Never place a period where God has placed a comma. – Gracie Allen

comma n. a punctuation mark indicating a pause between parts of a sentence, or dividing items in a list.

period n. used at the end of a sentence, etc., to indicate finality, absoluteness.

We are always trying to put periods where commas should be. We want questions answered. We want absolutes. We want procedures and steps that gain the same results for everyone. We want truth to be something you can describe in black and white. We want to know who is who before the book is closed. And we like rules. Even though we would never say we were legalists, everything boils down to ways in which we measure ourselves compared to those around us. When truth is only a period, we have no patience for the process.

Having grown up in the faith, I can truthfully say that God was usually presented as the period at the end of every sentence — the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and so He is. But He is also the comma between all things. He is the pause that lingers in the middle. Our daily experience of God would be much more like that of a comma. Periods come at the end, but we are not there yet.

Celebrate the comma of truth today – the pieces you are finding in the world, the part which means there is still more coming, the characteristics of God that go on and on and need commas to list them. Celebrate the commas in our lives — the processes by which we come to know things, and celebrate that process in others. Appreciate them for where they are, realizing there are many commas yet to come.

How about those you love who are not Christians yet? That’s one big comma. That’s why you keep praying and never give up.

Don’t close the book when God still has it open.