I’m getting a little earlier start than usual in writing out today’s page.  While the cool, drizzly day doesn’t seem to be helping any, I don’t think the weekend fully caught me up from the extra long day last Friday.  If I get this written early then perhaps I will head to bed early and get some extra sleep.  Anyhow, page 130 began early with the Monday morning cleaning and the prep to get the building ready for the school week.  Once the building was ready, I settled in to my Monday morning writing routine.  A big part of the morning was spent with God writing next week’s prayer guide as it just didn’t seem to come together as quickly or smoothly as most weeks.  I suppose it is fitting that it took more time than usual as I eventually settled with the topic of waiting.  🙂  Waiting can be a difficult thing for most of us — particularly when the time of waiting goes beyond an acceptable length of time that seems to vary greatly from person to person.  Whether we measure our time of waiting in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or lifetimes, we all reach a point when we are tempted to say, “That’s long enough!  I’m done waiting!”

I have people ask me from time to time about my process of writing.  I’m not sure that I have a process but I do have some routines that I like to follow once God has put a book concept in my mind for me to write.  To begin with, all of the ideas for the books I have written and published came out of my prayer time.  Many times the seeds were planted by an individual or group and as I would pray about a conversation or topic, the idea to write about it would fill my mind.  One of my current projects is a good example of that.  I connected with the Association of College Ministries last year and provided one of my devotional journals to each person attending their National Student Conference.  As I worked with them to plan of this years conference, I found out that the theme for the student conference this year is “Not Home Yet”.  As I prayed about the conference and the potential for my leading a workshop, this theme began to resonate in my mind.  As I prayed the words of Jesus in the model prayer came to mind, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Then the title, “Almost Heaven: Devotions For The Journey Home”, filled my mind.  From there, I spent time searching the scripture for characteristics that the Bible uses to describe heaven and/or the kingdom of God.  From that list I narrowed down 32 topics to use for the daily devotional thoughts in the book.  After the outline was complete I began to work on the cover.  As I went through my photos, one of the shots I took in the mountains of Virginia last fall jumped out at me and seemed to beg to be the cover photo.  Once I have the cover designed and the interior outline laid out I order a couple printed copies that I call layout proofs.  This gives me a physical book so I can make sure the look and feel is what I want.  After that come the actual writing.  With this devotional journal style that I am currently working on, I look up the scripture reference from the outline and spend time with God praying about what that verse says within the context it is written.  As I pray, I jot down questions that come to my mind and then write out some corresponding devotional thoughts and prayer points.

Anyhow, the way that all fits into today’s page is that the layout proofs for the “Almost Heaven” project arrived over the weekend and I was able to see and feel what it will be like when completed.  As I looked over it and started with a reminder overview of the daily topics, I was reminded of how God wants us to live as kingdom citizens on this earth to prepare ourselves, and those around us, for the heavenly home we are headed toward.

I pray that you and I would learn to trust God fully in the times when He calls for us to wait.  I also pray that we would respond with appropriate actions when He says the waiting is over.  I pray that we would listen to God for direction and timing in all we do.  I pray that our listening would produce complete obedience.