Show Us Your Glory, God!

I haven’t been writing for awhile, just because of life’s busyness. However, today I find myself snowbound because of a massive early spring snowstorm and am anxious to get to share with you again.

I have been praying Exodus 33:18 for a few years and more so in these last many tumultuous months in our world and nation. It is a prayer of Moses that simply says, “Please God show us your glory”!

What is the definition of glory? As a noun is defined as “a highly praiseworthy attribute”. For many months starting at the beginning of the pandemic and continuing until mid-summer, our pastor preached a series of messages on the names of Jesus. Each of those names were a highly praiseworthy attribute of God. Let me just mention a couple of them for you: Holy, Sovereign, Unchanging and Lord of Hosts. Think about it… the God of the universe and savior of your soul has GLORY streaming out of Him because EVERY attribute of God’s is highly praiseworthy.

To break down my prayer then, “Please God show us your glory”, is to petition God to be able to see each of His highly praiseworthy attributes every moment of every day.

About a month ago as I was walking east on my morning walk, I came to the crest of a hill just as the sun had poked up over the horizon. In that moment I found myself overwhelmed with joy. The sun scarcely visible became a word picture for the glory of God. It was the brightest thing before my eyes. Everything else seemed dark compared to its light. Still I could gaze at it because it was not yet too bright to hurt my eyes. Gaze means to fix ones eyes in a steady intent look – often with eagerness or studious attention. This takes time. Gazing isn’t something that can be done quickly. That is what we are to do spiritually… gaze at God’s glory by spending time thinking about Him and his attributes, pray about gaining more understanding of what His attributes mean for you and meditate on scripture to drive this knowledge down into our spirits.

I did gaze at the sun for a few minutes as I walked, prayed aloud and praised God for His highly praiseworthy attributes and for giving me such a vivid picture of His glory. That walk continued through many turns as I worked my way along my usual morning path and then as I again turned to the east another word picture was given to me.

By now, the sun was much higher and it was impossible for me to gaze at it, let alone glance at it directly. I realized that I was experiencing the physical effects for what spiritually happens when we “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”. This old hymn offers an incredible truth. Just as staring at the sun would have permanently damaged my eyesight, so in the spiritual sense, our earthly eyesight is damaged when we really see God’s glory. The words in the chorus read: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face… and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His GLORY and GRACE!” Yes, if we gaze at God and His glory our spiritual eyes will become dim and more dim to the things of this world because we will see God’s glory above all else.

If any of us intently desires to see God’s glory throughout the moments of every day, then we MUST make a practice of gazing at Him. The only way our earthly spiritual eyesight will grow dimmer is as our heavenly spiritual eyesight grows stronger.

Let me close with the lyrics to the first verse of this hymn. If these words describe where you are at in life, then I invite you to gaze upon God!

“Oh soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free.” – Helen H Lemmel

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Reposturing Spirit

I am back after being AWOL for the past several months during preparation for a day-long workshop called “Reposturing Mind, Spirit, Body”. I have shared that word… reposturing, with you several times over the past couple of years and felt I needed to create an event that would address the three parts of our beings and how this word relates to those parts. The culmination was a three-session workshop that was unique, relaxing and uplifting. I was able to present the workshop on April 28th and the feedback has been quite a blessing. I have always said that if the Lord uses my words to speak to one person, then it was a success. It has been so exciting to hear how some of the stories I told reached out so personally to women in ways I could not imagine.

Although I am not a stranger to feeling less than prepared when I speak, this time I was ten-fold more unprepared than I wanted to be. It wasn’t for lack of wanting to be prepared. I began this study in January of 2016 and actively began writing the sessions this past January. It also wasn’t for lack of tenacity when I was writing. LIFE simply stole my time over and over in ways that were unavoidable. I won’t go into that in this post because I want to get to part of one of the sessions… suffice to say that some major roadblocks did their best to completely run me off the road.  That is why I KNOW that what the women have been sharing with me about how they were touched has nothing to do with my speaking skills, but rather with my desire and willingness to share what God places on my heart. Several of the personal stories I shared that day were things I had not planned to share. However, each of those stories have been the very thing that spoke directly to someone. God used me as an unprepared, but willing, storyteller. What a thrill!

The next several posts are going to be some parts of what I shared that day… I know that God will continue to use my words to speak loudly where they are needed most.

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In mid-March our pastor, Shawn Peterson, preached on our church’s prayer for this year, Exodus 33:18 “Please God, show us your glory”.  It was such a powerful message! At the beginning he mentioned the Five Solas, something I had never heard of before. I looked them up and want to share them with you. Although each builds on the other so that none is more important than the whole, we are going to look at the last one, the one Pastor Shawn taught on, in depth.

History: The five solas came out of the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th century. The Reformers were guided by the conviction that the church of their day had drifted away from the essential, original teachings of Christianity. The Reformation sought to re-orient Christianity on the original message of Jesus and the early church. The Five Solas are five Latin phrases that emerged during the Reformation to summarize the Reformers’ theological convictions about the essentials of Christianity. Here we are five centuries later and these essentials of Christianity are still as needed (no…needed more) AND are just a true.

They are:
Sola Scriptura: (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.
Sola Fide” (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Sola Gratia: (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.
Sola DChristus: (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.
Sola Deo Gloria: (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.

