For more than two hundred years the people of Israel had lived in Egypt along the fertile crescent area of the Nile River, which was a very fertile land. Egypt, at this time, was a unilateral world power. Eventually Israel grew and prospered so much that they became a threat to the Egyptians. Under a tyranical Pharaoh, they were subjected to a terrible form of slavery. Over the course of time, the Israelites cried out for deliverance and their cry was heard by the God they barely knew or remembered. God then made this promise in Exodus 3:8: “(I will) bring them up out of that land and into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
And God fulfilled his promise. Through a series of miraculous events, the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock in the desert, and a host of other miracles, God led Israel OUT OF Egypt and forty years later INTO the Promised Land.
Between the out of and into is the place that Manion calls The Land Between. For Israel, the Land Between is a desert place. It is the Sinai Peninsula. It is a difficult place. It is where faith either grows or dies. It is in the Land Between that perhaps the most important, and certainly the biggest, part of the Exodus story is found.
Life is a passage between the past which has shaped us and the future we hope to construct and possess. Between the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future is the Land Between. It is a place of uncertainty, disruption and questioning. While there, we may experience heartache, pain, and struggles. But although it may be a spiritually dry place, it can also be fertile place where faith grows and flourishes.
Last week, we looked at the difference between the people's murmuring and Moses' lamenting. This week we are going to see three different things God did while they were in the Land Between: He provided; He disciplined; and He helped them grow!
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