Where is your glory?
Sometimes I read the same page over and over and I just don't take it in. Sometimes that even seems to happen with the Scriptures. I can read a passage a thousand times and hear it differently each time, or not hear it at all.
I've been reading the Psalms again lately. Sometimes I have to read them over and over. Again and again I hear different things. This time around I'm trying to find one verse in each Psalm each day that really stands out for me today, and then write it down. Once a week I try and memorise one of those verses.
So for a little while during these devotions, I'd love to share those verses with you as I walk through Psalms again.
Let me begin with Psalm 3:
Psalm 3
1 Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me!
2Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him.”
3But you, Lord, are a shield around me,my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
4I call out to the Lord,and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5I lie down and sleep;I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.
7Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw;break the teeth of the wicked.
8From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people.
As King David writes these words, his concern is for his safety, surrounded by enemies. Yet, as verse 3 says, God is our shield.
But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
Can you imagine what that meant to him then, and can you imagine what that means for you today? God is your shield. My shield. Our shield. What greater protection can we have?
But more than that... God is my glory! My glory. All those things I aspire to, all the things I hope to be, all the things I want to be remembered for, all the glory I wish to have - it is all nothing, because God is my glory.
King David wrestled with his pride and arrogance, lifting himself up, but has come to this conclusion: his glory is in God alone.
And God, his glory, is the one who lifts up his head. When we become our own glory, when we lift up our own heads, it is a pathetic display of human frailty and human pride and human ego. But when GOD lifts up our head, when HE is our glory, it is something to behold. In sorrow, in failure, in pride, we try and lift our own head to no avail. Only God can truly lift us up. Only God can truly uphold us, encircle us, protect us, and shield us. Only God can be our true and eternal glory.
Who is your shield? Surely God is the best option.
Where are you looking for glory? Surely God can offer you more than this.
Who is lifting up your head? Surely God is better at doing this.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, you are my eternal shield. In the struggles of every day, remind me of your protection. Remind me that you are my glory. Remind me that there is no higher honour than to be called a child of the living God. Lift up my head so that I may not try and lift it myself.
In my human pride and arrogance, remind me that it is you alone who truly protect, it is in you alone that I can find true glory, and you alone can truly lift up my head. Amen.