In addition to the theme of “joy” I’ve been intrigued lately by the concept of “glory”. While reading through Romans 8 two weeks in a row for some grad school assignments I noticed this word a few times. There are a ton of great things in this chapter of scripture that I come back to again and again, but I had never noticed the concept of glory. For the couple weeks that followed I’ve been alert to where else I see glory in scripture. Earlier this week a friend was also sharing about what God had been teaching her about bringing God glory in our lives.
As I spent some time in prayer this morning I found myself praying over a specific situation in life using both the concepts of joy and glory. I was asking God to act in this situation in ways that bring him glory but also bring me joy. I’ve heard and prayed something similar before “for His glory and our good”, but this was the first time I had altered it slightly to involve joy.
You can imagine my shock this evening when I was listening to a podcast as I wandered around town and this was the speaker’s main point:
“So the question is: how do you craft a life that brings God glory and brings you joy even if He never answers your deepest heart prayers?” – Annie F Downs
The more I’ve pondered this throughout the day the more I think those two things… God’s glory and my joy… are intertwined. When God gets the glory, that is often a joyful moment for me. And when I am filled with the deep joy of Jesus, God delights in that and is glorified.
I’m not sure where to land with this. There’s not a nice neat blog post “bow” to end with. But maybe we can just spend some time this weekend asking God to bring us joy and him glory through our lives.
joyfullyblessedblog.com 