In the Meantime...
Picture This.
It’s a Saturday night, around 11:45 pm and you’re just now heading home from an awesome event. Still reeling from such a great time, you decided to drive around town instead of going straight home. You’re zooming through lights and revving your new engine every chance you get until you see a yellow light from a distance. You begin to think, “hmm. I’ve gotten through the other lights I can get through this one too” but then you realize it’s better to be safe than sorry, so you’re forced to stop. Now you’re waiting. Just waiting.
& waiting some more ..
& waiting some more ..
You’re now aware that you’ve been stuck at this red light for a strong minute. What’s the hold up? Should I just run it? Is it worth the ticket? I was making moves, reaching new levels, seeing new places and now I’m stuck! You quickly recognize that the only smart decision is to sit. So now the question becomes .. what will I do in the meantime?
The meantime, therefore, is not a learning process, it is an unlearning process. It is the time we are given by life to reflect, reevaluate and remember the truth about who we are and what love lends to our identity. The goal is to provide you with some new tools with which to evaluate and reflect – Excerpt from In the Meantime
“In the Meantime” is my current destination. Stuck at this red light mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally and I promise you in the beginning it was one of the most annoying and paralyzing feelings in the world. God really had me moving through so many open doors and the next thing you know my brain was blank, reading and living just became a routine and everything just seemed to be at a standstill. I had intentions on putting out blogs weeks ago, wanted to have certain conversations with certain people and accomplish more self-awareness work within myself to then have all my plans came to a halt; so abruptly, so randomly. So to get a better understanding of what was going on, I had to move past the fleshly feelings of being at a red light (frustrated, annoyed and lost) and go deeper into what God was trying to tell me about why he had me stop right here.
I believe it is in this slow moment, in this meantime, that really gives us the answers for what’s to come and allows us to look back and relish on what just happened.
“Being stuck at a red light” has happened to the best of us. We get so consumed in the fast pace of life, that we never think of the possibility of ever slowing down or stopping. When it actually DOES happen we tend to think God left, we’ve run out of blessings or that we’ve become a failure. When in reality, it’s just Him giving us the space to simply take a break. Maybe this is the time we need to stand still so that He can clear the road for us to be prepared to move to the next.
Let’s think about “the meantime” in two different ways:
Midterm
Though we all hate taking midterms, the main purpose behind them is to test our knowledge of the things we’ve learned thus far. Ranging from different chapters and specific topics, teachers want to see what you’ve absorbed and if you are capable of applying this new found knowledge to specific situations. Without the midterm (the pause between obtaining more knowledge), we would just be flowing through classes and maybe absorbing about .. 25-30% of what we actually learn (my guess).
Without life’s midterms, we really wouldn’t grasp the lessons behind our circumstances causing us to either repeat certain situations or misuse the knowledge we’ve gained simply because we don’t know how to apply it. Life grants us moments to analyze our previous situations and identify the necessary techniques (forgiveness, being assertive, showing more love etc.) so that we may apply it in the future.
Red Light
Red lights are utilized to stop travelers at certain points on the road to reduce accidents (unnecessary pain & harm) and to let others safely pass. Even stop signs are needed to clear up the space for us to move forward towards our final destination. If we just decided to run through life imagining that we are these invincible creatures, we would be putting ourselves at risk of pain/discomfort on a regular basis; decreasing the capacity to experience joy and peace. We need moments to really take a pause to recoup, recover, re-focus or revamp and THEN move forward. The car (mindset, belief, perspective) that got us from point A to point B may have worked before but not now. We may need a new one or something may need to be fine tuned because there is ALWAYS work to be done.
Though sometimes we feel that we are on a roll and want to continue, it is NECESSARY to have a meantime moment. As humans, we often feel that these red lights and these stalls are hell but in reality it’s just another gift from God. We have to give ourselves credit or even just a moment to breathe. If I just went through 2017 without remembering the amazing moments I had, life would be no fun and just a consistent race. SLOW DOWN. Everything does not have to be accomplished now.
Praise yourself for your accomplishments and take these standstills as grace and protection as He is just continuously clearing your path to make your next blessing accessible. In the meantime, when you find yourself at this standstill, reflect on what season you just came out of. What is it that God wanted you to learn/do? What changes have been made? Before you try to speed off onto the next, make sure that you have listened and learned from the lessons He provided. Identify whether you are actually ready to move onto the next, and figure out if you actually did what He asked you to do. No one wants to be administered the same test repeatedly.
