How to Remain Positive in the Messy Middle

The middle of the road seems to be the longest stretch, yes? When we face the unknown for endless days, it begins to wear away at our resolve, our patience, and our hope. What is it for you? School or school-events still on hold? Financial strain exaggerated by Covid? Singleness or loss or a terrifying medical diagnosis that seems to have you locked in a holding pattern? Waiting is hard. It just it. But in the messy middle of waiting, we need a way to still remain positive. To still live with our hearts open and our eyes lifted. To still be faith-filled, hope-fueled, and mission-minded.

Through my own seasons of waiting, I’ve discovered that the choices I make carry tremendous weight. Intentional yeses and nos make all the difference between impatience and positivity—between railing against immoveable circumstances or letting gratitude enlarge my vision.

I’ve discovered, too, that I steer straighter when I focus more on the yeses I make. The things to say no too, like endless worrying or what-if forecasting of tomorrow, loom larger when I give them my attention. Like trying to shove darkness out of an unlit room, my attempts are futile and exhausting.

So rather than sharing my list of all the things to not do when you find yourself in the messy middle of waiting, I’ll focus on what I seek to say yes too in hopes of helping you through your current in-between season.

These yeses have carried me through over two decades of singleness, unraveled threads of a marriage that scarred everyone in my family, disappointment and grief over a loss that affected many in our community, years of waiting to buy a house of our own again after already having been home-owners, and other dreams that were put on hold. The yeses I’ve been practicing are also making this year marked by Covid easier to bear.

1. Seeking his face

The first thing I say yes to is seeking God’s face. Psalm 27:8 has been a long-time favorite verse of mine. It was one of the verses I wrote in thick, black sharpie across a black-and-white calendar page and duct-taped to my bedroom wall as a teenager. In the New King James, which was the version I copied the verse from, it reads:

When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

I’ve been reading in The Passion Translation lately, and I love how familiar verses arrest my heart in a fresh way. This is how Psalms 27:8 reads in the TPT:

Lord, when you said to me, “Seek my face,”
my inner being responded,
“I’m seeking your face with all my heart.”

When I prioritize my pursuit of God, I find that it shifts my perspective. I stop feeling alone or afraid as my awareness of God’s presence increases.

My own experience echoes the words of Brother Lawrence in this little but life-changing book, The Practice of the Presence of God:

The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.

I’ve found starting my day with a morning routine—seeking his face in the quiet, undistracted time of the early morning—positions my heart to seek him throughout the rest of the day. These moments of intentionally meeting with him have become something I can’t bear to miss. Playing worship music often also help me remember to seek God’s face even as I go about the rest of my day. This 2-hour session of Dan Musselman playing Bethel worship songs on the piano is one I find both calming and uplifting.

Truly the more we seek God the more our desire grows to seek him and know him and be near him.

2. Choosing gratitude

Another yes that I’ve been choosing is to keep an ongoing gratitude list. Inspired by Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, I started numbering my own thanks, keeping a running list in my journal of the ways I see God present in the ordinary moments and my responses to his Spirit-breathed scripture. It’s been nearly a year, and I’ve written over 3000 thanks—because though my intention is to write just three a day, the more I look for things to be grateful for the more easily I find them.

In the last chapter of One Thousand Gifts, Ann explains how the practice of giving thanks opened her eyes to the nearness of God. She writes,

Illumination, the intermediary step in the path to full life in God, so said the ancients. The seeker sees. What the ancient saints called a vision of heaven, a way of seeing that draws one closer to God. Eucharisteo had been exactly this for me, opening my eyes to a way of seeing, to a realization that belief is, in essence, a way of the eyes. The one thousand presents wake me to the presence of God—but more so, living eucharisteo, living in thanks, had done the far harder work of keeping me awake to Him. I began to see that nothing I am counts for anything, but all that I count of Him counts for everything—seeing eyes might illuminate the glory of Christ in all.

And I’ve felt this too—increased awareness of God being everything and that being more than enough. A practice of gratitude reminds me to live from the overflow of what God is doing inside, as I talk about in Cultivating a Missional Life, my brand-new devotional.

Interspersed in my written-out thanksgivings from the past few days are Scripture verses that talk directly about gratitude. I often pause to handwrite a verse a two from my morning reading in my journal because it helps the words sink in deeper, so my gratitude list is punctuated by intermissions of Bible verses.

Be in awe before his majesty.
Be in awe before such power and might!
Come worship wonderful Yahweh, arrayed in all his splendor,
bowing in worship as he appears in the beauty of holiness.
Give him the honor due his name.

Psalm 29:2 TPT

O sing and make melody, you steadfast lovers of God.
Give thanks to him every time you reflect on his holiness!

Psalm 30:4 TPT

How could I be silent when it’s time to praise you?
Now my heart sings out loud, bursting with joy—
a bliss inside that keeps me singing,
“I can never thank you enough!”

Psalm 30:12 TPT

If you long to live a life that ripples out and affects your neighborhood in positive ways but the messy middle you find yourself in is wearing down your intentions, I encourage you to try keeping a gratitude list.

3. Living given

My word of the year this year is given. It is also inspired by Ann Voskamp. In her book The Way of Abundance, Ann explains,

Love is givenness. Love is surrender. Love is living broken and given like bread.

Living given begins with our eyes and heart—what are we noticing, how are we valuing others? It’s loving well by giving of ourselves—giving quality time as a gift, building up through offered words, gestures of kindness, our prayers, and our dollars. It’s seeing others’ pain points and helping them get unstuck. It’s selfless serving with Christ as our supreme example.

Living given is a goal of living on mission. It demonstrates to those in proximity to us that the messy middle doesn’t define us—doesn’t strip us of who God says we are, doesn’t take away our mission. Givenness invites us to the realm of real where we let our imperfections and questions show—let show, too, how God is at work in us in the middle of them.

4. Choosing what I intake

The fourth yes opens wider the gate for the first three—seeking God’s face, choosing gratitude, and living given. I choose what I intake because what I fill my mind with affects everything else. When my thoughts stray to worry or my heart feels low in the middle of the waiting, it’s time to pause and reflect.

Are the things I am intaking encouraging me to seek God more, to love more fully, to let my gratitude rise above discouragement, disappointment, and worry?

Choosing what I intake means being intentional with my yeses—choosing the most important ones first—knowing that a yes to everything is really a yes to nothing at all.

It’s saying no to some things that distract me or don’t fill me with life because I’ve already said yes to things that are life-giving. Choosing what I intake is not about perfection but the direction. Am I leading others towards God—who alone gives us peace and perspective in the middle of the messy—through my imperfect though persistent pressing in to him?

Final thoughts on the messy middle

As we close, let’s take a look at one final nugget of wisdom imparted by King David in Psalm 27:14:

Here’s what I’ve learned through it all:
Don’t give up; don’t be impatient;
be entwined as one with the Lord.
Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope.
Yes, keep on waiting—for he will never disappoint you!

(TPT)

In the messy middle stretches of your journey, may you know that God will never disappoint you. May your life be so entwined with his that even through the waiting your heart will be at rest and deeply alive. May the hope within you ripple out beyond you to your neighbors—spreading light, pointing to God in all his glory.

P.S. Did you know that The Uncommon Normal is also available as a podcast? Tune in to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to listen!