What started as a routine visit turned into something I wasn’t prepared for: a root canal with complications, an infection, a cracked tooth, two cavities, and a $10,000 recommendation for implants. All delivered while I was sitting in the chair, tooth cracked open, nowhere to go.
I felt trapped. The cost. The pressure to decide quickly. Old memories of bad experiences flooded back, and panic started to set in. Everything in me wanted to either shut down or make a frantic decision just to make the feeling stop.
But somewhere in the middle of that chaos, I heard something quieter than the noise. And instead of reacting from fear, I started filtering my thoughts through God’s wisdom. I didn’t have all the answers. I didn’t have $10,000. But I asked the one question I could: What can we do right now?
That question changed everything. Not because it solved the problem, but because it kept me at His pace rather than the panic’s pace.
Maybe you’ve had a moment like that. Not at the dentist, but in your business. In your marriage. In your calling.
A moment where something cracked open that you didn’t see coming, and suddenly someone, or everyone, had an opinion about what you should do next. Spend more. Pivot fast. Launch now. Wait longer. And underneath all the noise, you could feel the pull of fear, the weight of past disappointments, and the pressure to just do something.
In those moments, it’s easy to lose the thread. To stop listening for God’s voice and start reacting to everything else.
I know because I do it too. I want to always be moving at His pace, following His leading. But the honest truth is that sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I get ahead of Him. Sometimes I stall behind Him. And sometimes life just cracks open, and I have to find my way back to center in real time.
What I’ve learned, and keep learning, is that sensitivity to God’s pace isn’t something you arrive at once and keep forever. It’s a practice. A returning. A daily choice to filter through His wisdom before you move.
It’s Not About Being Still. It’s About Being Surrendered.
One of the biggest misconceptions about following God’s pace is that it always means slowing down. But that’s not quite it.
In that dentist chair, I wasn’t still. I was in pain, under pressure, and had a decision to make. Sensitivity to His leading didn’t remove the urgency; it just changed who was driving.
That’s the difference. Surrender isn’t passivity. It’s choosing to let His wisdom lead, even when everything in you wants to react out of fear.
For us as entrepreneurs, this matters deeply. Because we are wired to move. We see the vision, we feel the fire, and we want to go. And God loves that about us. But vision without surrender can become striving. And striving, even toward good things, will wear you down and lead you off course.
I’ve seen it in my own life. The moments I’ve run ahead of God looked productive on the outside but felt hollow on the inside. And the moments I’ve waited on Him, really waited, not just paused impatiently, those are the moments where something shifted that I couldn’t have engineered on my own.
His pace isn’t slow. It’s precise.
How to Stay Calibrated to His Pace
I won’t give you a formula because this isn’t a formula kind of thing. But I will share what keeps me returning to His pace when life gets loud.
Start before the noise does.
My morning quiet time isn’t just a spiritual discipline — it’s calibration. Before the emails, the to-do list, the decisions, I sit with God. Sometimes I bring questions. Sometimes I bring nothing at all and just let the silence do its work. What I’ve learned is that the more consistently I show up in the quiet, the faster I recognize His voice when things get loud.
You can’t develop sensitivity to something you only visit in a crisis. It has to be practiced in the ordinary so it’s available in the extraordinary.
Protect the pause.
I observe the Sabbath on Sundays. Not perfectly, but intentionally. And over time, it’s taught me that rest is not the enemy of progress; it’s part of the process. God built rhythm into creation on purpose. Work and rest. Output and receive. Movement and stillness. When we refuse to pause, we aren’t being more productive; we’re just being more disconnected.
The pause isn’t wasted time. It’s where you hear what you couldn’t hear while you were running.
Filter before you decide.
This is what saved me in that dentist chair. Before I responded to the pressure, I asked myself: Is this God’s wisdom or my fear talking? Those two voices can feel surprisingly similar in a crisis moment. Fear can dress itself up as urgency. Confusion can masquerade as clarity.
The filter question I keep coming back to is simple: Am I moving from peace or from panic?
Peace doesn’t always mean comfortable. Sometimes God leads you into hard things. But there’s a quality to Spirit-led movement that feels different from fear-driven movement. Learning to tell the difference is one of the most important things you can develop as a faith-driven entrepreneur.
Come back without shame.
This might be the most important one. Because you will drift. I drift. Life will crack open at inconvenient moments, and you’ll find yourself three steps ahead of God or frozen behind Him and wondering how you got there.
The practice isn’t staying perfectly in step. The practice is returning. Quickly, honestly, without a long detour through self-condemnation. Just, I got off pace, Lord. Here I am. Lead me.
He’s not surprised by your drift. And He’s never annoyed by your return.
His Pace Is an Invitation, Not a Test
I left the dentist that day without a $10,000 decision. I left with a plan for what could be done right now, and time to seek wisdom for the rest. It wasn’t a perfect resolution. But it was a peaceful one.
And that’s what I want for you.
Not a perfect business. Not a flawless strategy. Not a calling that unfolds on a timeline that makes sense to everyone watching. But a deep, practiced, returning-to sensitivity to the One who holds it all, and the peace that comes from moving when He moves and waiting when He waits.
You weren’t called to keep up with everyone else’s pace. You were called to keep up with His. And He is not in a hurry. He is not behind. He is not withholding from you. He is leading you, precisely, purposefully, at exactly the right speed, for everything He has prepared in advance.
The question isn’t whether He’s moving. The question is whether you’re listening.
A Prayer for Sensitivity to His Leading
Lord, I want to move at Your pace and be led by Your voice. Forgive me for the moments I’ve run ahead in striving or stalled behind in fear. Today I choose to return. To sit with You before I strategize. To filter through Your wisdom before I decide. To trust that Your pace is not slowness, it is precision. Lead me. I’m listening.
Amen.
One Last Thing
If this resonated with you, I want to ask you something honestly: Where in your business or your calling have you been moving from panic instead of peace?
You don’t have to have the answer right now. Just sit with the question. Let it be the beginning of a conversation between you and God.
That’s where the real work starts.
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