Sometimes I wish life were more like a cartoon. I picture myself sauntering down the road, a little sass in my step and a joyful whistle that dances its way out of my lips. Songbirds are flitting through the trees above, and daisies are swaying in the gentle breeze. The world around me is bright and sunny. Things are good. My smiles are sincere, and my laughs come easily. I am challenged, but not overwhelmed, and I certainly can’t sense storm clouds on the horizon. Life is comfortable. More importantly, life is going according to plan, and the self-confident smirk on my face says so.
Life has more moments like these than we realize, more than we notice because they are virtually unnoticeable in their simplicity. They’re not the days we strive for – the days of victory and dancing, the mountain top moments. But neither are they the days of dark valley moments. They are somewhere in the middle, in the wide-open flatlands of life.
In the purgatory of the in-between.
The problem with my cartoon scenario is this: I grew up as a child of the ‘80s. The cartoons of my youth were very unforgiving of idyllic scenarios such as the one described above. Anyone remember what happened to Wile E. Coyote every time he sauntered down the road, a smirk on his face because life was absolutely going according to his plan? Every time he was sure that this time Road Runner couldn’t help but fall into his strategically crafted trap? That this time his pesky little bird problem would be solved, and he could finish his journey through the flatlands in peace?
A two-hundred-pound anvil dropped out of nowhere onto Wile E.’s head, that’s what happened, flattening him into a disk that later rolled through the desert like an abandoned hubcap.
Welcome to 2021, my friends. Meep. Meep. Watch out for falling anvils and coyote-colored hubcaps.
It seems like I say the same thing each year, but I can say with absolute certainty that this has not been the year I expected. In seven short months, we have celebrated milestones and victories that will forever live as cherished memories in our hearts. We have also been shell-shocked by betrayal and grieved losses of things we didn’t know we could lose. There have been ups, and there have been downs. Today, though? Today is a day somewhere in the middle, in the wide-open flatlands of life. Not on the mountain, and not in the valley.
I’m in the purgatory of the in-between.
Many a song lyric emphasizes the God of the mountains and the God of the valley, and He is. He absolutely is. Perfectly in control, He is the God who carries us to the high places in life and the God who holds us in His arms as we navigate the lows. But until this morning, I had never given much thought to the God of the middle, the God of the plains, the God of the flatlands.
The God of the in-between.
This morning’s verses brought that alive to me in a way that I’d not experienced before. The setting is a familiar one: a battle is about to ensue – again – between the king of Aram (Syria) and the northern kingdom of Israel. The small army of Israel, in its traditional position as the underdog, had already claimed victory against the enormous armies of Aram in a previous battle. As both sides prepared once more for war, the king of Aram strategizes his best position for victory, and the conclusion he comes to is this:
Meanwhile the advisors to the king of Aram said, “Their god is a god of the mountains – we don’t stand a chance against them there. So let’s engage them on the plain where we’ll have the advantage. Here’s the strategy: Remove each sheik from his place of leadership and replace him with a seasoned officer. Then recruit a fighting force equivalent in size to the army that deserted earlier – horse for horse, chariot for chariot. And we’ll fight them on the plain – we’re sure to prove stronger than they are.” It sounded good to the king; he did what they advised.
1 Kings 20:23-25 MSG
The subtext that’s provided in the Amplified Bible version explains that their conclusion would have been natural based on their view of the deities; it was common for gods in polytheistic religions to be associated with specific natural events. The Arameans had a god of storms and thunder and a god of drought. A god of fire and a god of battle. As hard as it is for me to understand, a god of the mountaintop would not have been a stretch for the king of Aram.
The story continues:
Then the man of God went to the king of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says: The Arameans have said, ‘The Lord is the god of the hills and not of the plains.’ So I will defeat this vast army for you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
1 Kings 20:28 NLT
Long story short, that’s exactly what He did. The small army of Israel obliterated the massive army of Aram, not because the Israelites were better prepared nor were they superior warriors; they weren’t even in a position of obedience to God at that point. The army of Aram was soundly defeated because God is not a God that is limited to mountaintops, hard stop.
As I read this account this morning, I couldn’t help but shake my head. I mean, seriously, who limits God? Who puts borders on the God of all creation saying, “God, you can’t or don’t need to come here. Things are good. My smiles are sincere, and my laughs come easily. I am challenged, but not overwhelmed, and I certainly can’t sense storm clouds on the horizon. Life is comfortable…”
And then it hit me. It’s me. I limit God. I limit God to the solutions that I think are best, and while I’m never successful with that, I successfully exhaust myself with those efforts. I ration God’s attention to the moments when I want or need Him near. I cling to Him like a spider monkey in the dark, scary valleys. I praise Him profusely for His merciful hand on the mountaintops.
But when life is comfortable? When life is going according to plan, and the self-confident smirk on my face says so? That’s when I tell God He can focus on someone else’s troubles. I nudge God toward someone who has bigger issues than I do. Surely He can’t pay attention to all of us at once, right? God can be God to someone else who needs Him, but me? I’m good. I’m in control.
I’m on the throne as the god of the in-between.
I may not believe in a polytheistic religious structure, but that doesn’t stop me from practicing it.
And the problem with maintaining a godlike status in this idyllic scenario? A two-hundred-pound anvil drops out of nowhere onto my head, flattening me into a disk that rolls down the road like an abandoned hubcap. Every. Time.
Friends, the purgatory of the in-between is in many ways more dangerous than the battlefield. Our guard, such as it is, drops and we give up more ground to the enemy than we would ever think is possible when we’re in the midst of battle. It is in the wide-open flatlands of life that complacency and self-confidence take seats on a throne that does not belong to them. Worse, we boot complacency to the door and put ourselves on the throne.
When that happens, how will the world know that He – not me – is Lord?
My prayer today is that we never forget that our God is the God of the in-between. He is God when we are called to action and God when we’re called to rest, but He’s also the God who walks with us while we wait and train and prepare. He is the God of war and the God of peace, but He is also the God of the day-to-day activities of normal, simplistic life. He was God at the dawn of creation and God of the future world that will be our eternal joy, but He’s also God of this broken place we call our temporary home.
He is God, hard stop. And it is He – only He – who has the authority to sit on the throne, when we’re on the mountaintop, through the valley, and yes, even in the in-between.