The Land Between

Finding God in the Difficult Transitions

“The cancer has spread.”
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“Your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

In a single sentence, normal life can disappear. One minute you’re planning dinner and stressing about regular stuff. The next minute you’re learning a new vocabulary, chemo, custody schedules, hospice, rehab, court dates, unemployment, grief.

Some sentences don’t just inform you, they relocate you.

My family has one of those sentences too. I still remember the day the doctor told us my dad’s cancer had spread to his spine, and there was nothing they could do about it. That moment changed the map. You don’t go back to normal, you learn how to live in the middle.

That middle is what I call the Land Between, the space between what was and what will be. You can’t go back, and you can’t see forward. You’re still trying to love God, still trying to do the next right thing, but everything feels unsteady.

Lately, this has felt close

Lately it feels like every conversation ends with someone exhaling and saying, “I don’t know what to do next.” I’ve sat with people in the middle of hard transitions and I’ve been reminded how much weight people carry quietly, health, family, finances.

If I’m honest, there have been Sunday mornings where I’ve prayed in the car before walking into the church because I didn’t feel like I had anything left.

And I’ve caught myself longing for “Egypt” too, not because it was good, but because it was familiar. In Scripture, Egypt was slavery and suffering, the place God rescued His people from. The wilderness was the stretch after the rescue and before the promised land, when life felt uncertain and unstable. That’s why the Land Between is both dangerous and important, it exposes what we’re really trusting.

I don’t have a neat bow for this season, but I do have a steady conviction: God does not waste wilderness. And that’s exactly why the Bible’s wilderness stories matter, because they show us what God does in the middle, and what the middle does in us.

Out of Egypt, not yet home

God promised to bring His people out of slavery and into a good land (Exodus 3:8). The destination was clear. The timeline was not.

Between Egypt and the promised land was a wilderness, and that wilderness became a formation place. It was where God taught them trust, and it was where their hearts got exposed.

That’s the part of the story most of us can relate to.

Manna: when the gift becomes the complaint

In Numbers 11, the people start craving other food and they start talking about Egypt like it was a five-star resort:

“If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost... But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4-6)

Manna was God’s daily provision in the wilderness. It was free and it was enough for today.

And over time, the miracle became the complaint.

That’s one of the sneakiest dangers of the Land Between. It doesn’t just test your patience, it tests your memory. It can make you forget the rescue and romanticize the past. It can make slavery look like stability, simply because it was familiar.

It’s easy to read that and think, “I would never do that.”

Famous last words.

If this story is going to work in us, we have to see ourselves in it. We are prone to the same weaknesses, capable of the same failings, tempted by the same sins.

So here’s the question: what is wearing you out right now? What’s draining your energy and robbing your joy? As you grow weary, where might frustration be turning into complaint and taking up residence in your heart?

We may think nothing grows in the desert, but make no mistake, the Land Between is fertile soil. It will grow something. The question is what.

Trust looks like jumping

The Land Between is a trust test.

Think about taking your kids to a pool. You stand in the water, arms out, and you tell them, “Jump. I’ll catch you. You can trust me.”

When they leap, even with fear in their eyes, they make you look strong and safe. But when they refuse, it communicates something else: “You can’t catch me,” or “You won’t catch me,” or “It’s not worth trusting you.”

Fear keeps us from jumping. It keeps us stuck in what-ifs, trying to control outcomes. The Land Between is often the moment where God is saying, “Trust me,” and we’re saying, “I would love to, after you show me the landing.”

But trust doesn’t work like that.

Trust is a decision that shows up in action.

How to get better (not bitter) in the Land Between

The Land Between forces a choice: get better or get bitter. Here are a few practices that help you choose better, even when you’re tired.

1. Name the grief (don’t baptize denial).
   God can handle honesty.
   Pray it plainly: “God, this is not what I wanted, but I’m bringing it to you.”

2. Take today’s manna (small obedience).
   Don’t try to live on tomorrow’s strength. Ask, “What is today’s step?” Then take it.
   Daily provision usually comes in daily portions.

3. Build a remembrance loop.
   The Land Between messes with your memory, so fight to remember on purpose.
   Write down how God has carried you before. Reread it when you’re tempted to romanticize Egypt.

4. Watch your words before they become your world.
   Complaining spreads. It becomes the talk of the camp, and eventually it becomes the soundtrack of your heart.

You don’t need to pretend everything is fine. But you do need to be honest about what kind of person you’re becoming in the middle.

Jesus meets us in the middle

This can’t stay in Exodus and Numbers like it’s just an ancient case study.

Jesus doesn’t meet us after we’ve cleaned ourselves up and figured it out. He meets us in the middle. In the Land Between, the question isn’t whether God is faithful, it’s whether we’ll let this season train our trust or feed our complaint.

So take today’s manna. Name what hurts. Do the next right thing. Keep a record of God’s provision, even if it feels small.

You may not be in the promised land yet, but you are not abandoned. God does not waste wilderness. Not yours. Not mine. Not this season.