Unfortunately, the funding for the ISBN’s has been pulled into more practical matters. So, my timeline will have to stretch. I was hoping to have the books out by the end of the year, but I don’t see that as a possibility, which is discouraging but… hopefully, it’s not forever.
It’s tempting to spend money you don’t have because you believe your work will do well when it sells. That’s hubris. That’s failing to recognize that others might not like what you write, or that there’s better stuff already out there, or that they may be indifferent to what you write, or completely oblivious that it is even out there. If your own family has needs that have to be met first, their futures can’t be imperiled by your hobby. It’s also not accepting that the delay may be simply a built-in pause placed in your path by God.
It’s said that the last prophet recorded in the Bible in the Old Testament was some 400 years before the coming of Christ. Why? Why make the people of Israel wait so long, live under tyranny for all those years waiting for the Messiah they had been promised? Answer: The Fullness of Time.
The Fullness of Time is God’s plan with God’s timing. For Christianity to spread quickly, there needed to be relative safety (Pax Romana) and a means of high-speed communication (Roman roads and paper – of a sort). Until that time, all of those things didn’t exist at the same time.
As a person of faith, I have to believe that the same God whose timing has ordered so much history and even my own life will continue to do just as He’s done in the past. So, I will continue to work on my books, and exercise patience … and faith.
JTL
(P.S. – Thanks to Phil Vischer for his lovely educational series on video – he’s grown me some.)