Have you ever felt convinced God was leading you in a certain direction—one you spent years, maybe decades, pursuing—only to find yourself on a long, winding road heading the wrong way?
If you’ve ever chased a dream, launched a small business, or spent years building a ministry, you know how long, exhausting, and painful that journey can feel.
So much emotion and so many doubts can grow in the space between the moment you told God yes and the moment you reach your hoped-for destination.
Obstacles appear. Questions multiply. And before long, it can feel like you’re stuck on an endlessly looping road with no finish line in sight.
Perhaps that’s where you are now. Perhaps you’ve begun to wonder if you heard God correctly when you first took those timid steps—or if He spoke at all.
I’ve been there.
I understand the pain and confusion. I know the pull toward disillusionment that hits during those wilderness seasons.
But I also know the joy that comes when you wrestle through the questions and doubts and—holding tight to your floundering faith—keep walking until, eventually, God’s blessing unfolds.
In 2013, after pounding away on my keyboard hour after hour, day after day, and year after year, I finally received “the call.”
That’s publishing speak for the conversation with a publisher that ultimately leads to a contract.
I can’t tell you how many words I’d typed, conferences I’d attended, articles and blog posts I’d written, or pieces of feedback I’d received along the way. Many more than I ever anticipated when my husband bought me my first laptop and encouraged me to pursue the passion God placed in my heart.
Along the way, I started, quit, cried, and gave in to frustration more times than I can count.
I fought with God, yielded to Him, doubted Him, trusted Him—and then doubted Him yet again.
Eventually, I reached a peaceful contentment where I could honestly say that following God’s will and experiencing the peace of His presence was enough.
Ironically, everything became muddy once I received my first contract.
Then the next. And the next.
By the time book five released, I began trading my ultimate purpose—living for Christ—for an emerging desire to live for myself. That slowly morphed into people-pleasing driven by a growing fear of failure.
Then came 2016.
The year I felt like I was hiking a steep, rocky incline without making progress. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t gain traction.
Eventually things became so insurmountable that I came to a painful realization.
God wasn’t blessing the work of my hands.
He wasn’t opening doors that I could see.
In fact, it seemed as if He were slamming them shut.
I thought my career was over.
Over a decade of my life—wasted.
For a time, I lost my sense of self. My confidence in God’s goodness grew shaky.
But that was also when my faith took a major turn.
Even now, that day remains vivid in my mind.
I was in our basement, riding the exercise bike with a stack of handwritten Scripture cards propped on the dash in front of me. I recited them out of simple obedience, though none of them seemed to land.
But the Lord met me there—in my pain and discouragement—through the words of one handwritten verse I didn’t remember writing.
It was Psalm 147:5:
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.
I sensed God asking me,
“Do you believe this about Me? Do you believe I’m all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, and good?”
That moment forced me to confront something deeper than my circumstances: what I truly believed about God.
That question invited me to examine the root of my fears and frustrations—and the statements the statements they made about God.
My soul answered with a confident yes.
Yes, my Lord is all those things—and more.
My circumstances didn’t change His character or His heart.
And that truth—not my disappointment—became the foundation on which I anchored my faith.
The foundation that sustained me when He revealed His next assignment.
And the one after that.
And the one after that.
That was sixteen books, hundreds of keynotes, and countless articles ago.
Now, sitting at my desk and looking back over the disappointments and celebrations since, I can boldly proclaim:
Great is my God and mighty in power. His understanding is limitless.
So if you find yourself in that difficult space between your obedient yes and the moment your faith becomes sight, hold tight to this truth:
God has good planned for you.
He will not leave you wandering aimlessly through the wilderness forever.
He will not waste a single tear or frustrating moment.
Instead, He will use it all to fulfill the beautiful plans He crafted for you before you took your first breath—or your first timid step.
Because when the road feels long,
Great is our Lord and mighty in power.
When the path feels confusing,
His understanding has no limit.
When your faith feels fragile,
Great is our Lord and mighty in power.
And when you cannot yet see where the road leads,
His understanding has no limit.
If this resonated with you, make sure to listen to the Faith Over Fear episode titled “When Life Feels Unfair: How to Trust God When Hardship Hits”
