The Book

I bought The Land Between on Saturday evening and finished it Saturday evening-techinically Sunday morning at 12:45am. I could not put it down. The words flowed from the pages and it was just as perfect as I hoped it would be! I feel like I have a much better understanding of what God means when he says "I know the plans I have for you....." because, he does. He has it all figured out! That's hard for me to grasp sometimes, because I think I have it all figured out and surprise, surprise- I don't! Which thank goodness, because life would be really boring if it followed all of my type A plans.

There were so many different parts of the book that I could share, but the one that stood out to me the most was in the part about complaint. There were 5 parts in the book and complaint (I believe...) was the first part. It was so funny hearing him describe the complaints that the Isrealites were making on their trek through the desert. They complained because they didn't have water (I'm going to say that is a justifiable complaint) then, they found water, but it was bitter. So God told Moses to put his staff in the water and it became clean. Praise God! or...continue to complain. That's what they did. The complained about food, so God provided manna from heaven. Somedays I wish God would provide manna from heaven for me. It would make the mealtime battles so much easier. They got sick of the manna (I get that, I probably would too) and that's when they started complaining about going back to Egypt where they had meat and fruit and vegetables all that they could want.

Here are a few interesting things I learned:
1. The Isrealites had been in bondage in Egypt since Joseph was sold into slavery in the book of Genesis. So, they knew of the story of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob and they knew that God had provided for them, but they also were immersed in the Egyptian culture. As we know, the Egyptions were idol worshipers. They didn't believe in the one true God. They had multiple Gods, so the Isrealites were influenced in many ways by the Egyptian culture. Trusting in God was difficult for them, because it wasn't all they knew. Good thing they got out of there!
2. This was not in the book, but totally relates. Walking from Egypt to Canaan would have only taken them 11 DAYS!!! Only 11 days (thank you Mel for this insight!). As it relates to the book, they were on their here to there journey and just couldn't get there. Most of the original slaves didn't ever even make it to the promised land, because they never did have faith in God like he wanted. What a waste!
3. This was one of my favorite parts. He quoted one of Moses' prayers after listening to all the complaints. He asked God why he had put him in charge of these people. He said they were not his children and he did not give birth to them. Why should he have to take care of them...and on and on. He was honest with God. He told him exactly what was bothering him. He didn't hide it from God and complain to other people. He clearly voiced his opinion to God and God appreciated his honesty. God then told him to find 70 elders and bring them to the tent of meeting and God would come and lay his Spirit among them to carry some of the burden so it wasn't all on Moses. I thought that was great! He went on to say that being honest with God is important (even though he already knows) we should still have enough faith in Him to give him our burdens when we don't think we can do it anymore. He also goes on to tell about Elijah doing the same. When Queen Jezebel decided that she would kill him he fled to the wilderness and cried out to God saying that he cursed the day he was born and wished that he would die. After that, an angel woke him up and God had prepared a meal for him. In the book he said that instead of God getting upset with him for being so angry, he thought, you must be really upset, here let me cook you some dinner and maybe you'll feel better. How nice!

So, where to go from here. Stop complaining. Easier said then done when you are a habitual complainer such as I. I can complain about anything and pretty much do. So, for the last couple of days I have not been complaining. I've expressed frustration, but not just sat down and complained. I feel better about it too!

Jason is now reading the book. He's reading a chapter a night and then we talk about it. That's fun to do. How he can only read one chapter and not keep going just blows my mind, but that's how he likes to do it. And I'm not complaining!