Show Me Your Glory!
By Leialoha Unruh
Show me Your glory! Moses spoke these words to an angry God in Exodus chapter 33. The people of Israel had once again given in to worry and fear instead of trusting in the God who had delivered them out of the hand of Pharaoh.
While Moses was on Mt. Sinai receiving the Law from the Creator of the Universe, the Israelites were fashioning a cow – a cow! – to worship (Exodus 32).
The Lord’s wrath turned against them. He was ready to be done with them. Calling them a stiff-necked people, He refused to go up with them to the Promised Land, saying, “I might destroy you on the way,” (Exodus 33:3).
“If you don’t go with us, we’re not going,” Moses said (Exodus 33:12-18). Then he went on to demand something more of God: “Show me your glory!”
What was Moses thinking? Had God not already shown His great glory? Had He not appeared in the burning bush, with the Holy Ground and the booming voice? Was that not glory enough? Had He not sent the ten plagues that left Egypt in ruin? The water turned to blood, the infestations of frogs and gnats and flies and locusts, the killing of the livestock, the boils, the hail with fire, the darkness, and then – worst of all – the killing of the firstborn? (See: Exodus chapter 7-12). Yet in the Land of Goshen, not one Israelite was affected (Exodus 8;22; 9:6, 26; 10:23) and not one Israeli firstborn died in the houses covered by the blood of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:21-30).
Is that not glory?
When the Israelites left Egypt, they carried off its riches, because God moved upon the Egyptian people to give them silver and gold and articles of clothing – back wages for 400 years of slavery and enough to build a beautiful tabernacle to worship God in the wilderness. God sent before them a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire to guide their way; He parted the Red Sea so they could cross over on dry ground, then He drowned Pharaoh’s entire army in it.
Was this not all an awesome display of God’s glory? Was this not enough? No, it wasn’t.
Because as Moses pleaded for God’s mercy on behalf of this stiff-necked people – again! – he took it several steps further. He asked for more. As he interceded before the face of his King and Creator – against whom the people had just finished committing a terrible sin of idolatry – Moses asked for so much more. More forgiveness. More mercy. More glory.
And what does God do? He says yes. Yes! He says yes, and then He does it. He shows Moses more of His glory (Exodus 34:5-9). The Bible says that as God causes His glory to pass before him, Moses bows in worship and seizes his opportunity to ask for even more: “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us – even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance” (Exodus 34:8-9).
It’s important that we hear God’s response in the next verse: “Behold, I make a covenant,” God tells Moses. “Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.”
What? God isn’t even a little bit angry? No, He was waiting for Moses to remind Him of His promises and take Him at His Word. Because God is always waiting to show Himself strong for His people (II Chronicles 16:9).
This reminds me of another man’s conversations with God: Gideon (See Judges chapter 6-8). The angel of the Lord stands before him and calls him a mighty man of valor, and what does he do? He questions God. “If God is with us, then where are all His miracles we’ve heard so much about?”
In fact, Gideon questioned God more than once. He doubted God. He laid out all his doubts before God and asked for assurance… not once, but several times. And what does God do?
He says yes. First, he answers Gideon’s request with the fleece. Twice (Judges 6:35-40). Then he sends him to hear the Midianite’s dream about how God will use Gideon (by name) to conquer them (Judges 7:13-15). Then, God sends him with his 300 soldiers to prevail against an army of Midianites “as numerous as locusts” – all so that He can show Gideon His glory, along with all the nations.
The human race was drowning in doubt and despair and worry and sin – rapidly falling into a crazy downward spiral – when the hearts and souls of the lost cried out to God: Show me Your glory! And once again, God said yes. The Glory of God came down fully embodied in His Son, Jesus Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory: glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).
Jesus, God’s glory incarnate, left His throne in the Kingdom of Heaven to serve humanity on Earth. Jesus, the glory of God, Who made the blind to see and the lame to walk. Jesus, who set the captives free. Jesus, who broke chains and bonds and healed the sick. Jesus, who was falsely accused of wrongdoing and whose innocent blood was splattered across the streets of Jerusalem. Jesus on whose head was thrust a crown of thorns; whose hands, feet, and side were pierced for us. Jesus, who died on the cross and who three days later defeated death and came back to life.
Jesus, who has unconditionally forgiven us our sin and who had unconditionally loved us. If this is not glory enough, I don’t know what is. Yet He still yearns for us to say, Show me Your glory!
Friends, this is the God we serve. This is the Jesus who lives in us, and who through us gives God all the glory. His heart’s very desire is for us to ask to see more of Him. This is the prayer that He waits for; that He longs for. He wants us to reach out; to cry out again and again and again, Show me Your glory!
He wants to show us His glory – to reassure us that His glory surpasses anything and everything. His glory can reach the farthest corners of the darkness that surrounds our lives. Nothing that we have or that we have had or that we will ever have can compare to His glory.
Whether you’ve just lost everything or you just won a million bucks; whether you’re happily married or on the verge of divorce; whether you’ve just started a family or have lost your last loved one; whether you’re on the mountaintop of victory or in the valley of despair…. at every moment and in every place, God’s desire is to hear us cry out, Show me Your glory!
In the good times and in the bad; in joy and in sorrow; in the middle of the storm. The first time you fall and the hundreds of times after that... whatever you do, don’t ever stop going before the throne of the Creator of the Universe to cry out once more, Show me Your glory!
And He will answer Yes, and do yet another miracle in your life to show you more of Himself.