Waiting on a Dream

I have often talked about my dreams. There is no bigger dream in my life at this moment than to become a published author on a bigger scale. Hardly a day goes by I am not thinking about this, praying about this, working toward this, or researching this. I have lived with this dream since childhood. I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not feel a desire to write.

Well do I remember the day when in my early twenties God reawakened the dream to write in me. I lived in East Texas where I served my first church as pastor. I had a make shift workstation in our oversized living room. Brenda labored for JC Penney. Late one afternoon seated at my desk,. I felt compelled to write. As the afternoon progressed I found myself furiously writing on a legal pad. I had the sensation I had been born to do that. That was the day I knew God had not only called me to preach but He also called me to write.

I did not fully pursue this dream until after I left that church. As I began a full time traveling ministry I found time to write. I sat down and wrote a little booklet on a yellow legal pad. We printed the book on a copy machine and entitled it Swimming in the Bathtub. We made it available to a group of college students I ministered to. No great success but at least I completed my first book. We sold or gave away several dozen copies.

In hotel rooms, on airplanes, and restaurants I wrote my second book entitled, Only Believe. The book proved to be somewhat autobiographical in nature. I shared my testimony in detail. We trusted God for the money to publish it through a self-publishing company. We only printed five hundred copies. Reviews by readers were favorable. Over the next months I wrote a book which I never published Elijah’s Cry. Soon after that I wrote another book that never made it into print called Hungry Hearts and Thirsty Souls.

The Lord burned another book deep into my heart out of my walk with the Him. Though not a large book, it became very dear to my heart. After much prayer we had enough money to publish it through the same company we published Only Believe through and named it Life on the Altar. We printed one thousand copies of it. To this day I still have a few copies left. The book never had quite the same impact on readers as the other book had. Still the message was dear to my heart.

I wrote others book during these years that either never came into print or lived a short life span. I wrote a devotional called Close Encounters: a 30-Day Journey Toward Intimacy with God. We printed a few copies and gave most of them away. Later I wrote about my first mission trip to the country of Cuba. I recorded that experience and intended to make that available to inspire more people to missions work. I named the booklet Cuba for Christ. I wrote another book I lost on my computer when it crashed named God Will Make a Way.

At this point Brenda and I felt the call to start a church and my writing ministry definitely went to the backseat as I busied myself with trying to get a church up and off the ground. Those four years were four of the hardest of my entire ministry. As most of you know the church did not make it. We found ourselves scrambling financially and myself crashing emotionally. I could not understand why the Lord called us to start a church that He knew from the beginning would fail. I battled severe depression and only worked my way through as I began to write. I did not write a book but short devotional thoughts I posted on a website which has long since been abandoned.

We learned tough lessons on faith in the aftermath of the church start. We saw the Lord provide miraculously over the course of a year and a half when we did not have a salary. Out of that experience I wrote my book titled Behold the Faithfulness of God. That book excited me as I wrote on prayer and included personal illustrations of how God stepped in and saved the day on our parts time after time. I wanted people to know from my experience that prayer works.

God moved us to Paradise, TX where I served as pastor to the First Baptist Church about this time. After the difficulties of starting a church God blessed our ministry in Paradise. He used people in that church to further my dream.

Before I finished the book I began praying for the Lord to make provision to publish it. I waited on God for close to five years to get the book published even before we arrived in Paradise. When God moved people to give He did so dramatically. The money for the book was given after having waited close to five years in less than a week through three different sources. Well over $10,000 was given to publish Behold the Faithfulness of God.

Again I waited as we sent the manuscript, made necessary revisions, went through two versions of the cover, and dealt with shipping issues that delayed my first two book signings. I prayed and waited. It seems God has used waiting in my life to teach me many lessons.

The book finally arrived on a Wednesday night while I taught. I saw the truck pull up through the glass doors at the rear of the sanctuary. God generously provided enough money to publish 5,000 copies of that book. I will never forget opening one of the boxes and holding a copy of my long awaited dream. Even now it is hard to convey into words what I felt two years ago. I have seldom ever felt more contentment than that night.