In 1994 I was diagnosed with 5 primary cancerous tumors all in just one quarter of my right breast.  I have often said that following that diagnosis I had a real love affair with the Lord. By that I mean that, although my faith was already very strong, I gained a new prospective regarding God being omnipotent and fell so much more in love with Him. This was a time in my life that there was NO denying that God was completely in control of my life because I was totally out of control. I can remember one day shortly after my cancer journey began thinking, “AND, why would I want to be in control during the fight for my life. Do I want it to all be up to me to make the right decisions at exactly the right time? No! God is in control, has always been in control – and I am SO GLAD!”

This was a fresh prospective for me regarding Sola Deo Gloria. In the midst of a potentially deadly disease it was all about His glory!

Four months after that diagnosis, following my first mastectomy and beginning chemotherapy, I nearly died from an allergic response to the chemo drugs. My spinal cord was shutting down from the very drugs that were to save my life. I would have been dead in 24 hours had my temperature not spiked to 105 degrees alerting us that something was very wrong. That fever was the result of a staph infection in the incision where they had taken the lymph node sampling… in other words, God saved my life with a staph infection!

I can remember lying in ICU with tubes going every which direction thinking “wow, once again I am reminded of how out of control I am and that God is in control”. I was living for God’s glory. Not through anything I was doing or not doing but simply by His power showing through my life circumstances.

Every moment of every day we, men and women of faith, live for the glory of God alone!

What does “glory” really mean? It is a hard word for us to fathom because we tend to think it is tied to what we do for God.  Maybe a good way to think of “living for the glory of God alone” is in terms of spiritual posturing. What does this posture look like? It is a posture of bowing in awe and reverence because He is eminent; He is of the highest renown and He IS GOD!

When we are bowing, we are quiet spiritually, meditating – waiting – trusting. We cannot be meditating on our problems when we are bowed before our gracious Lord meditating on Him and His Word.

This gives us a word picture for first part of Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night…” We are meditating on God and His Word day and night when we are in a bowed posture.

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I will end this post with a challenge, like I often do. Spend some time thinking about how bowing before the Lord looks for you personally. For me it is generally during early morning hours when the house is quiet when I too can be quiet praying, reading scripture and meditating on that. Often that time is spent focusing on the attributes of God using phrases from songs or parts of Bible verses. Let me give you an example: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty!” OR “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” – Psalm 139:14

Will you accept my challenge? Ask God to show you His glory in fresh, new ways…and prepare to be blessed!

 

God’s Timing

I have a confession to make… I still get puzzled and frustrated with God’s timing in my life!  It shouldn’t surprise me that I get puzzled because, as a created being, I will never fully grasp His consummate timing. And, the reason I get frustrated with His timing is because I often think more of myself, the creation, than God my creator!

“Sometimes God will make you wait on purpose, not only so you will know it was His favor, but so all of your critics, friends, relatives and coworkers won’t be able to deny what God has done in your life.”

This quote was recently shared by someone I follow on Instagram and it spoke to me, because most of it is true. I was definitely disappointed to find out that this is something Joel Osteen said, because I don’t agree with much of anything he has to say, but there is truth in this quote and that is what I want to focus on.

I have only two choices possible when God says “wait”. The first is to whine and wimper and act like a spoiled little child whose daddy has told me I can’t have a toy I want at the toy store. The second is to stay on my knees before my heavenly daddy in humbleness welcoming His answer… whether that be “wait”… or “no”. (This is part of the quote that is not truth, because God doesn’t always only make us wait. Sometimes His answer is a definite “no” but even that answer is His favor!)

Favor refers to “an act of kindness beyond what is due”. The creator of the universe, and my creator, take the definition of this word to a new level because His favor toward me is not just acts of kindness, but rather acts of mercy and grace unmerited by me. Sending His one and only son to die and pay the penalty of sin for me is the greatest of all these acts, but He shows me ongoing mercy and grace everyday. Sometimes I am not aware of His favor and other times I am so aware of His favor that I can only cry out “God thank you!”. So, my re-write for the first part of this quote would be “Sometimes God will make you wait, or ask you to accept His “no” response on purpose, not only so you will know it was His favor, but so that…”

The rest of the quote is spot on, but knowing Joel’s teaching I am presuming the focus is in the wrong place. God knows that every part of His plan for your life will be a witness to God’s glory to everyone in your life.

However, to see the glory of God, the focus needs to be on GOD and what HE has done in your life – not on YOU and what he has done in YOUR life.

Last week our pastor spoke of the encounter Mary and Martha had with Jesus after the death of their brother, Lazarus.  In John 11:40, just before He raised Lazarus up from the dead Jesus said “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” The focus at this point in the story was definitely not on anyone except God and what He was doing.

When God is at work in your life “… our critics, friends relatives and coworkers won’t be able to deny what Almighty GOD has done, is doing and will do in your life.”

Glorifying God is our chief mission according to the Westminster catechism. God will be glorified in us, despite us.

“Sometimes God will make you wait, or ask you to accept His “no” response on purpose, not only so you will know it was His favor, but so that… your critics, friends relatives and coworkers won’t be able to deny what ALMIGHTY GOD has done, is doing and will do in your life.” – re-written by Carin Hansen

May this bless you as much as it has blessed me to break this apart and digest each part. What A God We Serve!