The dictionary definition of the word comma describes it as a slight pause. I’m quite sure we have all now felt the sting of this “slight pause” in our lives during this season of the pandemic. No overseas holidays, no lavish birthday parties and some very small wedding gatherings have all felt this slight pause to its full effect. Maybe you’re not so worried about the pandemic rather it’s the fact that you’ve just lost your job. Whatever you’re facing, these things can knock the wind out of your sails for a while and you need a moment to catch your breath and find your strength again.

However, some people decide that it’s not worth the fight. You may feel like you’ve been dealt a death sentence that has a full stop at the end of it. You think that this interval of your life has no second act, it is the curtain call for you. So, you start to shovel dirt over the job that you’ve lost and erect a headstone that says, “Thanks for the memories.” Maybe you’re already receiving flowers from loved ones because you’ve decided to take a final bow and then exit stage right. 

Listen up! Situation’s and circumstances may seem bleak in this season. However, it’s just a comma and not a full stop. What you are going through is not the end of your sentence. There is more to your story. Yes, this chapter may have finished in your life, my friend, but it’s not the end of the book! You have many more adventures to experience. It’s just a comma, a pause, a breather for you to rethink some stuff through.

Psalm 46:10-11 says this, “Surrender your anxiety! Be silent and stop your striving and you will see that I am God. I am the God above all the nations, and I will be exalted throughout the whole earth. Here he stands! The Commander! The mighty Lord of Angel Armies is on our side! The God of Jacob fights for us! Pause in his presence.” (TPT)   

Wow! What a tremendous promise! We need to surrender, be silent, and stop our striving so we can pause in God’s presence. In writing, a comma means that there is more to come. There are no full stops when the Lord of the Angel Armies is on our side, only commas. I know there has been pain and sorrow and it’s difficult right now, but a new day is coming! 

Remember when the Israelites complained in the wilderness to God? They came to the conclusion that the desert was a full stop, not a comma. Their constant state of not trusting God when they were in the comma of the wilderness was their undoing. Psalm 95 recalls the account, ‘Your ancestors challenged me over and over with their complaining, even though I had convinced them of my power and love. They still doubted my care for them. So, for forty long years I was grieved and disgusted by them. I described them as wicked wanderers whose hearts would not follow my ways or keep my words. So, I made a vow in my anger and declared, “They will never enter the resting place I’ve planned for them!’ So, don’t you ever be hard-hearted or stubborn like they were!” [TPT]

Strong words indeed! God performed miracle after miracle for the children of Israel, and yet doubt, fear and uncertainty robbed them of the Promised Land. Don’t let that happen to you. Your enemy would love nothing better than to watch you camp out at what you think is a full stop in your life and complain about it, when in actual fact it’s just a comma. You see, the Israelites were so busy reminiscing about Egypt, about how they were better off in the good ‘ol days of slavery, that they missed what God wanted to do in their future. Their eyes were looking in the wrong direction. And it seems so crazy to us when we read these scriptures, that these people who had cried out to God to free them from their 400-year bondage, would now pass up the opportunity to walk out their freedom!

You may have prayed for the longest time for God to bring you out of the slavery of your dead-end job. But now you feel like the Israelites when they stood at the Red Sea and Pharaoh was coming after them. You’re what’s commonly known as being between a rock and a hard place. You can’t go back to your old job, but you can’t move forward either. That’s okay because it’s time to celebrate! God is moving you into the next phase of your destiny. Remember, it’s a comma not a full stop. There was only a slight pause before Moses stretched out his staff and God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could move forward again. 

I remember God said to me once, “Wendy, can’t you do anything without complaining about it first?” Now, why would a loving God say something like that to me? I never complain. Well, maybe a little, sometimes, okay maybe I do it a lot. Anyway, the point is (and there is one), God wasn’t being harsh, He was being truthful because He didn’t want me to come to a full stop with all my complaints about how things were ‘better in Egypt’, and then miss out on all the goodies the Promised Land had to offer. 

Well played, God, well played. 

Take my advice. Don’t complain about every step God is asking you to take in the desert because God is not going to like hearing your whinging. Yes, He’s so for you, of course He is, but you cannot let fear control you any longer. Freedom is only a comma away and it may look like a full stop at the moment. However, God has big plans for you, my friend, and I’m sure by now He has convinced you of His power and love? Surely by now you can trust Him enough to take you through this wilderness season and into the freedom of your destiny that is waiting for you on the other side!

So just remember when life throws you a curve ball, it’s a comma, not a full stop.

Wendy xo