The Land Between is about transitions - unexpected and undesirable transitions that we find ourselves in at various points in our lives.

For example, it’s about a man named John. eHe He has worked for his company for 19 years and it is not doing well and he knows that.  He is hosting several marketing meetings to find new ways to boost sales. Now during one of these meetings, he is called to meet with the owner of the company. He enters the office and is faced not only with the owner, but also with the director of Human Resources. As she reads a list of scripted statements he realizes all too soon that he is being laid off. He’s worked for this company for 19 years, started when he was 35 and now he is 54. As he is leaving the building, he passes the room where only minutes ago he was leading a meeting to try to save the company.

John has just been thrown unexpectedly into the Land Between.

Another example is a young couple who has been dating for several years. She is 29 and she is expecting an engagement ring soon. He seems a little nervous over dinner, so she is thinking maybe it will be tonight, but instead he suggests that maybe they should start dating other people. This could only mean one thing; that he already has been…

She has just been thrust into the world of the Land Between…

Now it’s the day after Thanksgiving and you’re watching the news about a school auditorium’s roof that has just caved in and you say, “Hey that’s where we have church”. Well, not anymore. Welcome to the Land Between - the transition you didn’t want and you didn’t ask for, but, it happened.

The one thing about the Land Between is that ALL of us either were there, or are there, or one of these days will be there, none of us are immune to these seasons of difficulties.

I myself am no stranger to these sorts of things, because in the November of my 7^th grade year my mom died in an automobile accident. My dad was a pastor and there were five of us. My sister was 13, I was 12 and my brothers were 9, 4 and 2 months old. The 2 month old survived the accident. It felt like the heart had been ripped out of our home. Then a few months later, my dad announced that we were moving from our home town in Idaho to Michigan where my dad was going to teach at a Bible College. There he met a 21 year old graduate and secretary whom he soon married. Carolyn is a wonderful person and brought life back into our family, but it’s not hard to imagine what it is like to be a recent graduate from college and suddenly becoming a mother of five. Since she was so young it wasn’t like she replaced our mom; she was more like a big sister with a lot of authority. Then shortly afterwards, Dad once again told us we were moving from Michigan to Northern California. So everything from 1^st grade to 7^th grade was that we were all living in a familiar world then all of a sudden after one funeral, one wedding and two cross country moves we were tossed into this unexpected transition where everything has been changed. And it is at this point we might stop to ask, “What is God doing during these seasons?” What is He doing to build trust and faith in Him during these transitions in our lives?

Now as we go through these seasons of transitions you can really place yourselves in a familiar place in Bible history, that area being the Sinai Peninsula. To the left of the Peninsula is the land of Egypt where the Israelites were held in slavery. Then along came Moses who took them out of Egypt to be led through the wilderness, through the desert, to seek the land flowing with milk and honey or the land of Canaan. So they are now caught in the Land Between.

Living in the desert for many years, two years at least as this story unfolds, you have to wonder how they survived, like what did they eat? Well, God provided them with something called Manna. Manna is a flaky substance that fell every morning like dew drops. They ate Manna every single day for every single meal. I’ve always imagined it to be like a kind of corn flake and when ground up and mashed – to be like oatmeal. They ate this Manna at morning, noon and night - every single day for two years. So here we are now in the book of Numbers Chapter 11 starting at verse 4:

“The rabble with them began to crave other food and again the Israelites started wailing and said. “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost - also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4-6)

Have any of you ever gone through a season of your life where you had to eat the same food over and over again? Like you college students who ate Ramen noodles WAY TOO MUCH. Did you not grow to hate the taste, the texture and the smell of it? I recently tried to eat the same food for just four days as I prepared to preach about this topic at my church. It was a chocolate chip power bar. I planned to have a power bar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, already on the first day the temptations started to set in. I came home that night to the aromatic scent of an Asian Stir fry being cooked by my family. On the second day, no one was cooking anything special, but as I was reading the paper a Taco Bell ad fell out and I longingly looked at every single delicious picture on it. Already on day two I was dreaming about a rich feasting fantasy life. By the third day I snuck a few chips and a scoop of pasta salad because my daughter and her friends were having a BBQ. Do you know that when the fourth day was over and I had my first real meal again, thinking it was going to be the best meal ever…it wasn’t. Why? Because I discovered it wasn’t the food I missed; it was variety I loved.

