God's Punctuation

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

 (2 Corinthians:  3:3-4)

 GOD

God sees the whole story, and I must trust His divine perspective as He writes the epistolary novel which is my life. His additions and editions make the most of the words which are on the page: Like David, I write as my Divine Muse stirs the ink with which He writes His divine story:"My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful write" (Psalm 45:1)

You have likely come across the term, selah, as you have read the Psalms. It  is a poetic term which means to pause, think, and reflect. It literally reminds me to be still and know that He alone is God (Psalm 46). The dash serves the same function; it  provides a pause, a respite, but it supplies additional information- needful information.

In between the ellipsis, the wait, the patient and impatient, He is writing our story when we can not see. During the quiet time, the long hours spend at the loved one's side, He is writing, perfecting, our story. Sometimes, I place a small letter what should be a capital. God changes what I call significant to insignificant and what I call as a capital letter- a literal new beginning.

The semicolon adds more pertinent information to that which flowed before. In the same vein, God adds layer and layer of  Christ's story in our lives. Since Christ died for us, He wants to live His life through us. Despite life's pain, we, "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:32).

The boldfaced underlined unadulterated truth is that  God has to allow pain in our lives at times so that we relinquish the pen and paper into His hands. Our lives are the script that is being written. We are living epistles read by men!  Hallelujah! Each day is a blank page- an empty canvas upon which God longs to pour His words of life on the dry thirsty pages that soak up the ink of His love.

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Romans 15:4).

 

O' Lord write your story on me, in, me, and through me. You make  me a scribe to write what you are doing. I write on the hearts of my students, peers, and family Your Truth. Lord, I praise you when there is an exclamation point because it signals a day of joy! Lord, place your apostrophe behind my name because I belong to you.

When I open my mouth, may there be quotation marks around your words that flow out of me. Colons are meant to explain in greater depth what has transpired before. Lord, let me slow down for the explanation as I still my hands., heart, and feet to hear from you. God give me the grace to pause when you want to add to the story when you place a slash/ as you write the poetry of my life/ Selah.



An empty waiting page,
MJ





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A Different Ending

Paul  imagined himself the greatest of sinners, provoking the very mercy of God. He, a ruthless murderer, devout reprobate, who vandalized the name of God's beloved Son knew that he, of all people, deserved God's judgment, not His mercy. But here he was, a piece of parchment, in the hands of the Master being shaped into a love letter to the nations, speaking of God's continual grace and unearned  and boundless mercy. Only one so vile even in his own estimation could adequately appreciate the awesome gift of God's unconditional love. He resolutely declares,

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.  Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed (I Corinthians 15:9-11).

No unsteady tremble in his voice, no quacking hesitation, this same man boldly declares that nothing can separate us from God's love. Limits do not exist. Using the rhetorical device of a meriah, he juxtaposes the extremes of two ends of the spectrum: a literal contrast that by their dimensions suggests all that remains in their in-between: height/depth; life/death/ angels and depths are counterpoised:

 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

in the same vein, concentration camp survivor Corrie ten Boom exults, "there is not pit that God's love is not deeper still." Nothing in all of creation can unravel God's love for us when we just can not see the other side of the pain yet.  Rejected and blind, George Matheson wrote these word, "O love that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee. I give the back the life I owe That in thine ocean depths its flow may richer fuller be."

What will the Hand pen? Pain, loss, peace, joy? It is in yielding the pen to the Great Scribe that best story is ever written. Few of us would worry if Charles Dickens or Shakespeare aspired to write the tale of our lives, but we are want to allow the Greatest Author to write His story over our lives. The Apostle Paul trusted God to rewrite the abysmal tale of his life and what a story God wrote. One full of tragedy and pain, but exultant with triumph and grace."For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them "(Ephesians 2:10).

Most of us have heard the statement,"Don't put a period where God has placed a comma."
We know that a period ends a statement, a paragraph, or is the final thought of a lengthy treatise. The comma is a mere pause, a breath, a rhetorical function that can be a contradiction to a  prior conceived idea. How many times has life handed you an however, ? More is to follow where you thought it might simply end. Paul's life was such an example, the man who sent Christians to their deaths and left children orphans, God chose to be a spokesman to the Gentiles- the goyim to share the glory of the Messiah.


God knows who needs the second chance; where I have placed a period, he makes it into a conjunctive adverb and a comma: However, Jesus.... Despite,  the crowd with stones in their hands, Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground. Just as He did for Paul, He gives us second chances and encourages us to the same.

Always in need of the Second Chance,
MJ