Raise your hand if you like waiting. If you do, I will turn this blog post over to you for your tips and tricks.
Waiting in the drive-thru for your afternoon coffee can feel hard sometimes (or is that just me?) Waiting for medical test results, an answered prayer, or a new job is even more challenging.
Waiting on a God-sized dream is a special kind of hard. You sense a calling from God. A desire to be used by God. Longing to walk in faith and place your yes before God. But what do you do in the waiting for the yes to that manuscript, that speaking engagement, that particular leadership position you feel called to take?
Can I remind us together here, in this space today, that in our waiting, God is always working?
Think about the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew. God was working in that waiting and preparing for the moment when the son of God would burst forth onto the scene.
I waited for eleven years for a God-sized dream that He would not allow me to let go of—signing a YES for a traditionally published book. Those eleven years came with many rejection letters, many responses like, “not yet,” and lots of wanting to give up in the waiting.
I learned some tips and tricks in that waiting, and I would love to encourage you if you are in a waiting season now.
- Worship while you wait. I learned that one of the best parts of our God-sized dreams is getting to know the God who has given us our dreams. Worshipping as you wait reminds you of His presence in the wait.
- Work while you wait. In those eleven years, I just kept prayerfully asking God, “What do you have for me to do now?” This prayer of placing that yes on the table led to writing six self-published books “in the wait.” As we prayerfully seek God, He is faithful to show us what He has for the now as we wait for the next.
- Build a community as you wait. I love the community I have found in other God-sized dreamers. Online and in real life, find people to wait with. Walk with. Worship with.
I highly recommend you sign up for the Speak Up Virtual Conference this year. You will find the most loving family to come alongside you as you wait.
I waited eleven years before I could announce my first traditionally published book through Moody Publishing.
In the waiting, God was working behind the scenes.
He is working as you wait, too.
Question: What are you waiting on right now? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section.
About Jenn Hand
Jennifer Hand, Founder and Executive Director of Coming Alive Ministries, has a desire to provide an invitation to Come Alive in Christ through conferences, retreats, and written resources. She’s an author, speaker, and podcast host. She also loves to take people on crazy adventures, inviting them to laugh, grow in their faith, and experience the love of Jesus. Check out her newest book, My Yes is on the Table, and learn more about her ministry at www.jenniferhand.org.
With age comes a patient kind of waiting. Maybe because I have experienced so much goodness of God in the waiting. The waiting is where He becomes more fully known by my learning, my worshipping the Father and seeking my Lord Jesus. I’m waiting for a protocol to turn back to Jesus and for a publisher to help me share our story in living full with mental illness.
My husband and I waited eight years for the right man to buy his dental practice. We were praying for a “Christian man” to buy it. We had several close calls, but God prevented the sale when either one of those qualifications were not met. The man was revealed through my sister’s Bible study prayer meeting 143 miles away. The match was totally God’s, as that young man was not even finished with his education when we first started praying and looking, and he certainly has not been a disappointment.
I waited at least that long for an agent. The rewards are sweet.
Jenn, your theme of “My Yes is on the Table” has become a Speak Up slogan that reminds us that saying “Yes” to God’s next step in our ministries can be difficult, or may even feel impossible…and sometimes it feels more like “standing still,” instead of “moving forward.” But we know the rewards are great if we choose to be patient and “about His business” during the in-between time. You are so loved by our Speak Up Community!
Thank you for these words of encouragement! Writing my story began years ago. Last year as I was getting ready to retire, I heard from the Lord as He pointed me in a slightly differently direction. He redirected my story somewhat as He showed me all the years I’d given Him my yes and he even gave me a title for my book and a way to save a couple thousand by some unknown opportunities I least expected to have.
Right now I’m waiting to hear from my editor for my first round of edits. This two weeks has been difficult in the waiting. However, the Lord keeps reminding me of the last couple verses in Isaiah 40. They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, mount up with wi gs like eagles…and I’m so ready to run and not grow weary, walk and not faint.
I know He is a good Father and he has provided this opportunity in such fun ways. Here I am so close to hitting the published button! This is all for His glory 🙏
That’s wonderful and so exciting, Kimberly! Congratulations to you and may the Lord bless you!
It is so true! What we do in the waiting counts! We pray and listen to that still, small voice of the Holy Sprit, while reading the Bible and when He speaks to us through our pastor’s Sunday sermon like it was just myself and Jesus in the room, or when you are driving down the road listening to a Christian radio station talk show, or to someone like David Jeremiah or another pastor like him and the Lord is speaking directly to you! NO MISTAKING THAT!!
The Lord started me on this journey in 2008 and I had no idea that He would take me half way around the world in 2009 to get me where He wanted me today. I have been and still am learning inch by inch as I go and as I wait! I heard Robyn Dykstra speak locally in recent years, then the Lord lead me to and through 2 of her excellent Christian Speaker. Bootcamps!! If you haven’t taken one of these yet from Robyn or Carol Kent, what are you waiting for??? They are so necessary and informative!! Then while attending my first Speak Up Conference a few years back, God kept putting me together with Cheri Cowell from EA Publishing and even before attending the conference with questions. Then God prompted me to enter my story in the publishing contest last year that was by EA Publishing Thru Speak Up Conference. The day before my hip replacement surgery last year I was notified that my story was one of many AWESOME submissions chosen to be published in the book, “Anchor in the Storm” Vol. 2, making me a published author! So now I am a Christian speaker and Published author with the opportunity to spread especially to post-abortive women, God’s word, message of salvation, hope, love, and what God says about finding forgiveness from past wrong decisions. I want ALL women, (and men), to heal from the hurting and brokenness in their lives so they can minister for generations to come! Who would have ever thought? I am currently booking more gigs, while working toward and waiting for more speaking and book selling opportunities as well as listening and waiting to see whether God wants me to also finish the book I started in 2009 that I took as my “ten page” to my first Speak Up Conference to meet with the editors. God IS Good and He will tell me. It is ALL in the waiting, as He is moving and it is ALL in HIS timing! God is SOO AWESOME!!!