The Glory of God

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6;3

I have seen many glorious things: beautiful mountains, oceans, and forests. I have seen the Grand Canyon and the redwood forests in northern California. I have seen sunrise over a bayou and sunsets over a sea. It’s a bit sad that we’ve become so urban. We think skyscrapers, stadiums and the like are glorious, impressive sometimes, but not glorious.

I have seen other really glorious things: my bride walking down the aisle, my children and grands and greats, still red and bruised from the birth trauma, taking their first steps, or laughing for no good reason,  and newly baptized converts, gloriously changed and miraculously healed, gloriously saved.

I think what makes something glorious isn’t its beauty. It’s something so spectacular that the sight of it changes you. Isaiah said that the whole earth is full of the Glory of God. I don’t always see it. To those who don’t know Him, the world is void of glory. Through His grace, eyes are opened. The more you know Him, the more glorious the world. The more you recognize and appreciate His glory, the more you know Him.

Sometimes the glorious isn’t beautiful at all. A man, naked, bloody, and dying on a tree isn’t pretty but it is truly glorious. Sacrifice, difficulties, and pain aren’t pretty either, but they are sometimes glorious in that they are life changing and point to the creator God whose love is beyond our understanding. He shows himself sometimes in us when we fight beyond capacity, give beyond means, and care beyond reason. When we love as He loves, his glory shines through because only He could do that.

It’s a glorious world, if we will just look, appreciate and in a small way understand.