“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”[1]

 

Living inBetween

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN

to be “living inBetween?”

 

We mark transitional moments within space or time as in between. We are flying in between Seattle and Amsterdam. We will arrive in between seven and eight o’clock. I am in between jobs right now.

 

“Living inBetween” is an important season of waiting, where at the time it may make no sense. It may be unexpected or frustrating, even painful. We look for a way to get through it as quickly as possible, a light at the end of the tunnel. What we may not realize is that “living inBetween” is not just a moment to hurry through. It is an art form we will want to cultivate once we discover the purpose it plays in our lives.

 

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him …”[2]

 

A door closes. Sometimes gently. Sometimes slamming shut. You are locked out, puzzled at what has just happened. Your plans once seemed certain, but now lay unfulfilled on the other side of the door. As you look around, it feels as though every door is closed. You are unsure as to what is next. All at once it hits you. You are “living inBetween.”

 

“It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.”[3]

 

A key to “living inBetween” is not to panic. Jeff Goins writes, “Moments of breakthrough are not where life’s greatest transformation happens; the stuff that God uses to shape us often lies in the in between. It’s the bus stops and layovers and DMV lines and moments of unintentional pause that force us to become better people. That’s not to say there aren’t moments of epiphany. There are. It’s just that most of us find ourselves living somewhere in the in between.”[4]

 

“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.”[5]

 

This is why honing the art of “living inBetween” is so important. Standing outside a closed door has to represent more than disappointment or lost opportunity. Look carefully and you will find beneath each door is a strip of wood or metal known as a sill or threshold. You are not just facing a closed door. You are at a threshold. The right door will open, and when it does, you will cross over into a new beginning, a new career, or a new threshold of awareness.

 

Richard Hirsch writes, “In describing uncertain moments as threshold moments — personal as well as communal — we may be able to bring some degree of comfort and calm to the inevitable vulnerability and instability of living between what has been and what is yet to be.”[6]

 

Our “inBetween” moments draw us closer to Jesus. We pray. We grow. We lean into him more than we did before the door closed. We must. And we listen closely when, as to the prophet Jeremiah so to us the Lord declares, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”[7]

 

My Jewish friends mark thresholds with a mezuzah, a ritual capsule containing parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah — “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”[8]

 

To these are added the words — “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you. You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”[9]

 

These are not just ordinary words … these are ^God’s promises to us in the “living inBetween” moments of our lives. Promises to believe in, blessings to be received.

 

May Jesus keep us close.

[1] Romans 8:25

[2] Psalm 37:7

[3] Isaiah 25:9

[4] In-Between: Embracing the Tension Between Now and the Next Big Thing by Jeff Goins. An audio book

[5] Proverbs 20:5

[6] Rabbi Richard Hirsch, longtime leader of Reform Judaism in the United States, Israel and worldwide, died at the age of 95, August 17,2021

[7] Jeremiah 29:11

[8] Deuteronomy 6:4-9

[9] Deuteronomy 11:13-21