True Success: Live and Lead Without Losing Your SoulSample

I’m not proud of this, but I often live like I believe God is late.

Sure, I’ll say all the right things about his sovereignty, his timing, his perfect plans. But when the breakthrough takes too long, the fruit seems slow to ripen, or I’m still waiting for that one open door, I feel it rising in me.

Impatience. Doubt. That ache of wondering, what’s taking so long?

So far in this journey, we’ve explored how God defines success.

It begins with doing God's will. It continues by doing it God's way. And today, we turn to the final, and perhaps most difficult, part of the equation: doing it in God's time.

Because if Scripture is our guide, then slowness in the kingdom of God is not failure. It is formation.

Joseph is a powerful example. As a teenager, God gave him dreams that he would rise, and others would bow. That God would use him in powerful, world-changing ways.

And then… nothing happened.

Worse than nothing. He was betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused, and forgotten.

For thirteen long years, Joseph waited. He served as a slave in Potiphar’s house, was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, interpreted dreams with the promise of release, and was forgotten again.

But when Pharaoh finally called for him, Joseph was ready. Not just gifted, but grounded. Not just wise, but deeply formed.

Psalm 105:19 says, “Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.”

God was not stalling. He was strengthening.

I have had my own versions of that waiting room.

I think back to a two-year stretch in my life when I was mostly bedridden with migraines. The days blurred together. I could not work, create, or even parent in the ways I wanted to. Everything felt slow. Stalled. Fruitless.

And yet, God was doing deep, invisible work.

He was teaching me, slowly and tenderly, that my worth was not in what I produced.

It was in simply being his.

My guess is that you’ve been there too. Or perhaps you are even in God’s waiting room now.

Maybe it is a vision that has not yet come to pass. A prayer that is still unanswered. Or a season that feels like one long pause.

But what if this waiting is not a delay, but a design?

What if God is doing more in us than he is through us right now?

What if this isn’t God delaying success, but revealing the only kind that truly lasts—his will, his way, his time?

We live in a world that prizes the quick win and the overnight success. But kingdom success is rarely microwaved. It is more like bread. Kneaded. Rested. Baked over time.

God’s timing shapes more than outcomes. It shapes us.

Today, if you feel behind, stuck, or forgotten, take heart.

God is never in a hurry.
He is also never late.
And nothing done in faith—no waiting, no praying, no surrender—is ever wasted.

“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

Prayer
Lord, your timing often confuses me. But I do not want to measure success by speed or immediate results. Teach me to trust your pace. Help me believe that what feels slow may actually be sacred. I choose to wait on you.

We began this journey with a team lost in the wrong jungle. Tomorrow, you’ll revisit their story—but this time, through the lens of everything we’ve learned. You may be surprised by what changes.