“O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy” (Habakkuk 3:2, NKJV).
In this text the prophet Habakkuk didn’t ask God for a brand new work, he asked God to revive the work that was already in progress, right there in the midst, right there in the middle of the years, right there where it looked like everything was slowing down.
That’s the cry of every believer who’s somewhere between the promise and the fulfillment. You already said yes to God at the altar. You already got up with fire in your bones and a testimony on your lips. But somewhere between there and here, the middle got long, and the years started to feel heavy, and you need what Habakkuk needed. You don’t need a new assignment, you need revival in the assignment you already have.
The writer of Hebrews stood in that same middle and preached the same fire. He said, “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NKJV). Jesus himself ran through a middle. Gethsemane was His middle mile. Calvary was His middle mile. But He kept His eyes on the joy that was set before Him, and He endured, so that you would have someone to look to when your own middle gets heavy.
Paul understood it too. From a jail cell, which is about as middle as the middle can get, he wrote to the Philippians, “Forgetting the past and straining toward what is ahead, I keep trying to reach the goal and get the prize for which God called me” (Philippians 3v13-14, NCV). He wasn’t at his starting line anymore, and he wasn’t holding the prize in his hand yet either. He was in the midst, straining, reaching, refusing to sit down in the middle of his years.
The middle will test you in ways the start and the finish never will. The start is full of energy you haven’t spent yet. The finish is full of promise you can already see. But the middle is where faith actually has to work. The middle is where Isaiah’s promise gets proven, that those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31). The middle is where Paul told the Galatians not to grow weary in doing good, for in due season they would reap if they did not lose heart (Galatians 6:9).
This race was never meant to be run alone, and it was never meant to end with you. The psalmist prayed, “Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come” (Psalm 71:18). Every generation before you carried this baton through fire, through exile, through prison, through the middle of their own years, and not one of them dropped it. Paul told Timothy at the very end of his own race, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). He finished so that the baton could reach your hand.
So if you are in the middle today, weary, unsure how much further the road goes, I want you to pray the prophet’s prayer instead of the coward’s prayer. Don’t pray for the race to end. Pray, “Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years.” Ask Him to breathe on the thing He already started in you. Ask Him to put wind back in lungs that feel like they can’t take another step. The One who began this work in you is faithful to finish it, and He specializes in reviving things that look like they are dying in the middle. Take the baton in your hand. Feel the fire of the ones who ran before you still burning in it. And when your legs want to quit in the midst of your years, run anyway, and keep running until the revival that started in the middle carries you all the way home.
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