I remember taking the kids out to a local nature preserve a few years ago. We wandered along the wooden boardwalk through the trees, catching glimpses of wildlife here and there. The pathway made its way through some marshy bits of land, we’d stop and peer in. But the water was stagnant; no way for fresh water to get in, no way for dirty to get out. As you might imagine, fragments of nature — moss, algae, leaves, scraps of bark, feathers, and more — all found their way into or settled on top of the water. So making anything out of what was under the surface proved to be a difficult endeavor.
The last few months have been that way for me: murky and foggy. I’ve been unable to really see what is under the surface of what the Lord has been trying to show me. Broken bits of life seemed to rest on top or just underneath leaving it difficult for a clear picture to come through. I’ve found myself stagnant, like the water, unable to let the broken bits out and unable to let the fresh bits in. With my fractured heart, I found myself turning over my feelings, my circumstances, looking at the temporal and not eternal. For an enemy, it is the perfect place for me to be. Inactive, motionless, still…a daughter distracted by a false defeat.
To hold both the broken pieces and the eternal perspective in tension at the Cross…this is the way. This is the way we see God’s glory underneath all of the stuff the world throws at us.
On this side of things, I can see that the Lord set me down (yet again) to give place for me to realize that sitting in it all was where He really wanted me to be. That to rush ahead would have caused me to miss experiencing the whole of it: the joy and the heartache, the suffering and the sanctification, the sin and the redemption. To hold both the broken pieces and the eternal perspective in tension at the Cross…this is the way. This is the way we see God’s glory underneath all of the stuff the world throws at us.
For most people, these early days of the new year are full of planning and modification. We deeply desire to let the past be the past, to not attend to the hardships we’ve faced, sufferings small and great. We want to strip off the old, the hard, the broken, the difficult and rush straight ahead into the new year with a brand new strategies and expectations.
What I needed in these last few months (what I need today and every day!) was not to hurry out and create a new agenda, to find a new word, or to jump into a new strategy. What I needed was a new perspective, new and deeper faith. I needed a new desire to dig deep into the Word of God, to glance at and glean from His promises. I needed a new vision to see things rightly, a new sense of astonishment toward the everyday glories set before me.
In his book “Faith. Hope. Love”, Mark Jones writes this of faith:
“…We cannot adequately understand the life of faith until we face the reality that our lives consist in “beholding the glory of the lord” by faith; in so doing, we are “transformed into the same image [of Christ] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18)
“Satan blinds unbelievers to seeing the glory of God in Christ. Conversely, the Spirit gives us an “unveiled face” (2 Cor 3:18) in order to perceive such glory in the gospel. This does not occur as a one-time event or even as a future hope but as a daily reality gripping our souls to consider why and how we live.” (pg. 56)
In this last season, I was beholding the wrong things. Though I know it is important to examine and reflect on past choices, situations, difficulties, those things can not be the only place our gaze falls. In beholding the person and work of Jesus, in seeing His faith as He followed and submits to the Father, in His example as He endured suffering we see Jesus as the object of our faith. When our hearts are filled with wonder, astonished at the beauty, holiness, humility, love, and grace of Christ, our faith increases and our hearts respond. In this we are transformed from one degree of glory to another.
So as I slowly step into this new year, I carry this with me…that the hard work of seeing past the murkiness of circumstance and gazing deeply into the glory of Christ is the daily reality I want to be alive and awake to. And I can trust the transformation promise of the Father, that when I — undistracted, undefeated, unveiled — behold the glory of God in Jesus Christ, I will be made new.
Reflection Questions
- What are you presently distracted by that prevents you from seeing the glory of God in the midst of life?
- What habits of grace can you implement today that might allow you to ponder present glories?
- What dead things do you need to cut off so that new growth can occur?
- Consider what might be helpful for you to be astonished in new ways.
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