Land Between- Here & Now
Yesterday I shared a season from the past where I experienced the land between, and reached the other side. Today, my plan was to share a bit about the land between I’m currently journeying through.
Vivid stories help us relate to eachother better than quotes and principles. Writers and lawyers know you can always make a stronger case for something when you show rather than when you tell. Knowing this I planned on sharing with you the specifics of the difficult season we are in, as a family. But after a restless nights sleep, the truth is, the timing to share is not right because my little heart is not ready and, more importantly, my heart is not the only one at stake.
Even though at the moment my heart feels too fragile to share the particulars of the trials of this personal season, I still believe there is meaningful conversations to be had on the topic in general.
Some of us have been on detours for so long we woner if we are still using the same map. We are squarely in the Land Between with no idea how long it will be before we leave. -Jeff Manion, The Land Between: Finding God in Difficult Transitions
Maybe there is an area in all our lives where we feel squarely in the land between, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it’s in the area of our health or the health of someone we love. Maybe it’s in the area of our relationships, our finances. Or maybe it’s in the area of something more difficult to qualify like our happiness or ”joie de vivre”.
Like me, you may not have the strength of hindsight yet to rest on because you are still trying to find your way across this desert. Pray, in time, we will. Pray also when we get there we will have the courage to share where we have been.
For now, though, fromwhere we are at today, what are some of the choices we have on this seemingly endless detour? Can we grow despite our circumstances?
What is it like to travel the land between, here and now?
Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” If we are traveling the land between, than our experience is one of former, not latter. Hope is constantly being deferred, and it seems as if we are drifting backward, forever inching further away from the fruition of our dreams.
The fact that the land between is a known for being a land of discouragement and disappointment is exactly why Jeff Manion says it is a place, “where faith goes to die.” But that is not all he says. The here and now of our experience in the land between also offers hope:
“The Land Between is what provides the climate for transformational growth. When stripped of financial security, when adrift in suffocating grief, when our bodies weaken, or when key relationships evaporate, we have entered a land where the soil is perfect for deep, lasting transformation.”
“The Land Between is fertile ground for transformational growth.” -Jeff Manion
What good does this do?
At this point, I doubt you are thinking: Oh yeah! This horrible, no-good, very bad place is actually the very place where I get the chance to do my best maturing and growing? Well, then! Awesome. I love this place. I hope I never leave.
No. My bet is that you still want to get the hell out of the land between. I do. It sucks here.
But what if Pastor Manion is right? What if this intolerable place actually offers some insanely important key for the rest of our entire life?
The stakes are high
The past two days you’ve heard me say several times that the land between is fertile soil for both emotional breakdown and transformational growth. It is both dry-bone desert and spiritual oasis at once. Which one it will turn out to be for us is up to us to decide. And the stakes of this choice are high.
The truth we cannot take lightly is this: Transformation in the land between is not gaurenteed. We can just as easily emerge from this place shattered in spirit as we can strengthened and transformed. We can just as easily cross the border of this place with vows to shut out love, hope and God. We can just as easily loose decades of our life to bitterness and resentment as we can gain a new era of promise and trust. So what are we going to do? What am I going to do?
As I continue to walk this particular road that I have grown so tired and weary of, I will hold fast to this: Meaningful growth does not happen without my cooperation.
When I want to turn my back on my faith, and all that is life giving, I will keep Pastor Manion’s words and questions front and center on my walk: “Our choices of the heart deterine whether than Land Between will be faith building or faith killing. Will we keep our heart open to God? Will we choose to trust him?”
If you have any words of advice or encouragement for those of us traveling some kind of Land Between, nows the time we all sure would appreciate hearing it….