So like the Israelites in the desert, they had their memories of all the wonderful foods they had in Egypt and they were craving it, because they remembered it and they were sick of Manna.

When we read passages like this we need to not look down upon people going through these moments, we need to empathize with them. Just think about what it would be like if you had to eat the same thing every moment of each day. Wouldn’t you possibly feel the very same way? You see, you would think that the desert would not produce anything, but the land between IS fertile ground.

The Land Between is Fertile Ground for Complaint. A voice can be heard when we are in this transition, a voice that says, “I’m sick of this. I’m sick of living in my in-laws’ basement, I’m sick of figuring out which bills to pay, I’m sick of going to the nursing home to visit mom when she doesn’t know who I am, I’m sick of this. I’m sick of going to bed at night and not know where my 17 year old is. I’m sick of this.” Whenever we find ourselves in the Land Between, our soul is in danger and our heart is in danger. You see the worse part of all this is that they are not only complaining about the food, but they are complaining against God. Later on in scripture, Moses will say “you have rejected the Lord” because it is like they are saying they were better off without God and still slaves in Egypt. You see, our heart and our faith is in danger whenever we pass through the Land Between.

In fact, let’s even look at Moses. How is HE handling this, how is their strong leader doing? He is the rock after all, but we will read in verse 11 that the rock is about to crack. This is the most honest prayer ever recorded. As we read this passage, observe the pronouns “I, me”.

“He asked the Lord, “Why have You brought this trouble on Your servant? What have I done to displease You that You put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do You tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land You promised on oath to their ancestors? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.”(Numbers 11:11-14)

So you think that the desert can’t produce anything? Well, the land between IS fertile ground.

The Land Between is Fertile Ground for Melt Down. If that phrase “Melt Down” seems too harsh well let’s read what else Moses says in verse 15:

“If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me – If I have found favor in Your eyes – and do not let me face my own ruin.” (Numbers 11:15)

Basically, Moses is saying here that if he has found favor in God’s eyes, then God should kill him right then and there. Don’t you think that Moses is having a really bad day? He is exhausted. Notice the words he used “This is too HEAVY I can’t carry this anymore”…It’s too Heavy! Whose voice do you hear there other than Moses’ voice…?

I hear a voice of a young couple who has gone from one diagnosis to another to another and they are saying, “It’s too heavy I can’t carry this anymore”. Or a business man who built a business over twelve years and now in just twelve months it takes a dive and he can’t pay the bills. “It’s too heavy I can’t carry this anymore”. I think of a mom looking at family portraits on a table and sees her 7 year old happy and smiling away but who is now 17 and now the mom sees her daughter as bitter, angry and defiant. She wonders where did it go wrong? “It’s too heavy I can’t carry this anymore”.

I have to stop and ask this question right now, how is God going to meet His exhausted servant right now? Because not only do I want to know the end of the Bible story but I want to know how is God going to meet ME during similar difficult times of transition? I sure hope He has a lot of compassion. I hope God will treat him tenderly. This is the way that God answered Moses during his melt down:

“Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.” (Numbers 11:16-17)

So God gave these seventy elders to be not only physical help to Moses but also SPIRITUAL help to him. Because God took some of the spiritual endowment that Moses had and put some of that spirit upon those 70 as well. And God tells Moses that they will share the “burden” so that he won’t have to “carry it alone” anymore. Interestingly enough, notice how God uses the same words Moses used in his very prayer to God.

You see folk, the Land Between is not only fertile for complaint. It is not only fertile ground for melt down, but…

The Land Between is Fertile Ground for God’s Provisions. God loves to provide. Think about the Grace of God, that wonderful Character of God that loves to give and give and give. And God still loves to give, He continues to love to provide. What if you find yourself in a bout with depression? You don’t know how you got in it and you don’t know how you’ll get out of it, but, God will often pull us out of that depression OR He will give you the sustenance to endure through that moment by maybe providing something you needed to get through it at that time, like an email or Bible verse or even a timely message. He loves to provide. Sometimes He will provide the finances needed at a particular time, or other times He provides contentment to teach us to do without so that we can learn to be whole with it and we can be whole without it. Just like Paul wrote that he can be content whatever the circumstance is. Remember, amazingly enough he wrote those words, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13) while in prison.

