In The Meantime

"I am coming to visit you after I have been to Macedonia, for I am planning to travel through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay awhile with you, possibly all winter, and then you can send me on my way to my next destination. This time I don’t want to make just a short visit and then go right on. I want to come and stay awhile, if the Lord will let me. In the meantime, I will be staying here at Ephesus until the Festival of Pentecost. There is a wide-open door for a great work here, although many oppose me."
1 Corinthians 16:5-9 (New Living Translation)

In The Meantime

Lately, the phrase "in the meantime" has been coming up a lot in my thoughts and conversations. Usually, that means a devotional will spit out eventually - hence, this little piece.

Really, though, I have felt in a constant mode of waiting for the past three years. I chose a course of action that seemed right and validated. And yet, my choice(s) seem to have just lengthened the period of waiting. Wait, worry and work. That's what my life appears to be about. I keep thinking that just around the corner, I'll be able to rest a bit. But then, a worry comes up. And worry is work, let me tell you. When I am worried, it doesn't matter how much time I have off -- a weekend or a month -- it is as if no time at all is free.

It is as if I have a mission somewhere out there in my nebulous future, but in the meantime, I am here doing this. It doesn't matter where "here" is or what "this" is -- it is simply my "in the meantime" experience. Do you ever feel like this or think like this? Some of us, from what I can discern, really have found their niche. When you talk to them, they say things like "I have the best job in the world" or "I wouldn't trade what I do for anything". I marvel and I wonder if they have found their niche......or if they have learned the secret of living "in the meantime."

I am in wait, worry and work mode again, but travelling to and from downtown Edmonton in the mornings and evenings, respectively, I gaze through the bus windows at the wintry city scenes flashing by. We have had a couple of relatively early snowfalls, and there is a blanket of white that illuminates the houses with their twinkling lights, and that somehow makes normally unattractive storefronts seem quaint and inviting all of a sudden. And as I each day meet more and more people who are kinder than I ever expected, I thank God for reminding me that though I may struggle and strain for things unseen and as yet unrevealed to me, and though there is alway hope for a better future . . .

What we do in the meantime reveals the extent to which our character has been developed. Will we push on to the next destination because our desire is so great that it overwhelms everything else? Or will we try and see the wide-open door(s) for great works to be done right where we are?

Life is lived "in the meantime."