It happens. The rug is pulled from under the feet of your life and you find yourself estranged from every comfort you took for granted. You swing between effort and resent, denial and discouragement, faith for a moment before you’re all over the place yet again!
Suddenly there’s another revelation, as in déjà vu, “How on earth did I get here…?” and “How on earth do I get myself out of here…?”
I remember that thought; one vivid experience sitting in an AA meeting nearly 20 years ago, looking around thinking, “I don’t belong here!” There were moments I hated that I did actually belong there — in the comfort of friends I needed at the time — as I learned to live the spiritual life of recovery, unity and service.
I’ve had other times like it since. Times when I was stuck between my past and the coming, unknown and unknowable future awaiting me. You know it. It’s that future you hope for, a trust that God has good plans for how things end well, despite tragedy, travesty, or calamity. Yet, the in-between is an eaten-out wreck of a life — or so it seems.
It’s an uneasy time. A time where we may be given to feelings of dread, where we’re sorely tempted in some tremulous moments to give it all away. Not because we can’t be bothered, as if our issues were that simple and that relatively pain-free. They are not!
These are situations where we may momentarily despair even of life. These are situations we never thought were conceivable. We scratch our heads in sheer disbelief, because life as it was no longer is. We have entered a twilight zone, where what happened to us seems like a nightmare, and yet how can that be worse than the present stark state of anguish?
We never realise that as we stand on this precipice, we’re closer than ever to God. We don’t realise until we see and feel this, that it takes this amount of pain for God to get our attention. Finally, we’re on our knees praying.
Stuck between past and future is a faith-growing time, where there’s nothing to lose — and everything to gain — in simply putting one foot in front of the other, never giving up, knowing when we’re halfway through hell we’re halfway out.
I know it’s not as mathematical as that — halfway through; halfway out — but the longer we stride by faith, the further we travel, the more we see the faithfulness of God has gotten us this far; and that faithfulness will carry us all the way through.
Amazingly, when we’re stuck between our past and our future, God is doing a work in us to heal us of what’s gone in order to prepare us for what’s coming. Seems like we’re stuck. But we’re not. There’s actually a lot going on within the spiritual realms of our life.
So, when you’re halfway through hell remember you’re halfway out, and now is not the right time to relax. Stay diligent. Now is the making of you!
Now is the time to be present, to be mindful, to be obedient in discerning and taking each anointed step. Now is the time, taking each important step on the road to your God-appointed destiny.
Though now seems horrendous, there will soon be a looking back, where we may hear from God and even say to ourselves, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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