Saturday during my weekly prayer walk I was blown away by the Glory of GOD!! After a time of difficult prayer and pressing in as best as I know how -I asked God, as Moses asked, to show me His glory. I found myself remembering the Lord’s response to Moses’ request, “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” God summed up His glory with one word – goodness. God’s glory and goodness the same?? hmmmm. As I continued walking, I began thinking about the account in Genesis of how God with each creation declared “it is good” and with the creation of man declared “it is very good.” I heard God say in my spirit, “My glory, my goodness is all around if you see with open eyes.” I could say I opened my eyes but I believe actually God opened them because the praise that was birthed in me and what I saw in and through that praise for the remainder of the walk was like nothing I have ever experienced…an intense mixture of song and sorrow. Each flower, smell, sound, each person I passed or prayed for seemed to just shine through the eyes and ears, well– really all the senses of my spirit with a different kind of beauty. I found myself praising like never before for even the rocks and the weeds. But then each thing that I praised God for, the very same creations that shone with such glory, I saw also reflected a burden that almost ripped my heart to shreds. I knew it as a burden that could only have been His.
This was Saturday morning. It was July 4th and as I walked I was able to see those I considered the best of the best as I watched people giving up a holiday morning to joyfully work behind the scenes for the Lord. I saw the glory as if it were clothing them and it brought rejoicing to my heart. Almost immediately though my thoughts and prayers were taken to one of God’s creations that at that same moment in time was only known to me as a serial killer…terrorizing a neighborhood, and my own family- killing their friends. I considered this man probably the worst of the worst and yet right there I was faced with the truth that God had declared him at creation as good. God loved and died for him just as much as for the one I labeled “best.” I had to lay aside my need for understanding and declare in unison with God that what He had created in each was equally good. I found myself begging for his life to be spared and for the salvation of his soul more than I was even asking God for an end to the violence. The Glory of God and the burdens of God are not exclusive. The Glory of God is GOOD but it also carries a weight that is offensive to my natural mind and so it was easier to try to separate them.
I have been fasting and praying for months, asking for a burden for souls and here it was quite suddenly and unexpectedly intermingled with God’s glory like the blackberry bushes next to the pond…you can see the berries from a distance so you know they are beautiful and you know that they are probably sweet but you have to get through the thorns of the same bush to experience them in all the ways God intends…even the thorns are His creation with a purpose and GOOD, a burden necessary for the Glory.
Still blown away : )
a lamp and a light 