My grandmother used to offer a sage, old adage as advice: “Life is all about peaks and valleys. For every valley, there will also be a peak.” Remembering this pearl of wisdom can be either encouraging or humbling, depending on where you find yourself at the time. But what about the times that are in between?
While true in some moments, Grandma’s words didn’t seem to mesh with the reality of where most of life was lived. Though there have been times spent admiring the breathtaking view from atop the mountain, and others enduring the struggles of the valley of the shadow of death, most of life seems to be lived somewhere in between the two. Has that been the case in your life?
Do you remember the popular Dolly Parton song? “Working nine-to-five. What a way to make a living! Barely getting by – it’s all taking and no giving.” It really is enough to drive you crazy if you let it. This summer, let’s spend some time considering what we can do when life is somewhere in between the mountain top and the valley. How should life be lived when we seem to be stuck in a rut?
Handling Downtime Gracefully
Part of our difficulty comes from a culture that does not train us to handle downtime gracefully. We have been primed – pun intended – to select what we want and expect it to arrive at our doorstep the next day. Am I the only one who taps his foot while waiting for the microwave to pop the bag of popcorn?
Any time we sense a delay, we wander and stumble, feeling lost, alone, and punished. What a waste of time a delay can be. A delay seems like more than a valid reason to doubt God’s love or presence.
Living in between is not easy, yet it’s a familiar struggle for Christians. We usually think of faith as a joyful arrival, but the reality is we spend a lot of our time traveling on the road. Even though we know Good Friday turns into Easter Sunday, Saturday is a really long day. We are hungry to arrive, to move easily from one spot to another. Sometimes it feels as if the whole planet is straining with impatience, longing to arrive on the other side.
Could that be what Paul was telling the Romans? “We know that the whole creation has been groaning … waiting eagerly for our adoption to sonship” (Romans 8:22-23 NIV).
Smelling the Destination from Afar
When our children were younger, we would occasionally vacation at a spot on the panhandle of Florida. We would journey through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama on our way to the state’s Emerald Coast. In between our home and the Florida beach house, the journey was long and cumbersome. With three – and sometimes four – children, it could also be challenging.
When we had crossed the Florida state line and were still over an hour away from our destination, a miraculous thing happened. We could begin to smell the salty ocean air. Suddenly, squabbles between the children were over, and they began reliving past vacation experiences. Behind the steering wheel of the car, there was renewed vigor, energy and patience.
Adrenaline seems to drive us when we are at the top of our game or mired in a slump, but what sustains us when we are wandering through the mundane murk of the ordinary? Does religion or the Bible provide any guidance for the person striving to be faithful?
Did you know the Bible contains the stories of several individuals who were at a point in life where their wheels were spinning, but they seemed to be going nowhere? It also contains some words of challenge and encouragement to guide the individual in that predicament.
In Between Seeks to Master the Art of Waiting
During the weeks this summer, we will look at the land in between. Through stories and Scriptures, we will find that when we are in between, God wants us to master the art of waiting, to fill our thinking with wonder, and to work some specific tasks that will help focus on our destination.
Let’s close today by combining two important passages of Scripture. Think first about the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. The writer tells us about all of the heroes of the faith. As they were on their spiritual journeys, God made them promises they had to see “from afar,” desiring to arrive in a “better country, that is a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:13-16).
Now think back to Romans 8, like the men and women who provided us a heritage of faith, we groan in hope while we are on the journey. We do not lose heart, because God has made a promise to us that we will experience in full “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:16, 21, 23).
We Will Radiate the Glory of God
Our destination – the land beyond “in between” – promises that we will radiate the glory of God. As C.S. Lewis put it, we will experience what “can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see.” These devotions should provide us with a fun trip.