Glorify

I am one of those people that will stare at a blank page for minutes on end until I can think of the exact word I need. This is one of the (many) reasons I am not a phone person: I need time to carefully construct my thoughts and arrange them the way I want them to be expressed. I am a proofreader and a word re-organizer. This means I can't speak my mind easily or eloquently. I can't improvise--and I don't want to. There's something seriously almost magical about turning an incomplete thought into a perfectly-expressed sentence. (NOT that I am very good at this myself--but I appreciate it when I find it!)

Because of that, I'm also a big fan of picking out a random word that I think I understand pretty well and trying to reexamine its meaning in a new light. In this day and time, we take words for granted in a sense. We (okay, I) tend to use words carelessly and thoughtlessly. (Did you know that the Bible says no one and nothing is "good" outside of God, because it implies purity and wholeness? And yet so far this morning I've declared coffee, green light streaks and lengthy hot showers to be very good.) There's no getting around it sometimes, but I do believe it's worth pondering from time to time.

Lately, the word "glorify" has been on my mind. I typically use the word interchangeably with words like "praise", or even "worship", but it's more than that. It runs deeper. It carries far more weight. To glorify God doesn't just mean we lift our hands while we sing a worship song, and it doesn't just mean we start our prayers with some perfunctory thank-yous. Glorifying God requires action. It means that in everything that we do, we represent him-- and do it well. Even beyond that--glorifying and exalting the Lord is our ENTIRE PURPOSE.

I am so in love with this quote a friend shared recently from C.S. Lewis. (Sidenote: this friend's name is Elise, and her blog is chock-full of lovely things.) Let me share it with you:

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses

but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.
It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are;

the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is;

to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley

of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because

the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch;

to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .

The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’

But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify.

In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

Um, WOW. These words resonate with me and excite me. Haven't we all experienced the absolute NEED to praise? Don't we all know what it's like to have this incredible thing to share with someone (anyone!) and the frustration that follows if no one else can get excited by it?

How cool is our God? When he told us to love him, serve him and glorify him, he knew what he was doing! Our Lord is not an egotistical, power-hungry maniac who forces us to exalt him (although he totally could choose to be if he wanted, and what right would we have to complain? He's GOD!). Instead, he asks us to glorify him (by living for him) knowing full well that in doing so, we will find fulfillment. He created us to love him, and the reverse of that is in loving him well, we will find satisfaction and enjoyment--much like you and I feel that incredible sense of accomplishment when we realize we have a natural talent for something and bring it to fruition. It's a powerful moment, and it's completely God-ordained. Amazing.

"Glorify the Lord with me;

let us exalt his name together." 

-Psalm 34:3