and push and push and push. Not everybody has that. And that's okay. It's just a different personality trait. But we need to put rest on our calendar. You taught me that very early. Others need to partner with other people who could be drivers through friendships or whatever, or mentors to help them propel them along, to drive a little bit in their life.

Stephanie Muiña:
So both are fine, right? Just got to figure yourself out. But we are to be producing fruit. We are to be doubling what we have, what we've been given, the gifts and the things that we have. That's a calling from God. It feels crazy to think about that. I do not remember January, February, March of this year. Our year has been so full of personal trials, health trials, just tests. Oh my gosh, new home, so many things up until this past week that it's just been like, wow, if you look back at our year and you can't remember the first couple months, then our year is jam packed.

Stephanie Muiña:
And it just means that we've been growing this year.

Christopher Muiña:
Gosh. Now would you say? Because something else that I ran into this year that was really, really new for me was meeting a fork in the road where both options were good, both options were wise. And I've noticed that I run into that more often now. Back when I was in my early 20s, it was like, do I not date this person? Do I do date this person? And that was an easy decision because it was like, okay, I don't like them. So no. And now it's different where you're reaching forks in the road, where, number one, I'm partnering with you. So I've got to be thinking about what we both want and then both options are right. It's okay if we chose a season of rest, and it was okay if we chose a season of hustling.

Christopher Muiña:
But what would give me clarity was, of course, number one, I needed to be in my word every day. I needed to pray and be in my word every day, even if it was for five minutes in the morning. I needed to partner with heaven. I needed the Holy Spirit to be my guide. But then also what helped me a lot was choosing. What was it? It was like three couples. We chose like three people that we said, we want that life, we want that fruit, we want that mindset and that attitude. And we would go to them and we would tell them our.

Christopher Muiña:
We would. We would show them, this is our finances, this is our plan, this is what we want to do. What do you think? And we would take every bit of advice of theirs. We would like rest on it, we would talk about it. And if it aligned with the word of God, if it aligned with what you and I were dreaming, it. It needed a few things. It wasn't like this was the one solution that. That guided to the Northern Star? No, it was a conglomerate of a few things.

Christopher Muiña:
It was a combination of what the Holy Spirit was telling us, what the Holy Spirit put in us, our dreams and our desires, what the word of God was telling us, and then what wisdom from other people was telling us. And we would add those all together, and that's when it would be like, okay, that's where we're going. That's our plan. Would you think that that's, like, similar to what you did as well? Like.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah. And just. Just take it back to the vision that we have for our life. Is this gonna take us in that direction?

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And if it's both options are close, then which is the wisest choice? Yeah, you have to take all those things into consideration.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But definitely have a vision for your life. We did that a couple years as a church staff. We wrote it all down. And it's been so helpful just to go back to that piece of paper and be like, all right, this is what we wanted to do in the next five years. Is this in that. In line with that vision?

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And you can tweak it and it changes and all that, but yeah, yeah, you're right.

Christopher Muiña:
It's alignment, Alignment. Alignment with your vision, alignment with each other, alignment with God, alignment with wisdom, alignment with your kids. Just alignment and knowing, okay, everything's in order. Then we go, this is going to give us the fruit that we want. Then we go, but knowing, like, gosh, without a vision, people perish. And it's so true. And with a vision, you thrive. And that's what I feel like we have done so well.

Christopher Muiña:
We sought out a vision by looking at other people's vision. We. We dove deep into our relationships and we sought out that vision. We wrote down the vision, and then we protected it with our lives. And then we created a plan and we went after it, and we thrived with the Lord right by us. Our sides, we thrived. And I. It came with a lot of hiccups, but I think what's so important about.

Christopher Muiña:
What is so important about clarifying that vision is knowing that those little hiccups, they're not going to knock us off our game. They are not signs from God that we need to pivot. We still had our vision written down in front of us. We still had those dreams and those desires written down guiding us. And those little hiccups, they were counted as all joy.

Stephanie Muiña:
Well, they, they. They had a purpose.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
You look at. At our year, this year and where we are now and sure, we got a house and we have all these great things, but you and I were much closer today because of those hiccups or roadblocks that have. Somebody could have been like, wow, that was out of left field. That really threw us off our game.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
And sure it did at the moment, but now you and I are much closer.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Like in our marriage, relationally, you and I are much tighter.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Because of those things.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
Yeah.

Christopher Muiña:
You know, it gave us a lot of depth. Gave us a lot of depth where, hey, if you want to go out there and. And make your life bigger, you still have to deal with life. You don't. You don't just get to live on a cloud of blessings. You have to deal with hard stuff, too. And, I mean, a bigger harvest can mean more problems, and you're going to deal with more problems, and that's normal. But that's what makes you deeper.

Christopher Muiña:
It's what brings you closer to your spouse and to your family, and it's what keeps you more in tune with what God's doing in your life, because.

Stephanie Muiña:
You pause and it glorifies God if you do it the right way.

Christopher Muiña:
You're so right.

Stephanie Muiña:
We know some couples in our church that it makes our problems look so minuscule.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:
But you look at what they're doing with their challenges and their problems, and they're glorifying God, and it's like, wow, God really, really is being glorified through that. What their. Their challenge.

Christopher Muiña:
You're so right.

Stephanie Muiña:
So you have. You can. You can choose to be like, oh, bummer. Like, woe is me. Life just hit me hard, or, okay, I'm not. We're not going to let this sidetrack us. We're going to keep moving forward, and on top of that, we're going to glorify God in it, and we're going to find a way to. So that others will know.

Stephanie Muiña:
Not to boast, but look what God has done.

Christopher Muiña:
Yeah, that's really good. Well, we pray that this encouraged you. We just kind of gave you our whole life report, and that was a wonderful conversation. God is just doing something so great, and we are so ready. We are ready to take off. And we pray that this encouraged you. We pray it gave you some wisdom and it gave you the knowledge that you need to move forward, because this is what we're doing. We still have so much life to live, so much more to learn.

Christopher Muiña:
We are not experts at this at all, and we are learning that day after day, but we are ready for God to use us in any capacity he desires. So we hope you are too. We hope you were blessed today on the Family Business with the Alessi's Again. Share this with two people you think would be encouraged by this. I know so many people would love to hear this, so share it like it. Subscribe and have a wonderful day and we hope you enjoyed the Family Business with Ulises. Thanks so much for joining the Family Business today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow or subscribe.

Christopher Muiña:
Share with a friend and leave us a review. We appreciate your support and can't wait to have you join us next time because family is everybody's business.