Skip to main content

Waiting on God devo

My friend Tina Russo sent me this devotional she received. I love it--it's so appropriate for writers, whether published or unpublished.

And if you're not Christian, well, you don't have to read this post.

Camy



Waiting on God
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Sunday, August 10 2008

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you
compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who
wait for Him!" Isaiah 30:18

Have you ever noticed that God is not in a hurry? It took 40 years
for Moses to receive his commission to lead the people out of Egypt.
It took 17 years of preparation before Joseph was delivered from
slavery and imprisonment. It took 20 years before Jacob was released
from Laban's control. Abraham and Sarah were in their old age when
they finally received the son of promise, Isaac. So why isn't God in
a hurry?

God called each of these servants to accomplish a certain task in His
Kingdom, yet He was in no hurry to bring their mission into
fulfillment. First, He accomplished what He wanted in them. We are
often more focused on outcome than the process that He is
accomplishing in our lives each day. When we experience His presence
daily, one day we wake up and realize that God has done something
special in and through our lives. However, the accomplishment is no
longer what excites us. Instead, what excites us is knowing Him.
Through those times, we become more acquainted with His love, grace,
and power in our lives. When this happens, we are no longer focused
on the outcome because the outcome is a result of our walk with Him.
It is not the goal of our walk, but the by-product. Hence, when
Joseph came to power in Egypt, he probably couldn't have cared less.
He had come to a place of complete surrender so that he was not
anxious about tomorrow or his circumstances.

This is the lesson for us. We must wait for God's timing and embrace
wherever we are in the process. When we find contentment in that
place, we begin to experience God in ways we never thought possible.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Writing Fight Scenes

I love martial arts movies and action flicks. So naturally I'd write action scenes. I discovered that it takes a slightly different writing style. These are some of the things I learned, although this list isn't exhaustive by any means. Action-Reaction A fight scene is always Action-Reaction. He punches, she staggers back. She kicks, he blocks and swings a fist at her. Watch out for putting your reaction before your action: She staggered back when he slammed his fist into her shoulder. The rule of thumb is to have each action-reaction have its own paragraph, although that’s not always possible. Sometimes the sentences are too short for their own paragraphs and can be combined. It’s up to the writer how to format it: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. versus: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. Short sentences = fast reading flow Use short sentences and phrases to make re...

How to write a kiss

There was a question on the writer’s Discord server that I’m on where someone asked how to write a kiss. They weren’t specifically asking me, but I was able to give a short answer for how I write kisses. I write and read traditional romances, so my kiss scenes tend to be heavily influenced by the genre and by how my editors critiqued my manuscripts. You basically want to focus on the emotion of the kiss and how the kiss makes the point of view character feel, as opposed to going deep into physical detail. Ideally, the description will show that the kiss is something special and not just them macking. For example the kiss made her feel ___. Or the kiss was ___ which made it seem that he felt ___ for her. “The kiss made her feel as if she were incredibly precious to him.” “His lips were gentle and almost tentative, as if he were afraid of frightening her.” “The kiss surprised her and yet felt as familiar as if they’d kissed a thousand times before. The kiss felt like home.” I...

The 50-word elevator pitch

The 50-word elevator pitch: Basic story elements and a two-sentence novel summary Writing a 50-word summary is good to help you condense your thoughts and themes for your novel. This summary can be used when you pitch to editors or agents, and it can also be used in a query letter to an editor or agent. Swain gives this excellent method to come up with a 2-sentence (or 50-word) summary of your novel. This can be done before you write it or afterward, whichever works best for your writing style. This is similar to steps 1 and 2 of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake method : https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/ Each novel typically has five basic story elements: Character --Your protagonist or focal character. You can sometimes have two protagonists, but even then, often the story of one character is slightly more dominant than the other. Situation --The troubling situation your character is stuck in that forces him to act. Objective --What y...