Tasting God's Glory

"Our Heavenly Father, revealing his majesty [in the gospel], lifts reverence for Scripture beyond the realm of controversy."
         ~ John Calvin

There's something beautiful that happens when one opens their heart to God's reality. Their heart like a budding flower opens and blossoms, embracing the light of the Spirit. The "light of the gospel" is not just seen, as if by our mortal eyes, but experienced fully be the senses of the soul. When this happens, all the theological questions one might be struggling with fades away in the background, and the only thing that remains is the pure awe one has in finding oneself witness to being in the presence of God's glory.

Nothing else matters but the glory of God!

Jonathan Edwards describes he who is "spiritually enlightened" as one that does not "merely rationally believe that God is glorious, but he has a sense of the gloriousness of God in his heart."








Edwards goes on to say:

"There is a twofold understanding or knowledge of good, that God has made the mind of man capable of. The first, that which is merely speculative or notional...The other is that which consists in the sense of the heart: as when there is a sense of the beauty, amiableness, or sweetness of a thing...Thus there is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgement that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness...When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension...which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent."

Has your soul broken open and allowed the light of the Spirit to flood the innermost sacred parts of your heart to behold the glory of God? To taste His glory?....


There was a time I let theological questions get in the way of experiencing God's glory. In fact, I let such questions create a boundary between experiencing God for I  started going about seeking His truth by means of man's knowledge and not God's Word. Man has much wisdom to offer eachother, but when it comes down to it, we are but a breath to God. True knowledge rests in God's Word and through the whispers of His Spirit that awakens us while reading His Word and opening it up to Him through meditation. 

What did I gain from seeking truth from man first and God second? Confusion, restlessness of spirit and an even thirstier soul that felt near to perishing. I learned, that God's glory is less to be understood by the mind but more to be experienced by the heart.

Let's be filled with the Holy Spirit today and savor God in all His glory, letting His light awaken the senses of our soul as we bring lift high our praises!

Heavenly Father,

We are beings created to bring You praise honor and glory. We pray that Your spirit awakens our hearts, letting them bloom so that the light of Your Spirit penetrates every corner of our souls. We seek knowledge of you, but even over knowledge, experience of you. We thirst to taste the glory of God and have its truth echo joyfully in the corridors of our hearts. Cleanse and purify our hearts, renew them as we come to You, laying down the essence of who we are, so that we can become more like who You are. Help us lose ourselves in Your love so that we may shine your light even brighter amidst the world's darkness, helping to vanquish it and bringing about a greater depth of love to those around us. 

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever will be. 

In Jesus' precious name,

Amen. 

The Beauty of Creation: John Calvin/Thomas Merton

" The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God."

                                      ~ John Calvin

The Sowing of Meanings

~Thomas Merton

See the high birds! Is theirs the song
That dies among the wood-light
Wounding the listener with such bright arrows?
Or do they play in wheeling silences
Defining in the perfect sky
The bounds of (here below) our solitude,

Where spring has generated lights of green
To glow in clouds upon the sombre branches?
Ponds full of sky and stillnesses
What heavy summer songs still sleep
Under the tawny rushes at your brim?

More than a season will be born here, nature,
In your world of gravid mirrors!
The quiet air awaits one note,
One light, one ray and it will be the angels' spring:
One flash, one glance upon the shiny pond, and then
Asperges me! sweet wilderness, and lo! we are redeemed!

For, like a grain of fire
Smouldering in the heart of every living essence
God plants His undivided power --
Buries His thought too vast for worlds
In seed and root and blade and flower,

Until, in the amazing light of April,
Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,
Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret
Too terrible to bear.

Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees
Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament
And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,
While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,
Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.

And then, oh then the written image, schooled in sacrifice,
The deep united threeness printed in our being,
Shot by the brilliant syllable of such an intuition, turns within,
And plants that light far down into the heart of darkness and oblivion,
Dives after, and discovers flame.

When my husband and I were dating we took a cross country trip that started from CT and went to Oregon and back. I had always enjoyed nature, but I had seen very little of its diversity until I was blessed with the opportunity of experiencing some of our nations most glorious wonders.

I remember standing in a field of wildflowers at Glacier National Park in Montana completely enchanted by the wonders all around. I couldn't help but think that the meadow in which I stood had untold varieties of flowers, all beautiful and unique, vibrant and full of life. It was like I was standing in a garden planted by God Himself. I had never been in a more beautiful place. In fact, I even decided on that day that if I were to ever have a daughter I would name her after the most beautiful place I had ever been....Montana. And that's my daughter's name...Montana Skye. :)

I couldn't help but think that no matter what one's beliefs are when they stood amidst such beauty their heart would not be able to help but declare that there is, indeed a God. Perhaps we don't always agree on God's name...but nature itself sure points to His existence. To think that God is even more brilliant and glorious than His creations is a humbling thought. That such a great and glorious God is taken all too lightly by many of us is one that makes me want to confess to God those moments in life when I let the world influence me more than God. May God always be King of our lives, King of our hearts...sovereign over every activity we engage in. And may His glory that is manifested in nature never cease to make us tremble at the holy magnificence, power, beauty, grace and mercy of our great God.

~many blessings