Another Person in the Bible to take note of is the Prophet Elijah. He had to be content with serving under the likes of Ahab and Jezebel who sought to kill Elijah. Elijah also writes a prayer much like the prayer that Moses wrote. He said too that he would rather be dead. But as he prayed he was made to fall asleep and an angel of God appeared and when Elijah awoke he found a cup of water and a loaf of fresh bread. It was as Elijah needed that God provided. Elijah just needed to eat something and to rest. It is also said that as the disciples asked the Lord to teach them to pray and Jesus taught them the Lord’s Prayer. Part of the prayer says, “Give us this day our DAILY bread” or “Lord, give us what we need to get through our daily needs”. God loves to provide.

Okay, but, what about the other half of Moses’ problem, what about those screaming people wanting their meat. Well, we continue to read in verse 18:

“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month – until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it – because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”(Numbers 18-20)

Then Moses responded back to the Lord:

“But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot and you say ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”

The Lord answered Moses, “is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” (Numbers 11:21-23)

Then you see in the rest of the story that God provided the abundance of quail. More than any can conceive, but not only did God provide the meat they sought, Scripture goes on to say that He also sent a plague throughout Israel and people died in those days. People DIED! This does give us two opportunities as we talk about this part of the provisions of God. First of all it reminds us of the disciplining hand of God. And secondly, we can tell our children to eat their vegetables…remember people died…

But seriously, God is showing His hand of discipline by inflicting pain for redemptive purpose. God is trying to show you something. God is trying to teach us what lies ahead in His plans for us. He is trying to get our attention before the whole incident goes bad. You see, Godly discipline inflicts pain for redemptive purposes, God sometimes allows pain to enter our lives to save us from heading into worse problems or catastrophic pain.

So what exactly is going on here? It’s not really that far from Egypt to Canaan, so why are they in the desert? Why is it taking so long?? It is because:

The Land Between is also Fertile Ground for Growth, for Transformational Growth. When we end up in the transitions that we really hate…maybe God is attempting to grow trust in us. When the Israelites left Egypt they were not a disciplined group of believers, they were unruly ex-slaves who were brought up in the doctrines of Egyptian Idolatry, and they were not ready to represent the “invisible” God of the Universe, that’s why they were in the desert. They needed to be transformed into the people of God.

Here in the desert, God is constantly asking, “will you TRUST Me? WILL you trust Me? When you’re under attack will you trust Me, when you run out of food and water will you trust Me?” The desert is the best terrain for trust to grow. BUT, the land between, though it is a place for growth it is also a place where faith goes to die. That old saying “Time heals all wounds” is a lie. It doesn’t heal, does it? There are many people who just grow more bitter and angry and poisonous in their attitudes.

In this awful space, we have a choice, because our heart is in danger. We can either grow from this or it can become a place where our faith will die. So it is the attitude of our heart that will determine whether we will emerge from the Land Between with flourishing trust or with faith that gets killed off.

Do you realize that when we go through such awful times, complaint just seems to flourish? It makes itself at home in our lives, and no matter how hard we try to get rid of it, it always returns. The only way to clean complaint out of our lives is to Trust. We’ve heard that good movement pushes out bad movement and bad movement pushes out good. Well, to trust is telling God, “I hate this place, I don’t like what I’m going through, but I will trust You, God, in this space.” Trust will overcome complaint.

What is being said through all this is that the terrain that we most despise CAN produce the fruit we most crave and that the place we hate so much has the possibility of growing the crop we need most of all. So I ask that God will meet you in the Land Between, that He would restore your laughter and your joy as you invite Trust into your lives each and every day.

May your faith grow in this season in a way that it has never grown before. May your trial not go wasted, may you find that God will provide and that He loves you and is with you as you journey through The Land Between. Amen.

What does the Land Between mean to you?

What kind of anxieties has come into your life because of these trials and challenges?

What steps can you take to allow God to provide the help you need to journey through the Land Between?

How can you draw closer to God so that complaint will leave and trust will move in?