The Beauty Of The Messy Middle

A few weeks ago I was driving out to my daughter's school for an event, and the Lord and I were talking about different things happening in life when I saw a beautiful tree that arrested my attention.  On the bottom, the tree had all purple leaves and flowers, but on the top they were changing into the yellow that they would be for the rest of the summer season. 

I passed a few of these trees on my drive, and then there was a stretch of 3 or 4 that stood out.  These ones were extreme in their colors, and the tops were bright yellow.  In the middle, the purple and yellow had met together and were intertwined creating a vivid experience.  I couldn't help but say to the Lord, "Wow!  These purple and yellow trees are just stunning!"  And He immediately responded and dropped this word into my heart, "This is how I see you when you're in transition, it's the beauty of the messy middle."  And He began to download this word to me: the time in between the word He spoke to you of a promise, the beautiful word given to you for a wonderful future, is the purple flowers on the bottom.  But as that word matures into faith in your heart, it becomes the lasting color of the yellow on top.  The time between, He considers to be the beautiful journey of you becoming the steward of that promise He gave you.  It's the messy middle.  You aren't yet beholding the promise He spoke of, but no longer who you once were.  It's the discomfort of the in-between.

When the Lord gives you a dream or vision, hold on to that.  Allow that word to grow within you and don't let the enemy snatch it away.  And as it grows, it will blossom into a beautiful promise of belief.  Often these promises from the Lord come with a waiting period, and that's where our faith is tested.  It's during this time that we have to learn to hold fast to what God has spoken, learn how to believe and contend for what He said.  Our character is forged through this process of becoming as we wait. 

And this waiting process is where we find our messy middle.  We aren't yet there in the promised land, holding the promise in our hands, but we've been changed through the vision God gave us.  There's no going back to who we were before He spoke!  And the middle between, is often filled with bloody battles, tear-stained mornings and evenings.  The waiting between isn't who you used to be, but also not yet who you are becoming on the way to the promised land, and yet the Lord calls it beautiful.  It might feel disorientating, leave you uncertain or insecure, but God doesn't see you as a mess.  He sees you as stunning, someone worthy of Him crafting you into a lovely masterpiece.  And it's all a part of the process He calls sanctification. 

Sanctification is the action of making or declaring something holy, the action or process of being freed from sin or purified.  During the wait, the Lord is removing anything that can't come with you into the promised land.  He is burning off anything that could poison your promise or prematurely abort what He wants to fulfill in you.  If there is trauma from your childhood, or bitterness from past seasons, maybe unforgiveness for certain wrongs, those things will need to be burned up by the Lord's fire.  And most often our character is forged through extreme adversity while the Lord gently shapes us in His hands.

I love this quote by Sherrilyn Kenyon, because it perfectly describes the process of sanctification we go through with the Lord on our way to the promised land. “Strength through adversity. The strongest steel is forged by the hottest fires. It is pounded and struck repeatedly… The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it strength. Those two things make it able to withstand every battle…”