Heart Tracks - The Risk

 "Then Moses had one more request, 'Please, show me Your glory,' he said." Exodus 33:18......"Where are those men and women who will step out on a limb, so to speak, and demand to see God's face, those who will not give up until they encounter God in personal experience." A.W. Tozer

"What would happen if we began to pray, 'Show me Your glory?' " I have that question written down in my prayer journal, and though I don't remember the source of the question, it's one that continues to burn within me. What would happen if that became the overwhelming desire of our hearts? There is much discussion about and participation in prayer these days in the church, and that's a good thing overall. Yet what is the central object of our prayers? I wrote the other day about so much of our pursuit of Him being results oriented. Results that in general, have as their main beneficiary, ourselves. It's not that we're not praying for good things. In so many cases we are. We want to see people saved, lives healed, and needs of all kinds met. But coupled with that can be a great deal of self interest. The more people that come to Him means that more people will be coming to our churches. It means prodigal loved ones will come home. It means that healings and deliverances performed, and deep needs met will also make our lives better, even in some cases, easier. His seeing to the well being of others can also be increasing the well being of ourselves. Let me say that I don't mark any of these prayers as unworthy or wrong. I'm just saying that though we may pray much, we are not really praying the best and highest prayer. Moses on the mountain with God had to have almost unlimited desires as to what he longed to see God do in his life and the lives of the people he led. Yet what was his foremost yearning? It was to behold the glory of God. He wanted that above all else. Do we?

Think on that a moment.  What if the Father in Christ met every one of your lesser desires today? If all the situations and lives were made whole and new, mountains removed, and the storehouse of heaven fully opened for you. Would you be fully satisfied? If He did all of this except this one thing. That He did not let us see Him in His glory in the midst of it all, would that be enough? If all of our deep desires were granted by Him, yet He held back in the giving of His fullness, would that really matter to us? What is it we really seek from Him? What do we really want to see?

We all want to have results. That's human. Do we want them more than we want to see Him? There is great risk involved here. The Father told Moses that no one could see Him and live, yet Moses desired to see as much of Him as he was able, and the Father revealed as much of Himself to Moses as he could receive. Zacchaeus, a man of power and influence in his community, so desperately wanted to see Jesus that he climbed a tree, literally went out on a limb that he might. Does such desire emanate from our hearts? If not, what blocks it? Tozer also said something to the effect that in our churches we sing about Him, preach about Him, but do not wish Him to interrupt us in the process. We see a lot, but we don't see Him. There is a lot of stuff going on, but are we really beholding His glory.
I heard it said that in beholding, we become. We don't become by singing of Him, preaching about Him, but by beholding Him, seeing Him. Seeing His glory.

I close with the same question I began with. What would happen if we really began to pray, "Show me Your glory?" What would happen in our hearts and lives, and the hearts and lives of our homes, fellowships, communities and nations? Dare we take the risk, go out on a limb, to find out?

Blessings,
Pastor O