A few years ago there was a chorus in a worship song that sang, “Show me your glory.” It’s an interesting request—one that Moses made of the Lord. Some people feel that it’s irreverent to ask to see God’s gory. They don’t want to diminish God’s greatness. Others believe God has made himself available for us to seek after him.
Should we be praying to see God’s glory?
God wants people to hunger after him (Isaiah 26:9) and to long to know him (Psalm 42:1). The psalmist even longed to “gaze on the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4). God met with Moses face to face (Exodus 33:11), and Moses audaciously asked “Now show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). In fact, God wanted his spiritual leaders to pray that the Father’s “face would shine upon you” (Num 6:25). Gazing into someone’s face is a deeply personal experience. Apparently, like any good father, God wants his children to know his radiant smile for themselves. God’s desire is for us to know his love in a relational way (John 14:21). Jesus prayed, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory” (John 17:24).
In this way, God, surprisingly, makes himself available to us. He puts on our skin (John 1:14) and walks among us (Lev 26:11-13). His glory cloud dwells in our midst and he makes our bodies his temple (1 Cor 6:19). There is an open invitation to share life with him, and to witness his glory-art in everything he has made (Ps 145:5). The Apostle Paul’s great prayer was, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:18). How beautiful is that! God is making his glorious presence known to us. Yet, still the question is not satisfied.
Is it somehow disrespectful or presumptuous to ask for God to disclose his fullness?
God’s glory is the weight of his presence; [kavod] literally means “to be heavy.” God is not a triviality or trinket, or a genie in a bottle. There’s gravity to his presence; he is a force to be taken seriously. When Isaiah saw the Lord he cried, “I am ruined” (6:5). Ezekiel saw God’s glory and fell on his face (1:28). Daniel was sick for three weeks after his visions (10:3), and the same John who laid his head on Jesus’ chest collapsed like a dead man before the resurrected Christ (Revelation 1:17).
God’s glory is heavy because it is the fullness of his authority. He is adamant. Oceanic. Earth and sky will one day flee from his presence (Rev 20:11). He cannot be bribed or bridled. He is not deceived or played for the fool. Everyone who isn’t in his love is terrified by his holiness. There is nowhere to hide from the eye that penetrates us totally. Every fraud and frivolity is exposed within us and we become acutely aware that we are a vanishing mists before the heat of his gaze. He may have crowned us with glory (Ps 8:5), and we will appear with him in his glory (Col 3:4), but not fully! Not divinely! His glory is his alone (Is 48:11). He shares, but only out of what he is totally and uniquely. Superlative power. Incontestable truth.
Do you still want to see his glory—the fire of love that ravages anything that does not belong to him? I hope so. God spoke through the psalmist, “Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant by sacrifice” (Psalm 50:5). It has always been costly to follow him! To behold him you will have to give him all; that’s the price of admission. To get the intimacy of a marriage you have to pay the price of commitment. Everything less than that is pornography and prostitution. This is hard news for a generation that wants it easy. Are you willing to lose yourself in order to gain him. That’s what he wants. I hope that is what you want.
God wants to devour you with his love, and somehow give everything back to you revivified—like the bush that was on fire but was not destroyed. God wants to devour our world, but give it back to us ablaze with him! Oh, what a blessed promise our hope in his glory is!
Tags: holiness, god, father, authority, glory, presence
