by Blythe Daniel @BlytheDaniel

Satisfied with Your Progress Today

Blythe Daniel

Do you feel like the new year has brought some surprises and shifts in it? I certainly have. Shifting in some ways I would deem positive and some shifting in ways that I didn’t see coming, but I know God is in it and is with me.

Recently I was talking with my teenage children about progress and what life looks like years down the road. I told them that they may not get a medal or recognition for doing something great, but they gain confidence and can see how far they’ve come in life. They gain courage to do something new and learn how to do something better. As we talked about how they have come from challenges and reached a certain place in sports or in music right now, this thought hit me:

If you can’t be satisfied with your progress today you won’t be fulfilled with your success tomorrow.

I see this applying to writers as well. Many writers get stuck in their progress and don’t think they can move forward. But if we can’t be content or even moved by our progress now, we won’t be ready or able to handle any success that comes in the future.

How do I see this playing out? We’re taught to reach for the next thing, but we don’t enjoy where we are. I have seen this in my life, over the years when I was the age my teens are now, and even in my adult years. Some of this was self-perpetuated, not just something shoved on me by others.

It made me think about the verse in scripture that says: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” (Zechariah 4:10, NLT)

Small beginnings aren’t always welcomed because they are, well, small. We like big!

Getting to a place where you are satisfied with your progress today might mean leaving some things half-done to pick up later when time or your brain space allows. Or it might mean quitting something else so that you can make room for your progress.

Comparison can be a real hindrance toward any of us making progress. When you compare where you are in your writing journey to where someone else is (maybe even someone who started at the same time as you, maybe even a good friend), it is like saying, “We should be at the same place right now” even though nothing else in life is really on equal footing. Some families have kids who graduate early, or don’t graduate at all. Are they no less successful? Some get married sooner or start a business sooner or later. So if we’re going to compare writing journeys, then we might as well start comparing where we are in all of these other areas, right?

Well no, of course we aren’t going to allow comparison to come into our relationships, our careers, our writing – and we don’t need to.

The Bible shares the story of the gracious spaciousness that God invited his chosen people, the Israelites, into. Yes, there was so humbling as they depended on him for manna. Yes, they went up against people who were more powerful than them and had much more training to fight battles. But it wasn’t about their righteousness that allowed them to see progress and success. It was about a covenant God chose to keep with their forefathers for wider territory, provisions and living that they could have never earned on their own.

If our progress isn’t measured by God’s faithfulness, we won’t be around to see the success, the promised land of writing, will we?

If you read Deuteronomy 5:30-32 (NIV), you’ll notice in verse 30 the timeline that is so intriguing to me. Moses gave the commands to the people right before they were to embark in “a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord the God of your fathers promised you.” They needed to know that their progress toward the promised land would not be successful if they didn’t learn and teach others what God commanded them to know and do in their new-found land. And verse 32 affirms what I need to tell myself often. Moses says: “So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left.

What a reminder to stay in our lane!

In the next chapter, Deut 6:5, they are told to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and strength right beforethey took possession of the land.

There is a clear path not just to hearing God’s commands, but then loving him. How many of us love an opportunity that God brings us, but we don’t always love him fully? We can move in the direction and make progress but if we aren’t loving God, any success that comes after will not have the sweetness that it could because of God being first place in our lives.

I love seeing noticeable progress in my writing life and in my clients’ lives as their literary agent. And cheering on other writers I get to meet at conferences. But what I would love to say is my primary response (and that I hear in conversations with others) is: “God has helped me get to this point and anything I do after this will be because he made it happen. I don’t operate out of striving, but I work hard for him, not for man.”

May this encourage you that as you move toward progress today, God will be holding out much ahead for you in success that lines up with the spacious places he has for you. Milk and honey included!

Blythe Daniel is a literary agent and marketer and has been in publishing for over 20 years. She has written for Proverbs 31 Ministries, Focus on the Family, Ann Voskamp, and Christian Retailing. She and her mother Dr. Helen McIntosh are the authors of Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters (Harvest House Publishers).

www.theblythedanielagency.com; www.ourmendedhearts.com