Glory

"I do not receive glory from people . . . How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" John 5:41,44

We pray so often for God to be glorified. However, it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I started wondering where this glory comes from. We have a song in one of our hymn books that says, "If you owe Him any glory, better start that debt to pay." Of course we should give God glory, but it hadn't occurred to me that this glory doesn't actually come from us. In fact, the phrase "give God glory" is rather deceptive. One might as well say, "Here, I am giving you your shirt that you lent to me."

But then, isn't it like that whenever we give God anything? We give Him our money, our babies, and our lives, but weren't they already His?

All glory comes from the Lord Almighty Himself. Humans try to manufacture glory, but it is a cheap counterfeit by comparison. It just doesn't work. All glory comes and must only come from the Throne room itself. The earth and all the creatures in it are merely mirrors that catch a glimpse of the Glory and then toss the reflection back to the Originator of Glory. Only then is He truly glorified.

When I started considering that all glory comes from God and the fact that I am not giving God glory so much as I am returning it to Him, my outlook started to change. I began making it a practice on my morning walks to notice details in the beauty around me. I recognized the imprint of God in the whiteness of snow. In the new life popping from a budding leaf. In the slant of the sunlight on a marshy swamp. And as I put my finger on that imprint, I seized the glory emanating from it and hurled it heavenward--with joy. Back where it belonged.

It's hard to look at the world in the same way when you're searching for God's glory pulsing through it.

". . . I could not see because of the brightness of the light. . ." Acts 22:11

Usually, I think the world is a dark place. And it is. There is so much evil out there that I'm gradually becoming more aware of, and there's so much more that I've been sheltered from even imagining. We also are repeatedly faced with decisions, and we often don't know what to do. Usually, in both cases, we feel like it's dark.

But what if we're wrong?

Yes, it's dark. Or rather, we can't see.

But is that the same thing?

What if we can't see because it's so bright? What if God's glory is all around us, but we're blind to it so that all we see is darkness? Perhaps we're not ready to see that glory. Perhaps it would change our lives more than we'd like. Perhaps we choose not to see it.

Now, I'm not trying to make some heretical theological point or propose that we all become Pollyannas. But I do think that this is worth considering. Maybe God wants us to look for His glory amidst what we perceive as darkness. Maybe He's more alive and glorious in the most desperate darkness than we had supposed. Maybe He wants us to search it out. To find it. To find Him.

His donut is a lot bigger than His hole.