The importance of the "In between"

Have you ever asked the questions "What's next?", or "In what direction should I go?". Maybe you have asked this question of your current vocation, a current dating relationship, or current experience or lack thereof in relational community. This is a tension that has risen to the surface of my heart and mind over the last year and a half of living in the "in between". The "in between" is that place in the human experience where we are aware that our current circumstance and experience are not where we desire to remain. It is a temporal place that causes us to ask questions like, "What do I really desire to invest my life in?", "What do I desire my life to look like 10 years from now?", "What do I want to be doing 10 years from now?", "What am I doing to move towards meaningful relationships both in the direction of marriage and community?"  It is a place of frustration and yet self discovery. It is a place of questioning and yet a place of the opportunity for gaining clarity. Things are not yet as I desire them to be in these particular areas of my life and I wonder how I can move in the direction of where I desire to be? I've heard said that "life is not a destination, but a journey" and this is true in many ways. However in this season of "in between" I have become more conscious of my need to have an idea of where I would desire to be.  


A friend named Ken asked last year at a men's retreat, "What do you want your life to look like in 5 years?". I honestly hadn't thought much about that given my tendency to be controlled by the "Tyranny of the Urgent" and the overwhelming demand of the present. What a great question to ask of ourselves! So few probably take the time to consider such a question and is it really possible to move in a direction if there hasn't been a thoughtful process of our current reality and our desired reality?  I wonder if many thoughtful dreamers lose their way to their preferred reality due to the challenge of this intentional process?  And where would this intentional and thoughtful process of our current reality and our desired reality lead us to anyway?  Over the last few weeks as I have become increasingly aware of this restlessness within for direction - movement - towards a desired/ preferred reality I have considered options as extreme as taking a year break from my current vocation, to move to a West Coast city like Seattle or Portland, to get a common job as a coffee barista which would allow me to take more time to enter into this thoughtful process, while at the same time seeing the sights and enjoying the outdoors. 


Maybe these sentiments are the ramblings of a man without direction or without the ability to take root and accept the current reality as a preferred reality. Maybe this restlessness within is just a childish inability to commit or to be content in the present? Or maybe it is something deeper? Maybe it is the inner sense that there is more to my life than what I am currently doing and experiencing?  Maybe this restless experience in the "in between" is really the Lord's way of creating the opportunity for me to move from my current reality in the direction of my preferred reality? I have become more increasingly aware of the things I desire to pursue developing in my life; my ability to write, to communicate, to engage people at a heart level. to go places with people. In this season of life in the "in between" i have intentionally listened more to the Lord and to others. I have intentionally written more about my thoughts and insights, and I have intentionally read more to consider other peoples thoughts and insights. This season has been an incredibly contemplative place where I have felt the frustration of unrealized desires and yet I have experienced the clarifying of  some of these desires along with the birth of new desires. As uncomfortable as this season of the "in between" has been I sense that the Lord is at work deeply within me, causing me to consider, listen to, and to communicate with Him in a way that my circumstances haven't demanded of me previously. Perhaps the process of the "in between" is actually the means by which the Lord works at bringing our desires for a future reality into line with His desires for our future reality?