Living Between the Times

It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. —Luke 12:43

What do we mean by the phrase “living between the times”? To begin with, that is what life is—a series of events linking the past and the future. Most are mundane happenings, but others are so special in their nature.

Between the times is when you are waiting for it to actually happen. Could it be that is where you are? Perhaps you feel that you are living between the times. You may not realize that God has brought you to this place, but you will discover that God is up to something.

Why is it that God makes us wait and for so long? There are three things I want us to see:

1. Some things take time—even for God.

How many of you have ever said in your prayers, “O Lord, how much longer?” But what about God? He has to wait, too. He has the power to end everything, but for reasons that we will not understand until we get to heaven, God subjected Himself to the conditions He created, whereby He too must wait.

2. Between the times there’s something for us to learn.

Perhaps you have lost sight of God’s promises and are still blaming everybody else. You may be a mature person, yet you still wallow in self-pity. If that is the case, you need to seek a fresh and wonderful outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

3. Between the times, God still looks after us.

Some people mistake God’s care for their needs for being in right standing with Him. Now, God’s provision may show that God is with you, but it doesn’t mean that everything is right with you.

From our viewpoint it is sometimes difficult to understand why God doesn’t act sooner. But when, eventually, He acts, we come to see that it couldn’t have happened sooner, and it is a mercy that it didn’t.

Excerpted from All’s Well That Ends Well (Authentic Media, 2005).