Yearning for Your Glory
Do I still yearn for Your glory to lighten on me? (from Brendan Liturgy, Part XVI in Celtic Daily Prayer)
Where is my yearning? Honestly, it’s not always for God’s glory. I often desire any attention, any praise to focus on me. At the final awards celebration in high school, when the top twenty students based on GPA had been announced and invited to the front, I was the last one to walk up. At that moment everyone stood and clapped. I knew it wasn’t for me alone, it was for all those who had achieved so much. But still I basked in that sense of adulation from peers and parents. I looked back on this “glory” for years.
In large and small ways I’ve continued to seek personal glory, buying into the false belief that my own efforts will draw people to me. At times this may be true for a brief season, but not in any real or lasting way. Moreover, the false “glory” I have to offer often turns people away. It erects a barrier—an unspoken sense that I am above or that I’m untouchable. Internally I’m afraid. I can’t let people in too close or they may learn that all I have to offer is bent and tarnished. So this glory is anything but freeing. What if it doesn’t shine? When it doesn’t, I start feeling worthless.
But God’s glory brings freedom. Why don’t I get that? It’s not about my work, but God’s presence. His glory doesn’t change or become tarnished. All anyone has to do is follow; to walk with God as Jesus did. As I celebrate the gifts that God gives and cease to worry about people accepting them or me, I experience a new sense of freedom.
How is this possible? The psalmists invite us to lift our eyes to God (Psalm 123:1). To keep our focus above us and not below. Moreover, those who look to God have God’s glory reflected.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
- Psalm 34:4,5
One way to seek the Lord is to remind ourselves that we are created in God’s image. As we rest in this reality, it removes the burdens and entanglements of attempting to create glory. His glory is always shining, and it will not fail. It’s not about our earning God’s glory, either. It’s about yearning for it more than anything else and seeking first his kingdom. In this frame of mind relief from the frenetic work of chasing our own worth comes.
