What Jonah Taught Me About Waiting

By William Norvell

In late 2024, I had an idea I couldn't shake.

One of those every time you have coffee with someone it’s the crazy idea you just have to talk about kind of things.

Short version … Christian LEGOs ® .  

The greatest book in the world meets the greatest toy in the world.

Longer version … biblical stories you could build with your own two hands. You could do this as a family or alone.  But the result … hands to the heart to the head will make stories come alive in crazy new ways.

I wrote the deck. I ran the numbers. I told my wife. I told a few friends.

And then I... kept working at my startup Forte (which I truly loved).

You see I have lots of ideas. I always want to give space to the idea because in my life having the idea and having the green light from God to pursue the idea are two different things.

If you build in the Bay Area, you know the gospel we actually preach out here. Ship fast. Show traction. Hit the metrics. Growth at all costs. Visible fruit is the only fruit that counts around here sometimes.

But that's not how God grows things.

Most of what He does in us happens slowly, on his time … not ours. 

My flesh HATES this approach though to be honest … so I wrestled with it but ultimately tried to match God’s timing.

Fast forward to July 13th, 2025. I'm in Lake Tahoe staring out over the water doing my Bible in a Year reading with Nicky Gumbel (do this if you have not!), and the passage is Jonah. 

The title of the day is “The God of the Second Chance:

At the end of the devotional it’s summed up like this … “In Jonah, we see that Jonah worried much more about looking good than saving the lives of thousands of people. It matters what we do, not what we look like.”

I like to tell people I know what God’s voice sounds like because I don’t hear it too often.

That day I heard loud and clear …

"It's so hard right now because I've told you to go to Nineveh — and you're running away from me."

In this instance, God wasn’t being slow, I was. Turns out the waiting was me running. I had the idea. I had the plan. And I was treating "not yet" as "no" so I could stay comfortable on a boat headed the wrong direction (for me).

So there I was. New plan secured.

I called my co-founder Vineet and said the quiet part out loud.  “I think it’s time for me to go”.

Luckily he’s the best partner you could ask for so after some sadness he said … “You are going to build that stupid Christian Lego company right.  I hope so because you haven’t stopped talking about it for years.  I’m your first customer”.

Timing still matters though. I had a company with Vineet and I was still a steward of it. I had a co-founder, investors, customers and tons of other people I owed a clean handoff to. 

Obedience and recklessness are not the same thing, no matter how holy the recklessness feels.

So I stayed. I like to think I finished well. I let the roots keep going down even after I knew exactly where I was being planted.

And THEN I officially left December 31st 2025 and incorporated Tektones January 2nd 2026 (Stripe Atlas was down for the New Year’s Holiday).

Our first set coming out in 90 days should not be shocking … Jonah and the Whale.

1163 pieces of magical building that will change your soul if you let it.

A storm-tossed ship and a great fish with a hinged mouth you can tuck Jonah inside — for three days, or three seconds. The very story God used to call me out of hiding became the very first thing we built. I didn't plan that. You couldn't plan that. That's the kind of thing only makes sense looking backward, after the fruit finally breaks the surface.

And here's what I keep coming back to.

I think we get this backwards as builders.

We treat formation like a delay. Like the real story starts the day the product goes live and the metrics start moving. But the year nobody saw — the plan, the waiting, the porch in Tahoe, the honest exit — that wasn't the prologue.

That WAS the work.

The launch is just the part that other people can finally see.

So if you're in your underground season right now — idea written, heart stirred, but the visible thing hasn't come yet — let me offer you the thing I needed to hear:

You might not be behind.

You might be becoming.

And if you're running from your Nineveh because the waiting got uncomfortable ... I’ve been there.

Know that God is with you, the roots matter and He is “The God of Second Chance”.

William Norvell is a founder, entrepreneur, and storyteller who is passionate about helping people discover God's purpose in their work and calling. He is the founder of Tektones, a company creating buildable biblical experiences for families and individuals, and a co-founder of Forte and Faith Driven Entrepreneur. William serves on the Advisory Council of Faith, Work & Tech, where he contributes to conversations around leadership, entrepreneurship, spiritual formation, and faithful presence in today's culture.