One morning, I was out for my jog, praying as I slogged along – that’s what I do while I jog to keep my mind off how miserable and sweaty and miserable I am – and I used the phrase “Father, I glorify You.” I stopped (mentally, not physically) and thought, “How do I glorify God? What does that even mean?” I turned the question over in my mind a while, but nothing happened to clarify the issue for me. I brought up the topic again on later jogs but each time to no avail.
Honestly, I had really forgotten about my thoughtful wanderings until
something happened this past weekend that brought them blasting back to the
forefront of my attention.
My sister got married last Saturday, and she gave me the honor of
standing as one of their official witnesses to their marriage. (I just about
signed the marriage certificate with my maiden name but caught myself just in
time!) It was the morning of the wedding, and we were all together in a
friend’s home getting ourselves ready, getting her ready, laughing and chatting
and fighting nerves and watching the weather and doing all those sorts of
things that women do on days like those. I had brought a steamer (a good
investment when in lots of weddings, especially since I had found it at a garage sale – hooray for bargains!), and so the task had fallen to me to make
sure the last stubborn wrinkles were erased from her dress.
I had my head under a layer of tulle, my hands busy coaxing a few last
creases from the satiny under-layer, my mind filled with thoughts of how I would
next do my hair and my makeup and how I would make sure the curls in the back
looked ok even though I didn’t have a real good mirror and how I needed to
hurry because I didn’t want to be that bridesmaid that was late and kept
everyone waiting for pictures while I preened and how I was running short of
time. (I tell you all this so you know that I really wasn’t looking for
spiritual revelations or paying any particular attention to spirituality of any
sort; I’m really just a normal person.) In the midst of all that mental
clutter, with my head under the skirt of a wedding dress and with my sister
sitting a few yards away getting her hair done, the word “Glorify” whispered
through my mind.
And it made so much sense.
She was the bride, and we were all there to make sure that she was
ready to meet her groom in another hour. She was the point. She was the one who
needed to look really good. The rest of us were just there to draw his eyes to
her. We were glorifying my sister.
Don’t you see, silly girl? That is what it looks like to glorify God.
He is the point.
Make Him look good.
Use your life, forget about how you look to others, and start worrying
about how you make Him look to others.
Glorify Him.
