GLORY

I walked out into the yard this evening.
The sunset colored the sky with light pinks and blues . . .
a few patches of blazing orange.
Trees and insects raised their branches and voices to heaven.
I really wanted to raise my hands to the sky and spin around.
To dance.
To sing.

But...
My neighbor was out mowing his lawn.
I don't really want him to think i'm a crazy lady.
(He might already?)
My self consciousness got in the way of unhindered praise.
I still have SO far to go.

The irony of my blog title hit me today . . .
I don't think I had the faintest idea what it meant when I named it.
"Learning to Live for HIS Glory."
Well, maybe I did.
I at least realized it was a process!

Do you realize, friends?
Do I realize?
God's GLORY!
It's the only thing worth living for!
At all.
Nothing else will ever fulfill,
Give hope,
Be accomplished.

His glory?
We can be confident it IS being displayed.
That's His purpose!
We can join Him in it.
What?
Crazy!
Crazy cool . . .

 I want my life to display God's glory.  I want to be more passionate about God and His fame being spread through all the earth, than I am about anything else.  I want to love truly, even if that means looking or sounding like a fool.  I have SO far to go.  So I guess that's why I'm glad it is a lesson I'm learning.  I may be continually learning, but at least there's progress!  And what better lesson to spend all of life learning than that of living for the GLORY of the LORD?!

I'm taking a class right now called "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement."  The past couple weeks we've been learning about how God's glory being displayed is God's purpose in everything: in creating this world, in sending Jesus to save us, in all of history!  Sometimes you can know something, but not really live it.  Not really have it sink into your head and your heart . . . I think that's what's happening now.  So this post comes out of some of what I'm learning.  I'll leave you with a couple quotes (emphasis in both of them mine) that are rocking my world right now:

"Our love for people takes on balance and power when our overriding passion is for GOD to be honored by the kindness extended in His name; and even more, for God to be thanked personally by the people transformed by the power of the gospel."

                                                               ~Steven C. Hawthorne

"If the pursuit of God's glory is not ordered above the pursuit of man's good in the affections of the heart and the priorities of the church, man will not be well served and God will not be duly honored . . . No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ.  There will be no big world vision without a big God.  There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.  God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.  He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of his name among the nations.  Therefore let us bring our affections into line with his, and, for the sake of his name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts, and join his global purpose."

                                                                              ~John Piper