Well, unfortunately, I know that there are a lot of you right now that are in the middle of real pain,

and you're hurting deeply, and there's no doubt about it when you're hurting deeply,

that is very, very, very hard.

But there's another kind of hard that we don't talk about often in the church.

And that's the hard season when you're functioning and you're showing up

and you're doing all the right things, but inside something still feels off.

It's not that you're falling apart completely, but you're still living consistently

discouraged. It's not that you're battling with ongoing depression, but you're also not really

happy and thriving. You're not in the middle of a crisis right now, but you still don't

feel at peace. That place is what I call the middle. You're not in a horrible place where life is

falling apart and you feel like you're about to break down, but you're also not

experiencing the breakthrough and the joy of the Lord in the way that you know you should.

That's the place that we call the middle. Not a horrible place, but it's definitely not where you

want to be. And when you're stuck in the middle,

you actually start to ask different types of questions.

You're not asking like,

God, are you there? Do you exist?

But you're asking, God, why don't I feel you right now?

You're not asking, am I even saved? You're asking God, why am I still

struggling with the same thing I've been carrying for so long? And for some reason, we don't talk

about that place a lot in the church. We talk to the extremes. We talk to the times when

you're down and you're out and you're hurting and you're desperate. And we talk about the

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