Numbers 29:29-34: in context

The instructions for the Feast of Tabernacles prescribe the offerings for each day, bulls, rams, and lambs in their numbers. But a phrase recurs at the end of each day's list: in addition to the continual burnt offering, its meal offering, and its drink offering. However great the special festival offerings, they were offered besides the continual burnt offering, the daily sacrifice that never stopped. Beneath the high days of the feast, the ordinary, unceasing daily offering went on, morning and evening, as always.

The recurring phrase, besides the continual burnt offering, points to something easily overlooked amid the grand festival sacrifices. The feast had its special offerings, its abundance of bulls and rams for the great occasion. But underneath them all, the continual burnt offering continued, the ordinary daily sacrifice offered morning and evening, day after day, the steady unceasing devotion that did not pause for the feast but continued beneath it. The high days had their special offerings; but the daily, continual offering was the constant, the steady foundation that went on without ceasing. There is a lesson here about the place of steady, daily devotion. We can be drawn to the high moments of faith, the special occasions, the great gatherings, the intense experiences, and to value these above the ordinary daily practice of devotion. But this pattern reminds us that beneath the special occasions there is meant to be a continual offering, a steady daily devotion that does not depend on high moments but goes on faithfully day by day. The great feasts came and went; the continual offering remained. And it is often the steady daily practice, not the occasional high moment, that forms and sustains a life of faith. Scripture commends this continual devotion. Pray without ceasing, Paul says; and Daniel, we are told, prayed three times a day, as he had always done, steadily, continually, whatever the circumstances. The continual, the daily, the steady, is the foundation beneath whatever high moments come. This calls us to value and maintain a steady daily devotion, not living only for the high moments but keeping up the continual offering, the daily prayer and attention to God that goes on beneath the special occasions. The great feasts had their offerings; but the continual burnt offering was the constant. And a life of faith is sustained not chiefly by its high moments but by the steady, continual, daily devotion that goes on faithfully underneath them all.

Do I live for the high moments of faith, the special occasions and intense experiences, while neglecting the steady daily devotion that is meant to go on beneath them, and can the continual burnt offering that continued faithfully underneath the great feast call me to maintain a steady, daily practice of prayer and attention to God, the constant offering that sustains a life of faith more than any occasional high moment?