Jeff Manion is the Senior Pastor of
Ada Bible Church in Ada, Michigan.
- "The Land Between" is the place where the college graduate lives after graduation before a job, the place where you say "for now," and the place where the real estate agent sells 5 houses per year and asks "How much longer?"
- Israel was in the land between as Moses led them out of fertile Egypt through the desert into fertile Canaan.
- In the land between, God provided manna (literally "what is it?") for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... for years and years.
- As we check in to Israel's story, we see that the land between is actually fertile... for complaining.
- But be careful: we have a tendency to look at people who live in the land between, and think that we would be above it all. However, we would do better to put ourselves among them. We would probably be exactly like them.
- The Israelites were not just complaining about their circumstances; they were complaining against God. This is something we have to be careful of in the land between.
- See Moses' prayer in Numbers 11:11-14 - the land between is fertile ground for emotional meltdown.
- Like: the couple who can't get a firm diagnosis as to why they can't conceive, or a parent not knowing how to bring their kid back from the brink, or the pastor navigating through a split - like Moses, "this burden is too heavy to carry."
- Throw yourself into spiritual leadership, and you will, at some time or another, find the end of yourself.
- God moves towards Moses in Numbers 11:16-17 - he instructs Moses to assemble the elders, and puts the Spirit on them as well, to help Moses carry the burden.
- Thus we see: the land between is fertile ground for God's provision. Once we open up our hands - our need - to God, he provides something to help us carry the burden: Patience, a word, a sermon, determination, strength to endure.
- It is like Elijah running from Jezebel, complaining and crying out to God: instead of a lecture, God provides him lunch.
- God will correct/discipline you if you turn your complaint on him, accusing him of not being present, or declaring that you were better off without him. The land between is fertile ground for God's discipline.
- People died for their complaints against God in the land between.
- Discipline is inflicting pain for redemptive purposes. This is God trying to rescue his people.
- We are naive to think that we are immune from God's corrective hand when we embrace a spirit of complaint that concludes that we are better off without God.
- The land between is fertile ground for transformational growth. It is the place where we can learn to trust God.
- The people of Israel were a people that were coming out of an indoctrination of idolatry and were going to a land of promise. They needed time to become the people of God, by learning/having to trust God in the land between.
- It is in the land between that we learn to pray, that we learn to depend, that we learn that we need God.
- Time does not heal all wounds: when you travel in the land between, your heart is in danger. There are difficult choices to be made in the land between. Let's face it: the land between can be the place faith goes to die.
- We do not have to extend an invitation for complaint to show up in the land between. Complaint resists eviction. We do, however, have to an extend an invitation for trust to show up in the land between.
- Complaint is evicted when we invite trust into our house. Trust evicts complaint - they are incompatible roommates.
- The space in your life that you most resent is the soil where God can produce the crop we most desire. This is the land between.
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