Part 3 of Limbo Moments: Mastering the In-Between. When life does not go the way we planned, we often feel owed. Chris shows how that feeling points to a hidden deal: if I do this, then God will do that. Drawing on Isaiah 40:27-29, Isaiah 44:9-20, Isaiah 49:14-15, and Jesus reading Isaiah in Luke 4, Chris explains why an if-then is not faith. The second move in a limbo moment is to investigate. Find your if-then, ask if there is a lie in your right hand, and say the true sentence to God and to one other person.

WEEKLY REFLECTION:

1. Finish this and say it to your group: “If I ______, then I’m safe.” What’s the carved thing in your right hand?

2. Where did you get let down for real this year, and is it a place you visit or an address you moved into?

3. When your deal broke, did you go toward God even in anger or become cold toward God?

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A limbo moment is a stretch of life you did not choose and cannot control. Something ended, nothing new has started, and the hardest part is not the circumstance itself. It is the story you tell yourself about what it means. In Part 2 of Limbo Moments: Mastering the In-Between, Chris McAlister opens Isaiah 6 and 11 to show what God is doing when the tree gets cut down. The stump of Jesse looks like death, but it is formation: God stripping away the things we build our identity on so we can see what actually defines us. Drawing on Acts 17, Chris shows that you did not choose your circumstance, but you can choose the true story about what God is doing in it. The first step is simple: observe what happened without deciding what it means.

WEEKLY REFLECTION:

1. What is a circumstance that creates a limbo feeling for you right now?
2. What is the story you’re tempted to believe about yourself or God in this limbo moment?
3. If what you’re building got cut away, what’s still true about who you are?

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A limbo moment is the space where something has ended but nothing new has started. It isn't working, and it isn't over. You didn't choose it, you can't undo it, and you can't control it. It might be a marriage that is neither healed nor finished, a parent who is here and already fading, or a business whose old direction collapsed before the new one arrived. In Part 1 of Limbo Moments, Chris names the four ways we get these moments wrong: despair, grievance, grabbing the fastest shortcut, and denial. He then walks through Luke 4, where Jesus comes out of forty days in the wilderness, stands up in his hometown synagogue, and stops mid-sentence while reading Isaiah to announce that the year of the Lord's favor begins today and belongs to everyone. Deuteronomy 8 explains why God allows the wilderness at all: to humble you and test you, and to show what is in your heart. God is not the source of your wilderness, but he does use it. The goal was never to master your circumstances. It's to understand what this moment is doing in you.

WEEKLY REFLECTION:

1. What in-between are you standing in right now and can you name it?
2. When pressure hits, which do you reach for: despair, grievance, the shortcut, or the bypass?
3. What's the one thought you need to take captive and replace with a thought Christ can give you?

Thank you for listening. You can support 15& by visiting fifteenand.org.