One morning I sat on my screen porch praying and seeking God. Discouragement hung heavy on my heart. One of my life dreams just didn’t seem to be coming true. Writing had been my passion since the sixth grade. I wrote for the school newspaper in junior and senior high. I majored in creative writing in college. My desire to be a writer stuck with me continuously through life, even as various detours caused that dream to drop by the wayside again and again. Some of those detours were God driven, and I willingly followed His lead, using my passion for writing in each of those endeavors. Gradually, local opportunities surfaced.
When the bottom dropped out of my life through a heart-breaking three-year separation from my husband, God began to prepare my heart to go deeper into Himself and into the plans He had for me.
In the year 2000 after my husband and I reconciled, the doors opened for my writing. I published my first article in HomeLife, then Focus on the Family. I became a contributing writer for Tapestry, a Walk Thru the Bible devotional for women. More significantly, through the heartache I had suffered during our separation, God planted seeds of healing and grace that resulted in my writing Broken Heart on Hold. Four years later, I received my first book contract for it. Through the trauma of heartache, my dreams were finally coming true.
But like so many of us I was satisfied for only a little while. Eventually, I wanted more. The book proposals and drafts I wrote for two more books went nowhere. My agent faithfully persevered with me through one rejection after another. The rejections were kind: “She writes well,” “Great concept.” Etc. But they were rejections, and I didn’t understand why God was not allowing me to publish other books that would lift up His name.
A New Revelation
That day on my screen porch as I prayed and spilled out my heart to God in disappointment, I asked God why, why had I not received the blessing I was seeking. As I prayed, a scripture came to mind that had been hooked into a tab at the top of my bathroom mirror for years.
“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask what you want and it will be given to you” (John 15:7).
I had glanced at the scripture often. Abiding. Abiding with God. Yes, that was something I desired and tried to do.
“I’ve done that, Lord,” I said aloud. “I have abided with you. Through all those painful times, I abided with you. I pray all the time. You know that, Lord.”
In the stillness of my heart God answered me. “But that’s only a part of the promise, Linda. Yes, you’ve abided in me. But what’s the last part? And my words abide in you.” Have my words abided in you?”
My mind immediately skipped back to a Beth Moore Bible Study I had recently completed and a story she had told in her Breaking Free video where she told about a woman to whom God abruptly and forcefully spoke an admonition into her heart and mind saying, “Get in my Word!”
Those words resonated with me now too. God’s voice came through loud and clear in the recesses of my mind. I suddenly saw what was lacking: it was not only my knowledge of scripture, but my time reading His Word. I was not consistent with daily Bible reading. Oh, I had read through the New Testament a few times, but only once had I read all the way through the Old Testament. And I knew they are oh so connected!
So it came as a shock to me when I realized that although I had gazed upon that scripture on my mirror for years, I had missed an important part of it.
Abiding
Acting upon my new revelation, I got in God’s Word. I began spending time in the scriptures each day. I meditated on the verses I read. I enrolled in Bible Study Fellowship, a wonderful, in depth study that digs down into God’s Word and plants His truths deep into the hearts of participants. Although God’s Word had been alive to me before, through time in more intensive Bible Study and meditation, the scriptures themselves began to live in my heart and mind so I could begin to pull them up when I needed God’s wisdom.
As time continued to unfold, I saw that God was teaching me an important lesson about our dreams coming true. When we expect God to grant our desires, but our dreams aren’t coming true, we may be missing something God wants to show us. In fact, He may have plans for us that are bigger than ours. His purposes for us may reach higher than our own limited vision allows, and we are not yet ready to receive them. That is what I saw happen to me and my writing.
This year, when I published my third book, Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated, I saw God’s hand in it at every level. A few weeks ago, when it won the Golden Scroll Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from AWSA, an association of distinguished Christian authors, I praised God that His ways are perfect and so much better than mine. He knew the plans He had for me. He knew the book He wanted me to write and publish that could bless people’s lives, families, and marriages in important and transformational ways. His plans were bigger than mine, and as I grasped hold of what God wanted to teach me, He allowed my dreams to come true in ways that surpassed my expectations.
He has plans for you too. If your dreams aren’t coming true, you may not be able to see what God is doing right now, but perhaps you too need to hunker down in His Word and let it come alive in your heart so you can see His bigger purposes unfold in your life.
What dreams do you have that aren’t coming true? What do you feel God saying to you about this right now? I love to see your comments.
If you are struggling through a difficult time in your marriage, please check out my new book, Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated
Speak Your Mind