What Does Waiting on God’s Timing Look Like?

By Patricia Bradley

If anyone has read my comments on Face Book or various blogs, you’ll know I often talk about everything being in God’s timing. This is what that has looked like for me as recorded in my Jesus Calling Journal that I read each morning.

October 17,2009:

I've found myself getting anxious about getting my story published. I am learning everything is in Your timing. So I will cease striving and wait.

October 17, 2010:

A year has passed. I’ve learned so much. Getting proposals ready for publishers and agents.

October 17, 2011:

After finishing yet another rewrite of Shadows from the Past, I’m getting proposals ready for editors and agents who requested at ACFW.

October 17, 2012:

Waiting to hear from Revell pub board. Praying it’s Your will that they buy. Thank You either way.

I’m closing in on the fifth year that I’ve gone through the Journal, and it’s been really neat that I can look back each morning and see where I was a year ago, two years ago, even four years ago. What I recorded isn’t always about writing. Sometimes it’s about a difficult decision or a really difficult problem, and a year later I’m able to see how God answered. Not always the way I wanted, but always I see Him getting me through it.

Here’s another day.

January 5, 2010 (I started the Journal October 9, 2009)

In the margin I had written out the scripture for that day. “For we walk by faith and not sight.” 2^nd Corinthians 5:7

Lord, I know getting Shadows published will be completely Your doing. When I think about it, who am I to write well enough to have something published? And then I look at the words You gave me yesterday, and I think Yes! It’s possible. One thing I know—You’ll have to do it. I can’t.

January 5, 2011:

You have given me a dream that is beyond my reach. Each setback comes with a way to make the book better. I believe it will eventually be published…in Your timing.

January 5, 20012:

Praying this will be the year! 

January 5, 2013

Last year was the year! And I know it was only by your favor that Revell is publishing Shadows of the Past!

So my advice is to do the hard work—learn the craft of writing. Write every day, if it’s only a paragraph because that keeps you focused on the story. Be where you need to be when God opens the door. And remember: God doesn’t give us a dream just to snatch it away. If we delight ourselves in Him, He will give us the desires of our hearts. But we must wait patiently on Him. (paraphrased from Psalm 37:4 and 7)

What does waiting on God look like to you?

Patricia Bradley

www.patriciabradleyauthor.com
http://mbtponderers.blogspot.com/
@PTBradley1

Shadows of the Past from Revell February 2014

I asked God to teach me patience and He gave me a book to write