Tag Archives: the in-between

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Living and Leading in ‘The In-Between’

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the in-between

As a leader you will often find yourself in the in-between times of life and leadership. What I mean by the in-between is that you know where you are going personally, your dreams and goals; or with your church or organization, you see the vision, the place. But you can’t go there yet. It might be timing, it might be that you need more finances, more leaders, maybe you are needing to allow people time to train or get used to the idea.

Whatever it is, the in-between time is tough to not only live in but to lead in.

It is tough to lead and live when you’re stuck in the in-between.

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Leaders feel this when they know their church should make a change, kill a program, add a staff member they can’t afford or change locations, but they are in a waiting period.

The in-between.

We know this feeling when we want to complete school, start dating someone who isn’t there yet, get married to a person who isn’t ready.

The in-between.

It is the pain of longing to have children that never happens. It is the late nights as we wait for kids to fall asleep, to start listening or to simply grow up and move out so we can get to the next season of life.

The in-between.

Many of us live our lives longing to be in the next place.

Do you wish your life was someplace else?

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In the in-between, you know where you are going, but you can’t talk about it with everyone. You need to wait for more information, for things to fall into place before you let people know and clarify things. A leader lacks influence when he says, “In eight months this change will happen. So we’ll just wait until then, but it’s coming.”

In the in-between you can get antsy and frustrated because it isn’t getting here. The frustration also comes from seeing things as they are when you know what they will be like, and you have to wait for it. That’s not easy. It means biting your tongue, grinning and bearing some things until it’s time.

The in-between is also a time that your faith is stretched, you learn about your impatience, your lack of belief in the power and control of God as you wonder why He is taking so long, as if His timing is not perfect.

Leadership in this time is difficult because momentum is easily lost. The reason it can be lost is because you as the leader have moved into the future, but you can’t talk about it yet. Consequently, you are running out of steam on where things are. You have to stay mentally engaged in the present, where God has you and your church.

The in-between time is also the time that grows us the most. That’s the blessing of it. Without it, we can never get to the place God wants us to be. It is easy to despair in the in-between, but if we do, we miss the point of it.

How to live in the in-between.

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Adoption and the Desire to Control

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We are nearing the end of our adoption from Ethiopia and one of the main things I’ve learned is adoption is brutal if you have a control idol. That’s probably also true simply as a parent, but the process of adopting has brought this out even more in my life.

I get asked almost daily where things are, why haven’t you traveled yet, are you still raising money, I thought that was done ages ago. All great questions from well-meaning friends and family.

A little over a month ago we found out, after 3 and a half years, who our child in Ethiopia was. We had done rummage sales, sold coffee, asked family and friends for money, gave our last couple of tax returns to bring us to this point. This point of holding a photo of our child.

Here he is seeing our family for the first time and hearing about what his future will hold:

Judah

While this a milestone, it is not even the beginning. It is simply the next step in a long journey.

When you hold a picture of your child in your hands, the child you have been waiting for 3 years to meet, a child that lives on the other side of the world, that you can’t hold or look at or talk to is hard. It gets harder if you have kids and you try to explain to them about their new brother and they don’t understand why it is taking so long.

My favorite is when well-meaning people say, “Why is it so hard? Why don’t they just give the kids away? It shouldn’t so expensive or so long.” I agree and yet here we sit.

Right now, we are waiting to get the phone call that says, “Buy your plane tickets, your court date in Ethiopia is on this date.” And then we’ll go. We’ve been told it should happen this week, but we don’t know. Our lives go on, but they could stop at any moment. In the meantime, we wait.

The meantime, the waiting. It makes sense its on frustrating way. I started reading Jeff Goins new book, The In-Between this morning. Seemed appropriate. He says:

How we spend our days, according to Annie Dillard, is how we spend our lives. If that’s true, then I spend most of my life waiting. Waiting in the checkout line at the grocery story. Waiting to rent a movie. Waiting for the movie to end. Waiting to turn thirty. Waiting for vacation. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Life is an endless series of appointments and phone calls and procrastinated tasks that need to, but sometimes never, get done. It’s a long list of incomplete projects and broken promises that tomorrow will be better. It’s being put on hold and waiting in office lobbies and watching that stupid hourglass rotate again and again on the computer screen. It’s load times and legal processes – long, drawn-out, bureaucratic systems that leave sitting, watching the clock. Life is one big wait.

So we wait. To bring a child home we’ve never met but almost 4 years ago began praying for and planning for. Hopefully this is the week we get to meet him!