{"id":667,"date":"2010-10-13T20:17:24","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T00:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/?p=667"},"modified":"2011-08-19T21:53:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T01:53:27","slug":"wilderness-journeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/2010\/10\/wilderness-journeys\/","title":{"rendered":"How Wilderness Journeys Create Transformational Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

In keeping with the Willow Creek 2010 Global Leadership Summit theme of how we move from where we are to where we are going, Jeff Manion, senior pastor of Ada Bible Church<\/a>, and author of The Land Between, spoke about the challenges we will face on the journey.\u00a0\u00a0 As we reach toward our goals, having left our former comfort zone, we often find ourselves in what seems to be an inhospitable wilderness, wondering how we will ever get to where we are going.\u00a0 This is what Jeff has aptly named The Land Between.<\/h3>\n

\"The<\/a> When we find ourselves in this place, our situation is not so different from what the children of Israel faced, after leaving their bondage in Egypt.\u00a0 They found themselves wandering\u00a0 through the Sinai desert, in a wilderness\u00a0 that seemed endless, and the Promised Land seemed so far out of reach that they actually longed for the comforts they had left behind in Egypt.\u00a0 \u00a0The story of their journey reveals much about the dangers and also the opportunities to be seized in this desolate space.<\/span><\/h3>\n

The land between is fertile ground for complaint.<\/strong><\/span> In Numbers 11, we find the children of Israel grumbling and complaining.\u00a0 Verses 11 \u2013 15 find Moses, in what Jeff describes as an emotional meltdown culminating in near cosmic treason, pleading with God saying, \u201cWhy have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?\u00a0 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers?\u00a0 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’\u00a0 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.\u00a0 If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now\u2014if I have found favor in your eyes\u2014and do not let me face my own ruin.”\"God's<\/a><\/h3>\n

The land between is also fertile ground for God\u2019s provision.<\/strong><\/span> God provides for Moses by delegating some of the burden of leadership to 70 elders of the tribes, and he provides for the Israelites far more than what they bargained for.\u00a0 They wanted meat, and meat they were given.\u00a0\u00a0 Picking it up at verse 19, \u201cYou will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month\u2014until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it\u2014because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” \u00a0Yes, the land between is also fertile ground for God\u2019s discipline.<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Now this was not a \u2018getting even\u2019 kind of discipline.\u00a0 This was redemptive discipline.\u00a0 God disciplines us that we might learn to trust Him, to rely upon Him, and to give our hearts over to Him.\u00a0\u00a0 The choices we make in these difficult times are our life or death choices.\u00a0 There is inherent danger, as our energy is drained and our emotions run high, but it is in our seasons of prolonged pain, confusion, restlessness, and longing, that we have a unique opportunity to learn to really trust God.\u00a0 This wilderness is also fertile ground for transformational growth.<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

In Gods plan, everything has a purpose.\u00a0 Rather than complaining, when we find ourselves in what seems to be a desolate wilderness, we can take comfort in remembering that this is our fertile ground to discover God\u2019s provision, to accept God\u2019s discipline, and to realize\u00a0 abundant transformational growth.<\/h3>\n

Blessings & Adventure,<\/h3>\n

Lynn “lynnibug” Rios<\/h3>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we reach toward our goals, having left our former comfort zone, we often find ourselves in what seems to be an inhospitable wilderness, wondering how we will ever get to where we are going. This is what Jeff has aptly named The Land Between. When we find ourselves in this place,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,35,7,33],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussions","tag-leadership","tag-leadership-summit","tag-growth","tag-willow-creek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemonthofwisdom.com\/wisdomblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}