“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” - Titus 2:11-13

The days after Christmas can feel like a strange holding pattern. The excitement has passed, the decorations still linger, and the world begins to shift gears toward a new year. But spiritually, this week places us right in the center of where we kind of live all the time: between what has already come, and what is still to come.

The Christian life is not lived at the manger. Nor is it yet lived in the full light of Christ’s return. It is lived in the middle, in this "present age," as Paul puts it. A time of training. A time of waiting. A time of grit.

Christmas reminds us that grace appeared. Christ came in humility, clothed in flesh, born in weakness. But even as we celebrate that appearance, we do so in the shadow of a promise: He is coming again.

John Chrysostom captured this tension well: “He came the first time in humility, and He will come again in glory. Let us live now as those who wait for the King.”

Living “between the comings” of Christ means we are neither resting in nostalgia nor running ahead in fear. We are being trained. Grace has appeared, Paul says, and that grace doesn’t just save, it instructs. It teaches. It disciplines. The same grace that pardons our sin also reorders our loves.

This is the “grit” part of our waiting. It’s not glamorous. No angel choirs. No shining star. Just the daily grind of self-control. Just the hard fight to turn away from sin and cling to what is good. The middle stretch is where muscles are built. Where character is shaped. Where hope is purified.

Gregory of Nazianzus once said: “He comes to us now in spirit, and later in glory. Let us receive Him daily, so that we may not be terrified when He comes again.”

This is a good reminder. Many will feel sluggish this week. Others restless. But God's Word lifts our eyes beyond the season. There is a hope set before us. Not a vague optimism, but a concrete, personal hope: the return of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the meantime, grace trains us. In the meantime, godliness grows. In the meantime, we walk, not alone, but with the Christ who came and is coming again.

Martin Luther once reflected: “There are two comings of Christ: the first into the world, the second into the heart. If He has come into your heart by faith, then you long for Him to come in glory.”

So do not let these quiet days pass you by. Use them. Let them remind you that even in the most ordinary stretch of the year, Christ is at work. He has come. He will come again. And right now, He is coming into your daily life through His Spirit and His Word.

Between glory and grit, we wait. And we train. And we trust.