Trusting God in the middle, not just at the end
I wonder how many times the Israelites asked Moses, “are we nearly there yet?” whilst they were wandering in the wilderness. Or how many times Abraham asked God, “how much longer until we have a baby?”. Perhaps, like the Israelites and Abraham, God has promised you something or spoken a calling over you, but you haven’t seen the completion of this yet. You’re still waiting. You’ve still not reached the end.
I think that often in Christian circles we focus on the end; we talk about the miraculous healing, the answered prayer, the word from God fulfilled. It’s right to celebrate these things because they can help us to trust God but is this really when we need faith? Personally, I need faith far more when I’m in the middle; when I’m still praying, when I’m still waiting for God to intervene, when I’m still trusting on God to fulfil a promise he made me.
Often in the Bible when God makes a promise to someone or speaks a calling over someone it takes years until that is fulfilled. The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness before they reached the promise land, Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years before they had a child, David was anointed as king when he was a teenager but didn’t get to wear the crown until about 20 years later after having to hide from Saul and Jacob had to work a total of 14 years for his wife Rachel. The Bible is full of these “middle” moments – the time between the calling and the completion.
But why does God allow such long times of waiting?
It’s because it’s in the middle where we learn to trust God. We learn to live by faith and not by sight as 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us. That middle period is hard and tiring but it is also fruitful and necessary.
We also see in the Bible times when people have tried to rush the middle. Abraham and Sarah gave up trying to have a baby themselves and tried to fulfil God’s call on Abraham through Hagar. But this wasn’t what God had planned, this wasn’t God’s ending and it led to a lot of heartbreak and hurt. The Israelites multiple times grumbled in the wilderness and wanted to return to the slavery in Egypt that God had rescued them from and because of this their arrival into the promise land was delayed. It reminds me of the famous children’s book “we’re going on a bear hunt” – when faced with a difficult path there is no other option than to go through it.
So how do we live faithfully in the middle?
Stay in the Word – God gives us the gift of scripture which we often take for granted. Scripture can be a powerful tool to remind us to fix our eyes on God and we can lean on the stories of so many others who had to battle and struggle through their middle seasons.
Be honest with God – one of my favourite things about reading through the Psalms is how honest David was with God in his prayer life. So many Psalms are songs of praise but there are also many which are David crying out to God and we can do the same. We can be honest with God when we’re struggling with our faith or when the waiting is hard.
Remember past faithfulness – You may not be at the end just yet but there will be times before where God has been faithful to you. Throughout their time in the wilderness, Moses reminds the Israelites of how God miraculously brought them out of Egypt. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness so keep a journal of when God has been faithful to you or your family to go back to when you need it.
Lean on community – The amazing thing about being a Christian is that you’re part of God’s family, you don’t have to do any of it alone. Find some strong Christian friends who you can turn to when the middle gets tough, church small groups are a great place for this.
