We get the lists of heroes of the faith like in Hebrews 11 and you might think that guys and gals in the Bible leaped from spiritual mountaintop to mountaintop. They rarely doubted but even when they did a mountaintop grew out of it as God helped them learn from it. When we doubt it feels like there isn’t anything there but a dark cloud! And of course when they sinned, it seems like good things could still result while for us it seems to hardly ever work that way. You read about all the great things they did in faith, sometimes it makes me wonder if they ever just had a normal day in their lives. The answer is obvious, of course they did. But the feeling we get of reading the highlights of their lives make them seem almost untouchable. Their normal moments weren’t recorded because that just doesn’t make good oral tradition and narrative. Normal isn’t filled with tension and it never needs to find resolution. Story needs those things!
It is important for us to remember that people in the Bible had normal days. David got the blahs. Noah probably had the flu for a week and did nothing but stay in the bathroom. Abraham spent much of his time doing routine things. Moses and David herded the sheep for weeks and months on end. Paul spent lots of time on boats going here and there. The normal moments are written in between the lines and while those times probably comprised the majority of their lives, just like we experience, they are quickly ushered into the silence of scripture. It is a challenge for us to be okay with some normalcy in our lives, routine, and even some times the blahs but to also realize that there are times of spiritual mountaintops that we too can experience today. It can certainly be a challenge to find God in the ordinary but I can assure you He is there too!
