The Space Between

I know your mind went to the same place that mine did when you saw this post title. DAVE MATTHEWS, right?! This was what I thought would be a perfect title although it actually has nothing to do with DMB. I wanted to write this post right when Mike and I got home from church on Sunday, but I have been "marinating" on the sermon and letting it sink in for the past couple of days and now that I have my mind around it, I HAVE to share it with you...it's really that good! Like I told Mike after the service, "Nothing like gaining a little perspective!"

Ok, let me give you a little background. Our church is doing a series called "The Story" which starts way back at the beginning of Genesis with Adam and Eve and will take us all the way through the crucifixion of Christ (well I am sure we will go farther than that, but that's what I know for sure). We are currently discussing the story of Moses freeing his people from Egypt, Moses receiving the 10 commandments, and currently "the wandering" phase of their journey.

You see, when Moses led his people out of Egypt, they were headed for the promised land in Cannan. At church on Sunday, they described a road that they would have taken called The Way of the Sea, which was a popular road that was traveled then. This is the way you thought God would have led them being that it was the shortest distance between the starting point and stopping point in their journey. When Kyle looked it up on his map on his iPhone, the distance between the two places was about 175. Imagine a trip from Louisville to Nashville...on foot. Yea, a long way, but do-able. When you type this distance into your iPhone, the hiking icon says that this distance would take you about 2 days and 10 hours to walk. That's pretty aggressive if you ask me...I am assuming the phone thinks that they are going to be jogging the entire time and not stopping to eat or anything else. Anyway, we decided at church that this would take them about a week and a half, maybe even a month since there were anywhere from 2-3 million Israelites traveling as a group. Well guess what, God had other plans. Instead of taking them the shortest route to the Promised Land, he took them the another route. God led them out of Egypt, to Mount Siani where they spent about a year. At this point, God was ready for them to head out again. He lead them by a cloud during the day and fire at night. Again, this journey should have taken them about a week/week and a half. Well guess what...it took them 39 years!!!!!!!  Yes, 39 years! You're thinking WHOA! Yea, me too.


Here's a map I found of their journey. The way of the sea is obviously along the coast from Egypt to Cannan and the dotted line is the route of the Israelites.

This phase of their journey was called the wandering phase; the space between where they started and where they want to be. Sound familiar to anyone? The space between college and getting a job. The space between getting your permit and having your license. The space between dating and marriage. The space between getting married and starting a family. The space between starting your master's degree and finishing it. The space between being in debt and being debt free.The space between hearing a bad medical diagnosis and being in remission. The space between a devastating loss and being reunited with a loved one in heaven. The space between losing everything you had in a tornado and  rebuilding your life. I could go on and on. Well guess what? Sometimes God does his best work in us during this wandering phase...the space between where we are and where we want to be. 

The question that was posed to us during the sermon was, "How do you live in the space between? How do you respond to God in this time if your life?" Because the Israelites in that 39 years of wandering did nothing but a whole lot of whining instead of enjoying the journey they were being led on. It was the,"Are we there yet?" questions that little kids have. The "But I want it..." type of whining. Basically they didn't handle it well and as Kyle said it, lack of faith is often demonstrated through whining. They just wanted to get it over with. They were in a hurry like most of us are...especially if you are me. I feel like I live with a checklist of items that need to be done. I love the feeling of getting things checked off my to-do list, but I don't want to miss the journey to the destination. I need to slow down and enjoy each season of life, trust that God is completely in control. The Israelites focused how fast can we get there and get this journey over with, but I wonder what they missed because they were so focused on the end product? I don't want to miss something incredible that God has planned because I am so concerned with checking something off of my list. 

Here's the moral of the story, God isn't in a hurry. He is more concerned about who you are becoming than where you are going. He is constantly doing work in our lives and we aren't able to see that bigger picture because we aren't him! Like my friend Beth has said,"You can't see the forest because you are focused on the one tree." I couldn't have said it better myself. If we are so focused on arriving at our destination, we are most likely to miss something incredible in between. We need to slow down, enjoy the ride, be content with where we are in our life and realize that God sometimes does his best work in our lives when we are wondering through the wilderness. 

So there it is, a little perspective. This completely hit home for me. I was actually talking about something similar with my assistant principal the other day and she had the same experience this past weekend. She said the message she heard was to be number 67. Let me explain. There are 66 books in the bible, but we should constantly let God's light shine and strive to be number 67. Be content. Live in the moment. Let God's light shine in all that we do. And most of all...ENJOY THE RIDE!