Over the years I have become more and more aware of something. The actual percentage of the days of the lives of Biblical characters in scripture is very small. Even the major characters like Abraham, Moses, David, Joseph, Paul and even Jesus have a very small part of their life on the pages of Scripture.
Moses lived 3 major blocks of 40-year segments in his life. I would be surprised if there are 100 days of his 120-year life recorded. Most of his life is “between the pages”. Think about the others. Joseph comes on the scene as a young man, gets sent to Egypt, spends years at the home of Potiphar, goes to jail, gets out years later, spends 14 years in the “years of feast and famine” and reunites with his family as a much older man. If you think about what the scripture is saying we probably only have a couple dozen days listed in all those years. The rest of his life is “between the pages”.
One of my favorite New Testament characters is Barnabas. I believe information about him is recorded about 3 times other than the casual mentioning he was traveling with Paul. And yet scripture says, “many came to know the Lord because of Barnabas”. I love that line. It is because of who he was “between the pages”.
What really brought this home to me was part of a Michael Card song talking about Simeon in the Temple when Joseph and Mary were bringing the baby Jesus, as required by the Jewish law, to pay the required 5 shekels to redeem the baby. (Jesus being redeemed; think about that for a minute). Simeon was an old man. He is never mentioned in scripture before or again. Yet at that moment in his life, he was so close to God that he knew the baby was the Messiah. He not only knew it, but he also proclaimed it and said, “now that my eyes have seen your redemption, my life can come to an end”. He lived so close to God “between the pages” that when God needed him to become visible in His-Story, Simeon was able to “hear” the Spirit prompt him and faithfully proclaim it.
Another group of people in Scripture that had “cameo appearances” and stand out to me are the people that Jesus miraculously healed; Lazareth and Jairus’ daughter raised from the dead, the beggar that was born blind, the lame man by the pool, the lady with the bleeding problem, etc. In John Chapter 9 Jesus said about the man born blind, “He was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
The idea that intrigues me is how their lives impacted others after the healings. Just imagine how people that knew them felt when they were around them. There was no denying Jesus had healed them. A part of His-Story.
The days of His-Story that are remembered are truly very few. The challenge in my heart is how am I spending the days “between the pages”? Am I close enough to Him to be useful when He needs an event to show up in His-Story? Will people remember me like they did my favorite character Barnabas?
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