Period

For a while now, I have noticed a very strange habit among believers. In various conversations, the goodness and power of God will be acknowledged, but then a caveat is given. For example, I was recently speaking with a friend who said, "I'm feeling really rested, so I know I can expect something big to come next." Now that sentence may seem fine, but the hidden context was that the Lord was only giving her rest so that she could look forward to going through some disastrous challenge from Satan. I picked up on that and pointed it out to her. She said, you know, you're right. 

Now how is it that we can see the good thing God has done for us, but only negate it by dreading some future negative outcome? In the example above, my friend had received rest from the Lord, but she couldn't enjoy that feeling because she was afraid something negative was to follow. God pricked my spirit in the conversation and said we need to start putting a period on things. I feel rested. Period! I received a good gift from God. Period! God blessed me. Period!

We know that troubles will come. Jesus told us so. But when we have the opportunity to rejoice over a blessing, let's stop all the buts, howevers, and any other conjunction that is going to cancel it out. Period!