Living in the Comma

A comma is really small.  It makes us pause, slows us down, and takes up very little space.   Yet lots of things can happen in a comma.   Has anyone else wondered why it takes so long for things to happen?  Yes, time does seem to fly and things can change quickly -- storms can arise when things appear calm, "life-changing" events, etc.  What I'm asking, though, is does anyone else wonder why it takes so long for the "future" to come?  Case in point: around this time we take time to specifically remember when Jesus was born to Mary.  Part of that story is when Gabriel appeared to Mary and said that her (God's) son would "be great and... he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." (Luke 1:32-33)  Joseph was told that "[Jesus] would save his people from their sins."  (Matthew 1:21)  Yet that event was to occur over 33 years later.   Those 33 years would have amounted to about 2/3 of Mary's life up to that point, assuming she was around 16 years old when the angel sprang on the scene.  And Joseph very likely was not even alive! 

I must confess, that to be told that your fiancee's baby was not some other man's but was God's, and then (likely) never physically see evidence for that would have been disconcerting (to say the least).  Yet do we ever get antsy that the future isn't coming fast enough.  Even without an angelic proclamation we want to know the what, when, where, why and how the future is to come.

Looking again at Abraham...

Abraham was 75 years old when he was called to leave his father's house and go to the land that would be shown.  He was 100 when Isaac was born.  That means that he spent roughly 25 years living life between Genesis 12:7 (when Abraham arrived and was promised the land to his descendants)  and Chapter 21 (Isaac's birth).  What was he doing during that time?  He was living out his faith.  He was living in the comma. 

Sidenote:  I know that gramatically it should be a period, since in Hebrews the separate thoughts are in separate sentances.  However, since we think of them as commas, I use this title.  (Try it:  Abraham followed God, was given a son, and was tested.  See, we shorten the summary even further!)

Sure, it takes faith to leave all that you know and move.  It takes even more faith to continue to live after you've stepped out and not yet received what was promised.  Most of what we read in the Bible are just extremely short, episodic highlights -- if even that.  Look at Matthew 1.  In the first 16 verses, we read the names of a family tree -- 42 generations long.  Look at your own family tree -- look back just 5 generations.  How much "life" is skipped over in between each name?  Azor was a very important man -- he served an important purpose.  He was the great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Joseph, the man God chose to protect His baby son.  He served as a link from Abraham to David to Jesus.   Yet nothing else about him is recorded in the Bible.   Does that mean he was bad -- that God didn't use him?  No.  I'm sure he had a normal life: joy, laughter, struggle, tears, love, and loss.

You can liken it to a mathematics student.  Even after five years (5th grade) of studying numbers and addition, that student is not yet ready for Calculus -- even if by that point they know they will learn it.  Calculus class is still at least 6 years away.  But we don't remember when we learned our fourth lessson of long division.  But we do remember that we learned it and that we moved on to algebra and so forth.

The time in the comma is not wasted.  It is spent learning, growing, and preparing on a daily basis.  Differential Geometry or Linear Equations are not learned overnight, nor does the "future" arrive overnight.  Sometimes we even feel (or are) stranded on an island for a time.  But that doesn't mean things are over for us.  See nikitoni's blog for an interesting view of John on Patmos.

As we approach the end of another short year, take time to enjoy the comma.  The comma is when growth occurs -- and trust me, when the time is right, the future will be here.  Will you be ready for it?