Monday, August 18, 2003
Monday, August 18, 2003
For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and
asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding,
Today, we want to deal with one of the punctuation marks of life--the question mark. Not just any
question mark, but a question mark that gets at the root of our lives: WHAT ARE WE DOING
HERE? That's the question each of us must eventually answer. What are we doing here?
We are called to serve and worship God through Jesus Christ. Will you seek God's guidance on
how you will live that calling out?
(Colossians 1.9
NRSV)
There's a little town up the Fraser Valley in British Columbia called Lillooett. There's a
small-town newspaper published in Lillooett. And for many years the editor of that paper was a
woman named "Ma" Murray. "Ma" Murray was kind of a tiger, in her own way. She was a social
activist. And every issue of her paper rode concerns about labor and about human rights and
about native issues. But here's what was so striking about "Ma" Murray's paper. She always
wrote in a frenzy. So much so that she didn't pay much attention to punctuation. She wouldn't
put quotation marks around the things that other people had said. She'd run sentences on and
on, without throwing in a period now and again. And people criticized her for it. If you're going to
publish a newspaper, they told her, then do it right! Put the punctuation marks where they
belong! So here's "Ma" Murray. And she doesn't really care what people think about her style. So
what does she do? On the first issue each year she covers the whole front page with nothing but
punctuation marks! Commas, and colons, and exclamation points, and quotation marks, and
periods, and question marks....They're all there! The whole front page! "There!" she'd say, "I've
given you all the punctuation marks you'll need for the whole year! Just use them whenever you
think they're necessary!"
Dear Jesus, help me to know God's will, as I serve Him. Amen.
