The Land Between

For more than two hundred years the people of Israel had lived in the fertile Nile delta of Egypt, led there by Jacob when seeking to survive a terrible worldwide famine. The Israelites hadn’t just survived, in many ways they had thrived with their numbers increasing exponentially, so much so that the Egyptians were fearful of the potential power they had. The Egyptian Pharaoh’s forced them into awful slavery, making bricks for Pharaoh’s many building projects. Eventually the Israelites cried out and their cry was heard by the God they barely knew or remembered.

Through a burning bush God called a man called Moses to lead his people out of slavery. God 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 so begins one of the most amazing stories in the whole bible – the story of the Exodus, where God liberates a group of illiterate slaves from the bondage of the superpower of the ancient world. Miracle after miracle frees and then sustains them. Ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven and water from a rock. God leads Israel OUT OF Egypt and INTO the Promised Land. But between the “out of” and “in to” is the Land Between. It is in the Land Between that perhaps the most important part of the story is found. Certainly it is the place where the biggest part of the story occurs.

It is in the Land Between where we need the greatest amount of faith. I once saw a diagram similar to the one below in a book by Chuck Swindoll. I think it perfectly illustrates the land between.

We don't need a lot of faith before the trial begins (obviously it hasn't started yet). And we don't need a lot of faith for the trial ends (it's over). We need faith during the trial; while we are in the wilderness; while we are in the Land Between.


For Israel the Land Between was a physical location. It was the Sinai Peninsula. It was then and is now a desolate place of limited vegetation and even less fresh water. It was a wilderness. It is a desert. And it would be their home for forty years.

As the Israelites journey OUT FROM the lush fertile home of their past IN TO the lush fertile home of their future, they pass through the wilderness, a desert, the Land Between.

But the Land Between was also more than a physical location. It was also the place of uncertainty, of testing, and of desperation. It was the place where faith was discovered and lost.Through forty years of wilderness wanderings the Israelites discovered that the Land Between is the place where faith can thrive, but also the place where faith can dry up and die.

A “Land Between” times can be be very disruptive. We can find ourselves in the land between suddenly, without any warning. We come into work one day and our boss says, “I’m so sorry, but we have to downsize.” We come home one day and our partner shocks us with the words, “I’m sorry, but I don’t love you anymore. I'm leaving” We sit in the doctor’s office and he says to us, “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

The Land Between is the place where everything that is normal is interrupted. In the Land Between we experience acute uncertainty and disruption; where life is not as it once was and where the future is in question. It is a hard place, a dry place a desert place. The Land Between, that space where we feel lost or lonely or deeply hurt, can also be fertile ground for our spiritual transformation and for God’s grace to be revealed in magnificent ways.

For Israel, the Land Between became a place of complaint, provision, discipline and growth. This week,  we are going to focus in on the first characteristic, complaint. Next week, we will look at the other three.