by Jeanne Takenaka, @JeanneTakenaka
May was my month to fast-draft my book. I prayed about it. I made a schedule I thought I could meet. I know how to write a story. Mostly.
What I didn’t expect was the car to be in the shop twice . . . in one week.
Extra appointments for my boys.
Late nights talking with one or the other of them.
My days ticked by with much reduced or no word count toward my story.
I wrote as I could, rarely meeting daily goals. And I realized this:
Sometimes, we write out our plans, but God directs the timing of their fruition.
Because let’s face it. We will face hard times.
When we determine we will step forward with God, we seldom go unopposed.
We can be in the center of God’s will and still face opposition. In fact, we should expect opposition. The enemy of our souls doesn’t want us doing the works God created for us.
Having people or circumstances come against us when we walk out God’s calling doesn’t mean we’re in the wrong place.
It doesn’t mean God doesn’t love us, or that He’s abandoned us.
Sometimes opposition is an invitation to stay faithful and watch how God decides to show up…in small or big ways.
The enemy wants us to be discouraged. To stop moving forward.
But, if we have sought the Lord before embarking on our journey . . .
. . . if we are walking in His will, then we are secure.
We must choose faith over fear.
God was with the Israelites wandering in the desert. And He’s with us.
The question is, will we believe this reality, or will we believe only what our temporal eyes see?
The armies? The difficult circumstances? The discouraging things that happen in a day?
When we remember God is the one who invited us to walk with Him—to journey out of our own Egypts, our own comfortable places of bondage—it’s a little easier to walk away from them and toward the One who loves us most.
It’s never easy to let go of what we’ve known. When we’re bound to an inaccurate way of thinking and believing, it sometimes feels safer to hold onto this.
Walking into the wilderness—the unknown—is scary. But when we know God is with us, we can walk forward in confidence.
When we choose to move forward in a calling God has placed on our lives, we can write our plans in the sand, and trust God to cement His timing and His process as we journey with Him.
When we release our expectations for how things will be carried out, we can walk in the center of God’s will.
When the cloud and the fire seem obscured by circumstances, let’s choose to let our hearts see what our eyes cannot . . . our God watching over and protecting us.
What about you? When have you chosen to walk forward trusting God, even when what you saw in your circumstances confused you?
Jeanne Takenaka writes contemporary fiction that touches the heart. She won My Book Therapy’s Frasier award in 2014 after finaling in the contest in 2013. She was a Genesis 2015 finalist in the romance category, and she finaled in the Launching a Star Contest and the Phoenix Rattler in 2012. An active member of RWA, ACFW and My Book Therapy, Jeanne blogs about life and relationships at http://jeannetakenaka.wordpress.com. A graduate with an M.A. in education, she resides in Colorado with her husband and two exuberant teenage boys who daily give her lessons in relying on God.