Three Reasons We Miss the Glory of God

The very heavens are declaring the glory of God. Yet in our small place under those heavens we so often fail to recognize and experience the glory.

There is no shortage to the glory or the gloriousness of God. In fact, there was so much glory that Moses had to be shielded in a cave and covered by the hand of God as it passed by.

Why is it we miss the glory of God when, in fact, it is God’s desire that we know and experience it every day and in every circumstance of our lives?

Moses asked specifically, “Show me thy glory” (Exodus 33:18). Immediately God set in motion His plan for letting Moses see His glory. Moses asked. Moses received.

It seems such a simple matter, and it is a simple principle by which God works. It is not any mystical, deeply spiritual secret. If we ask, we receive. If we do not ask, we do not receive.

God is not stingy in showing us, nor is He unwilling to show us His glory. He loves and longs to do it. But we must be in the position to receive. Asking puts us in the right frame of mind to receive.

This principle of asking and receiving is demonstrated over and over in our daily activities. If we need salt at the dinner table, we say, “Please pass the salt.” We receive the salt because we ask. If we do not ask, it will not be handed to us.

This asking is not a type of hinting. One point a speaker made recently in a seminar for women was: “Wives, never hint to your husbands in order to get something you want. Most husbands don’t take hints! Just ask simply and directly and leave it at that.”

One participant in the seminar related how she had hinted to her husband for years about going to the symphony. “Mary and Dick went to the symphony and it was great.” “Honey, there’s going to a symphony concert next week.” He never took the hint and she was always disappointed. After learning how to ask simply and directly, she went home and said, “Honey, can we go to the symphony concert next week?” Her husband’s reply was, “I don’t see why not!”

In our relationship with God we can wish, hint for, take for granted, and never know that joy of receiving because we never actually ask.

We must begin asking the Lord to show us His glory. Ask the Father to reveal Jesus. Ask Him questions about life. Ask the Holy Spirit about the meaning of a situation you find yourself in. Ask questions about a verse of Scripture you don’t understand.

It thrills the heart of God to have you ask because He loves to answer.

I have personally discovered that asking God questions about Scripture I don’t understand is a thrilling experience. There is nothing quite like receiving a direct answer from the Holy Spirit, and I’m sure God is just as excited because in these instances He is able to reveal more of His glory.

Recently I read, “The Lord will not allow the righteous to hunger” (Proverbs 10:13 NASB). The verse struck me, and I said. “Lord, how can this be true? Some Christians have hungered. There have been famines and persecutions when Christians have starved to death.”

The Lord immediately spoke to my heart and said, “This promise is not automatic.”

I knew what He meant. The promises have to be claimed. They are not automatically applied to a person’s life. We must take the Scripture and make it our own. The verse I had mentioned does not mean that no Christian will ever starve to death. It means that no Christian will ever have to starve to death.

A family from the Baltic country of Latvia testified recently in a local church how God provided them with a freshly baked loaf of bread every morning when they were escaping from a Communist take-over in their area. God performed a modern-day miracle and demonstrated how He provides for those who take Him at His Word.

God specifically told Moses, “Come up in the morning . . . and present yourself there to me on top of the mountain. And no man is to come up with you” (Exodus 34:2-3).

We need times of fellowship, group prayer, joining together with one another in faith. But there is no substitute for going to the “mountain” and taking no one with you. For God’s personal glory to be revealed to me, I must have time on God’s mountain or in the prayer closet (Matthew 6:6). This closet may be indoors, or it may be a place outside. It may be in an office, a car, a hallway. But it has to be closed off to others – room for only two.

It means not only getting alone physically but also getting alone mentally. I can be completely away from my friends, but bring them right along with me in my thoughts.

God has a special way of tugging at my heart to draw me to this place alone. Sometimes I recognize the clear calling of the Holy Spirit. Other times I am constrained by circumstances, or by a mere emotion. A sense of restlessness or a vague void, for instance, may in actuality be the Holy Spirit wooing me to himself, wooing me to a place alone.

Years ago I had the privilege of attending Bible school. There I learned so many special and wonderful spiritual lessons. But the truths came to me secondhand. They were truths He had revealed and made alive to someone else. Today it is exciting when the Lord opens up the meaning of a Scripture to me personally. I am finding He can communicate with me the same way He communicated with my wise instructors.

The same idea was recently expressed by Debbie, a graduate of the Walter Hoving Home who returned for a visit. She said, “When I was here, I learned everyone else’s convictions. Now after being away from the home for six years, I do things or don’t do things because of my own convictions.” Jesus had become her teacher.

Remember the burning bush incident in Moses’ life? “When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the bush” (Exodus 3:4). It was only after he had turned aside that God spoke to him.

What would have happened if he had not taken the time to “turn aside”? What will happen to us if we don’t put ourselves in the place where we can receive from the Lord?

We tend to think the way God did it once is the way He is going to do it again. As a rule this is not so!

God is infinitely creative. Again and again the children of Israel found themselves in a desperate situation. God always saw them through, but rarely did He use the same method twice.

In one situation God caused the enemy to see a mirage. Another time He filled the mountain with horses and chariots of fire. Later He struck the enemy with blindness. Once He caused the enemy to hear a sound and flee. In another case He sent an angel to slay thousands.

For every impossible situation, God has a unique means of deliverance by which to show His glory. Don’t expect Him to bless you again in exactly the way He blessed you before!

And don’t suppose God’s glory is seen only in the spiritually refreshing and lovely places. Not so! Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not” (Genesis 28:16). He made this statement after a hot, dusty day of traveling. Besides being tired and having to sleep with a rock for a pillow, he was afraid his brother might be chasing him to kill him. He might have thought God had forsaken him! But that very night he had a beautiful dream that showed him God was there all along.

We can miss the glory of God by not realizing He is in the hard and trying situations as well as the happy, enjoyable experiences. Sometimes it takes the plowshare of hardships to break up the follow ground of our hearts, making it possible for the sweet and tender rain of the Holy Spirit to sink deeper than ever before. God has a way of opening new areas of our hearts, to add a new sensitivity to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and those around us.

We tend to become attached to certain persons or places. The Lord says, “No! I want to teach you. I want to reveal My glory to you.”

If ever you begin to find your satisfaction or spiritual fulfillment in one person, the Lord may dry up that relationship. He wants to be your source of satisfaction. He wants to be your very life. He wants to be your sustenance so that you may truly know and experience the glory of God filling your being, your life, and your circumstances.