The Sacred In-Between
Where faith waits quietly for what’s next...
Lately, I’ve found myself in conversations with people in transition.
Some are sensing a nudge toward something new; a stirring in their work, ministry, or relationships. Others are realizing that what once fit no longer does. They can feel the shift, but can’t yet name what it means.
These are good people. Faithful people. People who’ve said yes before, and are wondering what it looks like to say yes again.
The questions that surface are familiar:
How do I know what’s next?
How do I discern between restlessness and calling?
Am I just tired?
What do I do while I wait?
It’s that space between, the uncertain stretch where clarity feels just out of reach, that seems to be where God does some of the deepest work.
I’ve noticed how often Scripture moves in that slow rhythm: promise → waiting → fulfillment.
And how most of the story takes place in the middle part.
Abraham waits decades between call and covenant.
Moses wanders for forty years between liberation and arrival.
The disciples live in a three-day gap between the cross and resurrection, that silent Saturday where nothing makes sense yet everything is being remade.
We’d rather skip the middle.
We like beginnings and endings. Clarity. Resolution.
But God seems strangely comfortable dwelling in the in-between.
Saint John Chrysostom wrote,
“When God delays fulfilling His promises, He does so to increase our desire and make our prayers more earnest.”1
That desire, the ache, the longing, the waiting, is often a time of preparation.
Discernment isn’t a straight line; it’s more like a conversation that unfolds over time.
It moves at the speed of a relationship.
When people come to talk about next steps, I sometimes say, “Maybe the question isn’t what’s next, but who are you becoming in this moment?”
Over time, I’ve realized that God’s work in us often precedes God’s work through us.
Before calling us to something, the Spirit usually does some reshaping within us: quiet, unseen, but essential work.
I’ve seen it in those preparing for ordained ministry, in people discerning retirement or career change, and even in parishes discerning their next chapter. There’s a liminal space, the holy middle, where we learn to release what was and make room for what’s coming.
And that’s rarely comfortable.
In the desert tradition, the early monks spoke of apatheia: not apathy, but a deep interior stillness that comes from trusting God in the unknown.
Evagrius of Pontus, an Eqyptian monastic (345-399AD) said,
“Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask; He desires to do something even greater for you while you persevere in prayer.”2
That’s the essence of the in-between: perseverance that deepens trust.
It’s a time when prayer becomes less about answers and more about presence.
Less about direction, more about becoming still enough to hear.
Maybe that’s why Jesus so often withdrew to “lonely places.” The wilderness wasn’t a detour; it was preparation. The waiting formed Him for the work ahead.
I’ve been finalizing prep and plans for a Discernment Retreat this weekend, and I keep coming back to the idea that discernment is not about finding something, but about recognizing what God has been growing all along.
We tend to imagine vocation as a map, a clear route from here to there. And I’m often asked for that road map. It’s never straightforward or simple. (Imagine a family vacation in the old station wagon, with that big printed out highway map, trying to find the turn off you needed - everyone is tired, hungry, and you want to get there.)
But it might be closer to a garden, something cultivated slowly, season by season.
And like any garden, there are fallow times when the soil rests, unseen roots deepen, and nothing looks productive on the surface. Yet beneath it all, life is preparing to break through.
So if you find yourself in that in-between, between endings and beginnings, certainty and unknowing, remember that resting place can also be a growing place.
The waiting is not wasted.
What if we stopped rushing the in-between and started reverencing it?
What if the uncertainty isn’t punishment but invitation, to listen, to notice, to be re-shaped for whatever’s next?
Because what’s next will come. It always does.
But who you’ll be when it comes, that’s what the in-between is shaping right now.
Maybe this is how faith actually works:
not as a straight line from question to answer, but as a long, slow unfolding of trust.
My friend Eddie, on days when I felt stressed or pissed with a situation, would quote:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”3
While we were fishing for mackerel one day, I finally asked what he was rambling on about. I realized that Ed was inviting me to take a breath and enjoy the process. Not because the waiting is easy, but because God is faithful, even in “the fog.”
If you’re living in that space these days - unsure, restless, maybe a little weary, you’re not behind. You’re not forgotten.
You’re right where you need to be for grace to take deeper root.
The sacred in-between is not an interruption to your calling.
It’s part of it.
Photo by Daniele M on Unsplash
John Chrysostom, Homily IV on the Statues.
Evagrius of Pontus, Chapters on Prayer.
Julian of Norwish, Revelations of Divine Love.
mmmmm, nice.