I held book signings nervously. I held my first book signing in East Texas when we lived there after releasing Life on the Altar. I sold three books the whole afternoon! My great friend Jeff bought one even though I had already given him a copy. The owner of the bookstore bought another copy even though I had already given him one as well. One other person bought a book that day. I felt humiliated.

The thought of having another book signing in Wise County left me feeling unsettled. God blessed though. In all we did two book signings and hundreds of books were sold. Feed back on the book came back favorably. I dedicated all the money received from that book to First Baptist Paradise for their relocation and building fund. To this day, everything we have made on that book has been sent back to Paradise. No matter if we sell five thousand or five million copies of that book, I have pledged to the Lord FBC Paradise gets all of it.

While at Paradise I began a new writing ministry I had heard about called blogging. To be honest I did not know that much about it at the time. I felt compelled to keep writing short vignettes and to make them available on the internet. I watched as the number of hits to that blog site started and increased into the hundreds and eventually went over one thousand hits.

Our lives were blessed in Paradise and we felt we would always serve there. Unexpectedly the Lord changed all of that with a new call for us to go to Seminole, TX to serve the First Baptist Church. I blogged through that process and never wept harder in my life than I did in the weeks prior to and during my final message at FBC in August of 2009. I still grieve over leaving those wonderful people.

We created a new blog address when I arrived in Seminole and I kept on writing. We have now seen over fifteen thousand hits to our blog. One person told me how they anxiously await to see what I will write next. One commented at times it seems I sit at the feet of Jesus and write about what He shares with me. That is my prayer. At times I have felt empty and bankrupt with nothing to write about. At other times the ideas flow continuously.

I took several blogs from over the years and turned them into a book titled Sitting with the Savior this year. I submitted it to my publisher and got a contract back eight months ago. Since then I have been in that old familiar game of waiting for God’s provision. It would take $16,000 to publish that book. We have prayed about it as the No Compromise Board of Directors and still do not have clear leadership about what the Lord wants do to.

Instead of sitting around doing nothing, I completed the rough draft of another book called Running Toward Risk. I am very excited about that book but again find myself in the waiting game to get it published. I wrote a devotional book in preparation for our revival last fall I titled 40 Days to Shake the City. We printed it locally to get it in the hands of our people. God empowered me to write that book over the course of three and a half days. I wrote often from 4:00 a.m. with a few short breaks until after midnight during that writing retreat.

Several months ago I began working on a revision and expansion of Only Believe. I must admit I have not been very disciplined with finishing it but I am well over half way done. I won’t to make every effort to complete it early next year.

Months ago I began praying about getting a literary agent. I sent in two different book proposals and once again am playing the waiting game. I determined to go the traditional route toward publication with an agent. Recently God sent a curve ball. One of our church members gave a donation of $1,000 toward publishing of my books. I had not asked for it and it has left me wondering if God wants to publish the same way I published my other books.

Now I am praying about which route God wants me to go. I know I have been commissioned by Him to write. People have reported that God uses my writing. Will God give me an agent who will be used to open doors to publishers? Am I supposed to trust God for the additional money needed to publish Sitting with the Savior? I am forced to wait on Him to make this dream come true once again.

Just because I am waiting does not mean I have given up. I keep praying. I keep writing. I keep researching. I keep the dream before me. I do not write for fame or money. I write because I am called to. It is the dream God put in my heart. I have to write whether my work is read by a few or by many.

I know there are many of you, who like me, have lived with a dream in your heart for years and maybe decades. I would encourage you not to give up on your God given dream. Persevere and He will bring it to pass. I still believe there will be a day when I can walk into bookstores nationally I see copies of the books God inspired me to write. Until that day comes, I will keep praying. I will keep waiting on God to move this mountain. I will also keep writing. If my books do not get published until after I am dead and gone, I will submit to God’s will in this matter.

I continue to wait on God to make His dream in my heart come true. I continue to work at my dream praying along the way. One day, by faith I know my dream will come true with dozens of books published and distributed around the world. Until that day, will you pause and lift up my dream to the Lord and ask Him to move this mountain. I will be glad to return the favor if you share your dream with me. While we wait let us we wait in faith.