Learn from the Middle

By: Victoria Zangaro

When you find yourself in the middle of something, there should be a higher awareness than ever. In these seasons, our radar should be fully on as we seek to see and understand what God wants us to learn. 

Let’s make it clear .  .  . we don't go into bad situations in our lives because we're  “bad Christians” or anything like that. While yes, sometimes we find ourselves in difficult situations and circumstances as natural consequences for sinful behavior or patterns—such as failing a class due to skipping assignments or copying others’ work, cheating on a test, a car accident due to texting and driving, etc, or going through friendship troubles because we betrayed someone's trust—even these situations and seasons aren't about punishment and wrath. Consequences for actions aren't indicative of how God feels about you or sees you. He loves you! He knows you're going to sin, fall short, struggle, and everything in between. He knew every decision you'd make, every bad thing you'd do, every struggle you'd have, He knew it all . . . and yet knowing all this ahead beforehand, He still sent Jesus to pay the price for all our sins, once and for all. 

He loves you always and forever, is pleased with you, and sees the innocence and worthiness of Jesus when He sees you.  So, no . . . hard seasons aren't God's way of getting back at you or punishing you, they're His way of growing you and purifying you. You can rest assured that no matter what, no matter where you find yourself, what you're experiencing is always for your good and His glory. 

We may not understand it, but if I'm being honest, we're not expected to nor do we need to. For example, why did a family member die of a disease? We may not know the answer to that, but God knows what is best at the end. We can only see what is surrounding us, while God can see the whole world and all of time at the same time.

Like Joseph, who dealt with betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, enslavement, and imprisonment in the 17 year period between the moment his brothers sold him into slavery and the moment he was reunited with his family as second in command in Egypt, who probably didn't understand why these things were happening to him or what God was doing in these seasons, we won’t always know in the midst of the work what God is doing and how He’s working, but we don’t have to in order to trust Him, rest in His promises, and live faithfully. 

We can remember all He’s done in the past—how He’s never forsaken us and has always been faithful. This allows us to have confident hope about today and tomorrow. Joseph remembered the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We have the Bible and we’re surrounded by what the author of Hebrews calls “a great cloud of witnesses”—the testimonies and God stories of believers throughout history and around us right now—which allows us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2 NIV). We can trust that it’s God who has brought us to where we are for His good purposes. 

So, friends, my counsel to you in this time is to trust God! He has the full picture. During these moments of despair, look and see what you are paying attention to or doing that you may have never done before. Maybe you're talking to your nonbeliever friends about Christ, maybe you're helping the elders, or you were able to serve more in church. Previously, you may have been timid to share the Word of God, but now it's all you have to cling to. 

I will always remember when my family and I were staying with a missionary family. The missionary was close friends with my grandma for years, and He wanted to take us around the villages to talk to the people and the churches that were planted. On our way to one of the villages a police officer stopped us to make sure we had all of our paperwork. However, this was an opportune time for our friend, the missionary gave the policeman a pamphlet on how to be saved and started talking about Christ to his co-workers. This happened when I was a young girl, and I couldn’t forget how amazed I was. There is always someone that we can learn from that will help us grow in our relationship with Christ, we just need to observe and intake what we learn from being in the middle.