Between the Verses
I’ve been reading through Genesis.
Yes…
I’m still in Genesis.
You can hold your applause.
There is so much happening in those first few chapters of the Bible.
Creation.
Jealousy.
Murder.
Floods.
Promises.
Betrayal.
Family drama.
Honestly, Genesis could compete with any true crime novel I’ve ever read.
And that’s saying something because I love true crime.
I love long stories.
Character development.
Motives.
Backstories.
The psychological unraveling.
I want to know what people were thinking.
What they were feeling.
What happened after everyone else left the room.
That’s probably why I sometimes struggle with reading Scripture.
The Bible tells extraordinary stories…
with extraordinary brevity.
One chapter.
Sometimes a paragraph.
Sometimes just a handful of verses.
Take Genesis 22.
God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
His promised son.
The son he’d waited a lifetime to receive.
And then Scripture says:
“Early the next morning Abraham got up…”
That’s it?
That’s the turnaround time?
Excuse me…
I spend longer deciding what I want for dinner.
You’re telling me Abraham hears the hardest request imaginable…
sleeps…
wakes up…
and starts walking?
Surely there was more.
Surely there were tears.
Questions.
Silence.
Anger.
Fear.
Did Abraham sleep at all?
Did Isaac notice something was wrong?
Did they talk on the journey?
Did Isaac resist when Abraham bound him?
Did Abraham’s hands shake?
I want to know all of it.
The Bible doesn’t tell us.
And honestly…
that used to frustrate me.
Because I love context.
I love knowing what makes people tick.
Maybe that’s why true crime fascinates me.
We don’t just want to know what happened.
We want to know why.
Why did they do it?
What happened in childhood?
What was their motive?
What were they thinking?
We ask those same questions about everything.
Someone gets divorced.
Why?
Someone quits their job.
Why?
Someone moves.
Why?
Someone disappears from church.
Why?
Someone cuts all their hair off.
Why?
We want context.
We want the gray.
The Bible often gives us something different.
It gives us the action.
Not always the internal dialogue.
Not always the emotional processing.
Not always the explanation.
Just…
“Abraham obeyed.”
For a long time, I thought something was missing.
Now I wonder if something is being protected.
Because if Scripture had spent ten chapters explaining Abraham’s internal struggle…
I probably would’ve focused on the struggle.
Instead…
I’m forced to wrestle with the obedience.
That doesn’t mean Abraham didn’t struggle.
In fact…
I suspect he struggled more than I can imagine.
I just don’t think that’s the point the story is trying to make.
The Bible doesn’t ignore our humanity.
It simply refuses to let our humanity become the ending.
It keeps pointing us somewhere else.
Toward trust.
Toward obedience.
Toward faith.
Simple.
Not easy.
I’ve noticed something in my own life.
I often want enough understanding to make obedience feel comfortable.
I want God to explain Himself first.
Show me the ending.
Give me the context.
Tell me why this road matters.
Then…
I’ll follow.
But that’s rarely how trust works.
Trust almost always begins…
between the verses.
In the conversations we’ll never read.
In the tears Scripture never records.
In the questions no one wrote down.
Maybe Abraham wrestled all night.
Maybe he argued with God until sunrise.
Maybe he cried every step of that journey.
I don’t know.
But I do know this.
When the story was over…
the defining thing wasn’t how perfectly he understood.
It was that he trusted God enough to keep walking.
Maybe that’s why the Bible leaves so much unsaid.
Not because the details don’t matter.
But because every generation fills those spaces with its own questions.
Its own fears.
Its own wrestling.
Its own story.
And maybe…
that’s exactly where faith begins.
