Show Me Your Glory

I was heading back home after a weekend away with friends.

We get together every year and enjoy a mini vacation just a few miles and several thousand feet in elevation from my home in Southern California. In Big Bear, you feel like you’re far away from the traffic and busy-busy of “regular” life. It’s about a two-hour drive up winding roads flanked on either side by the steep walls of the mountains or the sheer drops down into the valley. Meandering up that road in my little red convertible is one of my favorite rides. With the top down, I feel the tension of life below me, ebbing and releasing with the wind through my hair. My left arm resting on the opened window frame of the car, my right hand steering, and my eyes taking in the views I cruise joyfully filled with anticipation of the days ahead.

The closer I get to the top of the mountain, the more the aroma of the pines fills the air and calls to me…come away and be renewed! The sky gets clearer and bluer – is that a word? – and the breeze feels cleaner and more crisp. It’s autumn in SoCal, and Big Bear is one of the places it actually looks and feels like it, with the leaves beginning to turn and the coolness inching its way into the ground and up into the air.

So, after a wonderfully fun and relaxing time with friends, I was now back in my car and headed down the mountain.

Only this time, instead of clear blue skies and crisp air breezing around my hair I had the top up, the heater on, and my hands clutching the steering wheel tightly. A storm had moved in and pelted our cabin with heavy hail just as I was loading up the car to leave. The skies above were ominous and threatening as I backed out of the driveway and mapped my way back out of the village. But now, a few miles out of town, the skies were no longer above me… they were around me.

Completely enveloped in the heavy fog, I inched my way down each windy turn. Slowly, so slowly, I followed the barely reflecting painted lines to my right. The trees that I enjoyed on that carefree trip up the mountain were invisible. The walls of rock to my right and even the sheer drops to my left were shrouded by the grey.

My only guide was the lines to my left or my right, faintly illuminated by my own headlights or reflecting distantly the lights from the car ahead of me. I could see travelers coming up the mountain emerge in a hazy glow with their blinking lights and pass slowly by me. I could see the taillights ahead until the fog swallowed them up in its stingy thickness like it was protecting a secret.

My best hope of navigation was the light that reflected off the pavement lines to my right and left. So I hugged the line to my right and prayed for the break in this fog to be lifted and for my resolve to remain confident as I drove.

What a relief to begin to see the clouds thin. One turn after another slow turn, I began to see first the color and vague shapes of the trees, then the hazy glow of a sense of vehicles began to be replaced by a clearer outline, then full shapes.

My slow and cautious driving around the meandering turns eased up to the regular pace, and then, one final turn and the grey was completely replaced by bright and clear blue. Never did blue look so welcoming in my life! I could almost hear the echo of relieved sighs from the drivers ahead and the cascade of the drivers behind as they, too, were released from the uncertainty of that cloudy drive.

What an incredible picture that drive was to me of the joy of seeing clearly and also the complete dependence on light – even the vague reflected light.

That light was literally my guide down the mountain.

Show me the way, LORD. Guide me in your path, Oh God…Keep me safe. That was my prayer down the mountain. That is really my prayer today as well.

Help me follow Your light even when it feels shrouded or distant – I know You’re there.

Show me and keep showing me your light and your glory, and let me live through the grey to be delighted and overwhelmed again by the brilliance of your sapphire skies and glorious sun – – and the glory of Your love and mercy in my life. Show me, and help me see Your glory.

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This blog thought is an excerpt from “Saved & Set Apart” – a Dwelling Richly study in Exodus through Deuteronomy. Read Psalm 25 and consider how loving our God is to answer our prayers to see Him clearly and know where we should go. Read Exodus 32-34 and dwell in those passages, thinking about God’s great mercy and love.

Join the current Dwelling Richly study. Details Here.