The Whole Story – What happens on the days in between?
Some of you may know the story of Noah and his boat. It begins in Genesis 6:9 and goes through Genesis 9:29. For those of you that do not know the story, it begins with God telling a really old righteous man to build a boat to house two of every kind of animal on the earth to save them from a flood that would kill everything on the earth that breathes. He builds the boat, God brings the animals, they get on board and the flood happens. After all the water subsides, God gives a rainbow as a sign that he will not destroy the earth in a flood every again. Much more details and a better telling of the story are found in the first book of the Bible. It is a short read and worth your time, I would recommend it.
Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
Genesis 9:29 Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.
Whenever you hear a story, it is inevitable that details are left out. Sometimes, details are not important to the outcome of the story, or they may not seem important to the point trying to be made at the moment. Other times, we just forget all the details, or simply don’t have time to explain them all. In addition to the details, there is the story before and after that can provide context. When we read a story or watch a movie, there is a beginning and an end with some flash backs if needed, but generally, it follows a timeline with a definite start and stop. Between the start and stop usually there is some time in between the action that is not revealed because it doesn’t add to the story.
Life is simply not the same. Our day may have a beginning and an end, but it is usually a continuation of the day, week, or month before. We have seasons and events to look forward to, and from those, we eventually get stories, but for the most part, days and long hours fill the time between the stories.
It is so easy to read a story in the Bible and believe that the highlights shown in two verses of scripture were quick and easy. The Bible is not clear on the time, but some scholars say the boat Noah built took between 70 and 120 years. What happened on day 31 of year 52? Did he get up late? Did his back hurt? Did he have some friends over and take the day off? Was he excited at the progress, or was he filled with despair because he felt like it was never going to be finished and it had been weeks since he noticed any real progress?
This is where my life is most of the time. It is not filled with victorious moments of greatness. It is the day after day that fills my life. God healed my knee and led me to my stolen bike and lost wedding ring. These are great stories of when God came through and touched my life. These are the big stories. There are many other ones of answered prayer that I unfortunately have forgotten over the years. Looking back on the things God has done for me can be encouraging because the time in between can be long and monotonous. I get excited when I tell the story of how God walked me through my career from one place to another giving me scripture and dreams to help me make decisions along the way, but that story is 15 years in the making and there have been a lot of time in between that were just simply boring days.
Acts 18:11 So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.
In Acts, a simple verse can be read by so quickly without stopping to think about the details. What did Paul do every single one of those days for a year and a half? The Bible is filled with these verses of long spans of time.
This seems like an odd topic to be writing about, but it relates to a life of faith. We can lose hope as we go day by day doing the same thing and not seeing any progress as we continue to pray and wait for an answer. We need to encourage one another with the things that God has done for us and think back to the last big thing God has done for us while recognizing the things he continues to do that can go unnoticed. Even for the person living a life of faith, most days can be difficult. For me, in the past year and a half, there have been way more difficult days than exciting days. However, there have been some very exciting days and I have seen some amazing things happen to my friends and I am very encouraged by that when I stop to think about it.
What is the cure for the everyday in between? - Philippians 4:8