Show Us Your Glory
A number of years ago a desire grew in my heart. It was the desire to see the glory of God. I reasoned that an encounter with God’s awesome glory would overwhelm me and transform me so that I would never again fear the things of earth but only God. So I set out to receive a revelation of God’s glory. I fasted and prayed, “Show me your glory!” During this fast, which was a longer one by my standards, the Holy Spirit increasingly revealed to me Jesus crucified, and this revelation led me to a deeper love for Jesus on the cross. As I refrained from eating, my weakness became palpable, and I turned to His presence for my sustenance. I left that wonderful fast thinking, “God taught me and showed me amazing things, but not what I had asked for. But it’s alright because this set-aside time with Him was precious beyond words, and one day He will show me His glory.”
Recently, God began leading me with a fresh yearning for His glory. He has taught me so much about His glory, so many lessons. God’s glory, like the gleams that radiate from a multifaceted diamond, shines from its many faces. God’s work of salvation is one side of the diamond that proclaims God’s glory. In her book, Show Me Your Glory, Rebecca Idestrom links God’s glory with His work of salvation as she cites the Song of Moses, sung by the Israelites after being rescued by God from slavery in Egypt. After crossing the miraculously-parted Red Sea, “the people proclaim that ‘he [God] has triumphed gloriously’ (Exodus 15:1,21), his right hand is ‘glorious in power’” (15:6). Idestrom concludes this passage in her book with these precious words: “God’s glory is revealed in his mighty work of salvation.”
In the Old Testament, the ancient Israelites experienced salvation from the Egyptians; in the New Testament and today, all Jesus’s followers experience the eternal salvation that comes from His work on the Cross. Indeed, God’s mightiest work of salvation happened as Jesus hung on the Cross! And as St. John’s Gospel makes clear, Jesus’ crucifixion was His “hour” of glory. Anticipating His death on the Cross, Jesus tells His listeners, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23). And on the night before He died, knowing he was about to be arrested and crucified, Jesus prayed to the Father, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” ( 17:1).
As I read from Idestrom’s book and the Gospel of John, the Lord took me back to that fast of a few years ago. Suddenly, my heart swelled with joy because I realized that God had answered my prayer! He had shown me His glory! Jesus’ salvation wrought for us on the Cross declares His glory! It was a glimpse of one facet of His glory. Thank you, Jesus!
Show us your glory, Lord. However You want to reveal Yourself to us, please show us Your glory.
