Year Seven of Twenty-Five: John 10:10 in the Middle of the Mortgage

There is a particular kind of tiredness that comes around year seven of a twenty-five-year mortgage. The excitement of getting the keys has faded. The walls you painted so carefully need painting again. The monthly figure on the statement has not changed, but everything else in the house seems to have got more expensive. And the finish line is still so far away that you cannot quite picture it.

In those years it is easy to start living for later. Later, when the loan is cleared. Later, when the second floor is finished. Later, when the children are grown and the grocery bill shrinks. We tell ourselves that is when life will really begin.

A promise in the present tense

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10, NKJV). Other translations say “life to the full”. Notice that He does not say “will have, one day”. The life He offers is not a reward deferred until the last payment clears. It begins the moment we belong to Him, and it is meant to be lived in whatever house we are standing in.

It is worth remembering what He was talking about. John 10 is not about property at all. It is about sheep and a shepherd, a fold and a gate. The good shepherd knows His sheep by name. He leads them out and brings them in. They find pasture. The abundance is in the relationship, the safety and the daily provision, not in the size of the fold.

What we postpone without noticing

Living for later rarely feels like a decision. It creeps in through small choices. Consider a couple who bought a modest three-bedroom house and set themselves a strict plan to overpay the loan. The goal was good. But after a few years they noticed what had quietly dropped away:

• They had stopped inviting people over, because the living room still did not have proper curtains.
• They had not taken the children to the beach in two summers, because every spare dollar went to the bank.
• They prayed about the house often, but mostly about money, and rarely with thanks.
• They spoke about “when we’re settled” as if they were still waiting to arrive somewhere.

None of this was sin exactly. It was simply life being lived at half strength while they waited for a better chapter.

Abundance is not the same as excess

This is not a call to throw the budget away. Wise stewardship matters, and paying what we owe is right (Romans 13:8 tells us to owe no one anything except to love one another). Scripture is clear-eyed about debt. The point is that faithful repayment and full living are not enemies. A household can be careful with money and still be generous, joyful and at rest.

Paul wrote from far harder circumstances than a long mortgage: “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11, NKJV). Contentment, for him, was something learned. It did not arrive with a change of circumstances. It grew in the middle of them.

Living full in the middle years

What might life to the full look like in year seven of twenty-five? Probably something quite ordinary.

• Having friends round for Sunday dinner, curtains or no curtains.
• Setting aside a small, fixed amount for joy: a day at the river, a birthday cake, a new plant for the verandah.
• Praying about the mortgage with thanks as well as worry, naming the months it has been paid.
• Doing one small improvement you have been saving for someday, like fixing the gate latch or planting the hedge.
• Letting the house be used for others: a prayer meeting, a child’s homework club, a cousin’s engagement lunch.

None of these will shorten the loan by a single month. But they will mean you are actually living in the house you are working so hard to pay for.

The shepherd walks the middle stretch too

The good shepherd does not only meet the sheep at the gate at the start and the end of the day. He is with them in the long hours in between, on the hillside, in the heat. The middle of a mortgage, the middle of a build, the middle of raising children, are exactly the places He intends to be present.

When the last payment finally goes through, it will be a good day. Celebrate it. But do not let it be the first day you allowed yourself to feel alive in your own home.

For reflection

• What have you been saving for “when we’re settled” that you could begin, in a small way, this month?
• When did you last thank God for this house as it is, rather than as it will be?

A prayer

Good Shepherd, You came to give life to the full, not someday but today. In the long middle of our repayments and plans, help us to be faithful with what we owe and generous with what we have. Teach us contentment in this house, and let it be a place of joy while we are still paying for it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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