Glory, Glory, Glory

I have been going about this all wrong. I have been making myself the victim to this tyranny I have projected onto God when, in fact, I have become the tyrant trying to dictate to God how His Will should play out in my life. I make the rules, I throw a tantrum when thing don’t go my way, I punish arbitrarily. Not God. Me. And therein lies the problem.

It is said that Lucifer’s fall was caused by his pride, his declaration of “I will not serve!” He wanted to make the rules himself, to be equal to and independent from God. He certainly got what he asked for (although I’m not sure he had the foresight to see God throwing him into the sulfuric depths of hell to gain that independence). But God gave Satan exactly what he asked for and look where it landed him. And Satan started off in heaven! What could possibly be so bad about heaven that would make an angel, one of the highest angels at that, feel like God was treating him unfairly? No matter his reasons, Lucifer decided he wanted things his way; then Adam and Eve decided they wanted to be equal to God, and now I want to be the one in charge. I. I. I. Me. Me. Me. Mine. Mine. Mine.

With each sin, each time I refuse to or chicken out of going to confession, and each time I act out of anger, I worry that my heart is hardening beyond repair. The fall from pride is a hard fall and it often leads to despair. This is no surprise as pride demands not only perfection but leads people to believe they are perfect; the reality of our shortcomings is an intense slap in the face. Despair is another form of pride, another way of saying, “I’m equal to my Creator,” just with a tragic slant that I am unfixable and unworthy. Despair leads to a true hardening of heart and, in the most tragic cases, to death.

Despair leads to placing a lot of the blame on others and God makes the perfect scapegoat – creation and humanity, in particular, have been blaming God since the dawn of time. You are doing this to me, God! You could make it stop at any time, but You don’t. You just want me to be some pawn in Your game, some cog in the machinery of creation. In fact, the opposite is true: I make God a pawn in my game and use Him as necessary. When I need something, I turn to Him. When I am in a difficult situation, I turn to Him. When I want an easy way out, I turn to Him. And perhaps most egregiously, when I am angry and not getting my way, I turn to Him. I only know God as much as I need to so I can achieve my ends. God is the polar opposite. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Since the dawn of time, before the creation of people was even a twinkle in God’s eye, He knew me intimately and He continues to seek me out and know me. “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you…plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

God and I have the same objective: for me to thrive. If I was more concerned with knowing God, perhaps He would be more concerned with letting me in on His plan. More likely, if I was more concerned with knowing and loving God, perhaps I would stop whining and complaining long enough to actually hear God when He speaks His plans to me!

“He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3:30). The only thing that is truly mine to do is say yes to God and let His glory become my glory. That’s what I was made for, to know, love, and serve God, to help bring about His glory. My glory is extremely tame compared with God’s glory; I hoard mine up while God shares His freely. My glory is temporal while God’s glory is eternal. I give myself the short end of the stick when I seek only my own glory and I deserve so much more.

When I stop to think of what I truly want to attain in life, it boils down to changing the minds and hearts of people so they can know and share in God’s love and go to heaven, a.k.a. to work for the kingdom of God, a.k.a. to increase God’s glory. And that’s what He wants, too. I’ve been going about this all wrong. God doesn’t want me to be separate from Him, He wants me to be glorious just like Him.