The Messy Middle

I am in the middle.

For the last couple of years, I have had difficult symptoms with my sinuses. Headaches, sinus infections…..eventually this led me to having problems with my vocal cords, which can be a little disconcerting to one whose career revolves around speaking. No matter what we tried, it just kept getting worse. Finally, after a particularly bothersome CT scan, my doctor recommended sinus surgery. He suggested it so casually….so flippantly……I immediately agreed, expecting a day or two of recovery and then getting right back to work.

Well…..those expectations proved naïve. When my surgeon got in there, he discovered that what he expected to be a 2.5 was more like a 7.5 or 8, and the procedure took much longer than he expected. My recovery is ongoing, but it has proven to be painful, uncomfortable, and longer than I expected as well. So here I am…..between a surgery to correct a progressive problem and the promised healing.

I’m in the middle.

And the middle is hard.

I have a friend who left a well-paying but abusive job a year ago. Seriously, the income was not worth the abuse. The expectations were unrealistic, the treatment horrible, the demands greater than anyone could have met. And so, courageously, my friend resigned. He had no job in hand, but he knew that his health required a change. And so, this high functioning, talented man resigned, furthered his education, and then aggressively jumped into the job market. A year later, he is still searching for work.

He is in the middle…..and it’s scary.

He’s no longer in an abusive situation, but he’s not yet in the future reward. He’s right in the middle of that journey, and it’s one that is fraught with anxiety, uncertainty, and discouragement.

It’s the messy middle…….and it’s a place we all must visit sometimes, though we usually hate it.

When I think about “the messy middle” I think about the Old Testament story of the nation of Israel. I think of their journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan.

For hundreds of years, the Israelites were Egyptian slaves. Their lives were not their own. They were abused, mistreated, humiliated, and often cried out to God for deliverance. And so……God sent Moses to lead them away from Egypt to a Promised land “flowing with milk and honey.”  A land that would be all their own….one that God would bless them with.

Many of you know the story. Pharaoh would not agree to let them go, as they were cheap labor and releasing them would be a blow to his pride as well. To reveal His greatness and His ability to fulfill His promises, God sent plagues on the Egyptians, ending in the death of the first born. Finally, Pharaoh agreed to release them and so the entire nation, let by Charlton Heston…..er…..I mean, Moses…..let them out into the desert. Long story short, Pharaoh’s army followed (the monarch had changed his mind), and this led to God parting the Red Sea and leading Israel through it on dry land. Thus, the Israelites escaped slavery......but they were not yet at Canaan.

They were in the middle……and the middle tested them.

In the middle, they were afraid. They were thirsty and complained, even when God gave them water. They were hungry and complained, even when God sent them quail and manna, repeatedly. They grumbled against Moses…….grumbled against God…….turned towards false idols…….were disobedient and, well……..complained and complained…..a LOT. And then, when they got to the edge of the Promised Land……they gave in to fear, and disobeyed…….and then they had to wander for 40 years before getting another chance.

In the middle…….AGAIN.

I tell you all this because as a counselor, I view my clients as being in the middle. They have often left something that was unhealthy for them or at least have realized they need to leave it. They have shown the courage to leave a harmful relationship, they have chosen to give up an addiction, they have finally roused themselves to face long-buried trauma. And so, they begin the counseling journey with enthusiasm……hope…..eagerness. And, at first, it helps. Just getting things out is cathartic. They initially feel better. They can finally catch a glimpse of what “might be” and spurs them onward.

But the road to Canaan is a long one………and it proves further away than they expected.

They find themselves in the middle.

It gets lonely……and harder than they expected.

The catharsis of getting those feelings out is replaced by how hard those emotions are in reality. They hurt. They become afraid.

Like the Israelites, they start to think it might have been better to have “stayed in Egypt.” Because, in Egypt….though it was awful, it was familiar. They knew what to expect, even if it wasn’t pleasant. The “middle” is unknown, unfamiliar. There is no way to know how long the middle will last, and the tension there can feel unbearable.

In the middle, it is easy to forget that there is a Canaan. There IS hope. There is a place on the other side of the middle.

Not perfect……not a place without hardship or difficulty…….but a place of hope and healing.

For Israel, Canaan was not perfect either. They had to battle their enemies…….they had to learn to trust God more deeply. They struggled even in the Promised land. But it was far better than Egyptian slavery and that was proven repeatedly.

And so here is the reality of it……we cannot escape the middle. If we have the courage to change…..the courage to recognize an unhealthy situation or to face our brokenness……if we are to ever have the resolve to believe there is something better for us……then we must brave the middle. Because the journey from Egypt to Canaan is not one that is just across the street. We don’t leave Egypt and go right into Canaan, as if it’s from leaving our living room and entering our kitchen.

No……in between Egypt and Canaan there is always a middle, and it’s a hard road.

But it’s worth it.

In the middle, we grow stronger. We learn resilience. We learn to trust that God is working, even when we don’t know how. We learn to surrender to His goodness and power. We experience the fact that He now only is all-powerful but that He also loves us…..and that He can be trusted.

There are lessons that can only be learned in the middle.

The middle is where illusions fall away. It is where we discover what we truly believe and who we truly trust. In the middle we learn that faith is not simply believing that God can lead us out of Egypt but choosing to keep walking with Him when the desert stretches longer than we expected. It is a choice we make again and again, especially on the days when the road feels uncertain and the old life calls us back because it was familiar. But those who keep walking begin to discover something quiet and powerful. Strength grows slowly. Courage deepens over time. The middle is uncomfortable and uncertain, but it is also sacred ground. It is the place where our old life is finally behind us and our new life is still ahead, and somewhere in that wide and quiet space God is shaping us for what comes next. So, if you find yourself there today, do not lose heart.

The middle is not where the story ends. It is where the real journey begins.