When Days Are Long and Years Are Short

I was talking with a friend recently about his journey into fatherhood. His twins arrived two months early, making those initial days in the NICU incredibly stressful. The relief and gratitude when they finally came home, healthy and thriving, were immense.

Now, at around eight months, the reality of regular parenting has set in. He and his wife are running ragged. Long nights and fussy babies. The endless diaper changes, and the dynamic of one sleeping while the other is crying, are taking their toll. Add to that a stressful job that isn't bringing much joy, and you can imagine the exhaustion. He wasn't complaining, just honestly sharing about the relentless lack of sleep and how incredibly long the days felt.

God, in His providence, has given me a unique perspective on this parenting thing. I have one kid graduating college this year and another still in preschool. As one is working on a novel, the other is discovering dinosaurs! Because of this, I can tell you that the cliché is true: the days can be extremely long, but the years truly do fly by in the blink of an eye.

Just this past Sunday, we watched Toy Story with our preschooler for the first time. As we watched, it felt like only yesterday I was watching it with my oldest, and hearing him call Buzz Lightyear "Superhero Toy." Even though that feels like yesterday, his college years seem to have run by in a blur.

This conversation with my friend led me to consider how we think about time. Whether we are a parent or not, we all face the fact that time can be slippery. Paul tells us to “be careful how you live … making the most of every opportunity” (Ephesians 5:15-16). To be good stewards of our time, we have to be mindful of the big moments and the small times in between.

Our "Ebenezer" Moments: Cherishing the Milestones

The term "Ebenezer" comes from the Old Testament in the Bible. In 1 Samuel 7, after a significant victory over the Philistines, the prophet Samuel set up a stone and named it "Ebenezer," saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." It was a visible, tangible reminder of God's faithfulness and intervention in a major way.

There is a rich history of this in the Bible. When Jacob saw the ladder going up and down to heaven, he set up a memorial stone (Genesis 28:18). Joshua did the same, setting up 12 stones where the Israelites crossed the Jordan River (Joshua 4:1-9). God repeatedly called His people to establish physical markers to remember His mighty acts and faithfulness.

This is why the classic hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has the line “Here I raise my Ebenezer.” In context, the song is calling us to remember the biggest defining moment of our lives; that “Jesus sought me when a stranger” and rescued me with His precious blood.

After that, we have other "Ebenezer" moments in our lives – significant milestones that stand out as clear markers of God's grace and blessings. Think of births, graduations, weddings, or milestone achievements in your career or family life. These are the big, defining moments that are absolutely worth cherishing and remembering. They are the peaks on the landscape of our lives, where God's hand feels undeniably present.

They can also be those memories that stand out. One of those for me is a camping trip to Lake Ozette I took with my oldest on the Olympic Peninsula. We took a 9-mile hike that looked wonderful on paper, but in practice, the 3 miles up the ocean coast ended up being a slog that his 8-year-old legs weren’t able to bear. We bonded as I encouraged and carried him. As we found petroglyphs on old rocks. Realizing that we didn’t time the tide well and had to free-climb across a cliff face, we laughed and scrambled our way to survival.

These "Ebenezer" moments are powerful reminders of God's goodness and His presence in our lives, and we should hold onto them tightly, recounting them often to remind ourselves of His faithfulness.

Finding God Between the Milestones

But what about the spaces between those major milestones? The long stretches of ordinary days, the demanding seasons, the moments when life feels more like a marathon than a series of sprints? The big moments in my life are rare; I think most of my life is made up of slightly blessed moments.

I was discussing this with my spiritual director. He asked me where I felt blessed lately. My mind started searching for Ebenezer moments, and I couldn’t come up with any in the recent past. I was baffled that it seemed I had pigeonholed God to only being able to bless in big, sweeping moments. The fact is that if I look back at the past few months, I would consider most of my days to be more positive than negative.

As it turns out, life's most profound blessings often come in the countless little areas we tend to overlook. They are in the quiet moments: holding hands and walking down the street, cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie, or in the seemingly ordinary conversations that weave together the rich fabric of our lives. These are the small, consistent acts of grace and love that often go unnoticed in our pursuit of the next big thing.

Life rarely has “light switch” moments where things go from darkness to light. Usually, it feels like a steady hand on a dimmer switch, where things slowly get brighter and brighter, or to continue our metaphor, more blessed and blessed.

My spiritual director challenged me to end each day by completing this sentence: "Today, I felt God's blessing when…"

It's a simple practice and would only take a minute or two to write down. He started doing it himself a year or so ago, and it has helped him greatly. It's made him slow down a little and pay attention to how God is working in the small stuff, in the mundane, the tiresome, and even the overwhelmingly long days. It can help us remember that God's faithfulness isn't just in the big "Ebenezer" moments, but in the countless, quiet "thus far the Lord has helped us" moments that pepper our daily existence.

Would you be willing to try that too? What was a small blessing you noticed today?

With You;
Pastor Tim