Living in the“in between” times.

I hate waiting. Ever since I was a small child, I can remember that I’ve always hated waiting. Whether it was waiting for a Happy Meal in the McDonald’s drive-thru, waiting for my parents to take me to the park, or waiting for Christmas Day to come throughout the month of December, I found waiting to be almost unbearable. I’m not sure how much that has changed.

 Certainly I have grown more patient over the years. We really don’t have much choice but to learn some degree of patience as adults. As we go through life, and begin to take on more and more responsibility, it is imperative that we learn to manage expectations and emotions that arise when we are feeling impatient. But truth be told, even as an adult who has grown in patience significantly since childhood, I nevertheless find that I still wrestle with impatience often. 

 It is especially difficult to be patient when what we are waiting for seems to take years and years. Let’s refer to these prolonged periods of time as the in-between times. I would define the in-between times as those seasons in life in which we find ourselves primarily focused on the glory days of the past with perhaps a fading hope of greater things ahead. But, in the present, there seems to be neither the glory of the past nor the hope of the future. 

 We see such in-between times like this throughout the Bible. Whether it’s the figure of Joseph while waiting in Potiphar’s dungeon, or the nation of Israel in exile, God’s people have repeatedly found themselves learning to live well in the in-between times. One of the great Bible passages that not only describes such times, but teaches us what to do about them, is Psalm 126. 

 1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
3 The Lord has done great things for us;
    we are glad.

4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
    like streams in the Negeb!
5 Those who sow in tears
    shall reap with shouts of joy!
6 He who goes out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    bringing his sheaves with him.

 In this brief psalm (just six verses long), the hymn writer begins by reflecting on the glorious deliverance that the Lord had begun in the past, likely referring to the first exiles returning from Babylon (in vss. 1-3). But then, in vss. 4-6, the psalmist laments the present situation. The in-between times are hard, often accompanied by tears. But the psalmist knows he must keep on sowing, even if he sees no apparent fruit from his labor. And yet, because the Lord is who He is, there is hope, that if the people of God will labor faithfully even in the midst of what looks like failure, the Lord will one day reward all their efforts by His marvelous grace.

 So in order to help God’s people to keep the faith during those in-between times, here are three things we can put into regular practice from Psalm 126:

 

  1. Reflect and give thanks for the great things God has done in the past. The goal of this practice is to give glory to God, increase in gratitude, and avoid being taken captive by memories run wild.

  2. Acknowledge your present difficulties and give them to God in prayer. The goal here is to avoid the opposite mistakes of either denying our present challenges on the one hand, or of trying to bear the full weight of them alone on the other. Christians believe in a God who loves them, and desires to help them in their time of need. And so we are invited to honestly lay before God the things that concern us.

  3. Ask God for the strength to keep sowing seeds of the Kingdom while awaiting future rewards. Christians are not promised a life without tears, but we can pursue good through them. For whatever amount of time we spend in one of life’s in-between times, let us never cease to sow the same seeds of the Kingdom that were first sown into ours.

 If we do these things regularly, in either/both spoken or written form, I believe we will find renewed spiritual strength that will help us to be both faithful and fruitful during those in-between times.

 

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The Journey from Fear to Fearlessness.