In The Middle

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

Some may call it wishy-washy. Some can call it indecisive. Some call it straddling a fence. I find it fascinating that the more and more divided this nation gets accused of being, the more I want to stand in the middle and wait. Yes, I said wait. “For what?” You may ask. That's easy…. I'll wait for those who are on the right and the left to get tired of all the yelling, the screaming, the kneeling, the standing, the flag waving and the flag burning. I’ll wait for those who have blue stripes on their bumper sticker and for the BLM’s, the conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. I'll wait.  I'll wait for the yankees as well as the southern. Yes, I'll even wait for Red Raiders and the Longhorns.

I, and many like me, will sit on the fence and wait. We will try not to overreact when someone wants to take something down or out, or add to or replace it.  We will try not to get our feelings hurt when we or friends of ours on either side gets labeled a  _____lover or ____hater. 

Sometimes it takes a lot of trying to figure out that what's been done in the past or present isn't going to work or never worked in the first place. Daddy would say about wild livestock, “When they get thirsty enough from all that runnin and carryin on...They'll come to the water.”

And when those on the left and on the right, or in the north or south, or wherever the divide is, get tired of “runnin around and carryin on” and are ready, they will look around the smoke, banners, flags, picket signs, tweets, and online post. When they look past their group of the likeminded to gauge and see how far out they've gone, what do you think they'll see? Hopefully, they'll see us. They’ll see those who chose to stay in the middle; the ones who were quiet when everything was getting blown out of proportion. They’ll see the ones who were told that we were either “part of the solution or part of the problem”, or that were told “you have to stand for something or you fall for anything.” When they look this way, I hope and pray that they'll see us waving them to come back and pointing to the one who can show us how to bind the divided, Love the unloved, and Heal the wounds that are centuries old. I hope they see us pointing to the ONE AND ONLY WAY to completely stop hate, racism, sin. I hope and pray they see us pointing to the cross. Pointing to the empty tomb. Pointing to Jesus!

“But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:7-14

Grace & Peace

Blan