"And one cried to another and said:
'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!'"
Isaiah 6:3
"For we walk by faith, not by sight."
2 Corinthians 5:7
"No matter what happens, always be thankful,
for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Remember learning your punctuation marks in elementary school when we filled in blank after blank with periods, question marks and, my personal favorite, the exclamation mark? Knowing when to put a question mark after a sentence was simple since we had those wonderful, give away question words as clues: who, what, when, where, and how. However, there was much debate when it came to a student's choice to use a period or an exclamation point. For instance, our teacher became exasperated when she tried to explain that the sentence "I like ice cream" should have a period at the end because it's a statement of fact. Students disagreed vehemently with her lack of enthusiasm about something as exciting as ice cream.
I'm with the kids on this one. We're quick to put multiple exclamation marks after our angry words, our critical remarks, our explosive sarcasm and hurtful rage, when we should be adding them by the handfuls to our expressions of thanksgiving, joy, delight, and encouragement. Just because the world finds an exclamation point after a "Thank You, God!" a bit on the fanatical side, doesn't mean those three little words shouldn't be said, or thought, with a full heart. If we let people who are apathetic toward God determine how we punctuate our days, we'll end up with less and less to exclaim and to proclaim. Period.
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