With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise. (2 Peter 3:8-9)
When was the last time you were convinced that God had slammed the door on some dream or desire in life? When were you tempted to give up on yourself and simply throw in the towel? Because our view is limited, we have a tendency give in to discouragement time and time again, only to realize that God is not finished writing our story. You see, God is in the business of inserting a cosmic comma where we expect Him to apply a personal period.
Here are just a few biblical examples that make this truth gloriously clear:
Abraham and Sarah placed a period on their ability to give birth to the promised child because of their age, but God inserted His cosmic comma, and Isaac was born to them when Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90 years old.
Moses killed the Egyptian slave master who was beating a Hebrew and then had to run for his life to escape the wrath of Pharaoh. Living on the back side of the desert, Moses put a period on his usefulness to God, but God inserted His cosmic comma and sent Moses back into Egypt to deliver His people out of slavery.
Martha and Mary sent for Jesus because their brother Lazarus was ill, but Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus had died – period. But Jesus was not finished writing their story; He inserted His cosmic comma and brought Lazarus back to life.
Peter denied knowing Jesus three times and believed his days as a disciple were over – period. But Jesus showed up on the beach after His resurrection and used His cosmic comma to restore Peter to ministry.
When we are writing our own story, it only makes sense to put periods when doors close, opportunities vanish, and loss comes into our lives. When we are living out our plan in our strength, we believe that periods are appropriate punctuations to our story. We find ourselves in a relationship that is coming apart at the seams – period. A career we have pursued for years is suddenly terminated — period. We face a crisis in our health when the doctor tells us the tumor is malignant – period.
But when we are living God’s plan and purpose for our lives, He is writing our story, and He inserts one cosmic comma after another in His time and in His way. When one door closes, Jesus opens another. When one pathway is blocked, He makes another way. If you are feeling defeated and hopelessness has hemmed you in on all sides, remember this: What is impossible from a human standpoint is not impossible for God. And that is why we need to make sure we leave the pen that is writing our life story in the hands of Jesus, because He always writes a better story!
Even at the moment of our death, Jesus replaces our period with His cosmic comma. No one expressed this better than C. S. Lewis in The Last Battle:
All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
When we close our eyes for the final time in this world, we will immediately open our eyes in the next. As Paul wrote, when we are absent from the body, we will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). When Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!” He was announching that He had finished His work of inserting history’s greatest cosmic comma, a comma which means that all who have trusted in Him can be absolutely sure that all of this life is only a brief prelude to an eternal existence that will be spent living in the light of the One who wrote the greatest story ever told.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 