The Weight of Glory

So I think it's safe to say that the stuff going on with my dad officially sucks. He got moved recently to North Greenville hospital so that he could get physical therapy while he gets weaned off of the ventilator. He's getting better, but since he doesn't really have an immune system, we seem to always be one mishap away from badness.

But God does a good job of preparing His children for the trials that He knows they'll go through. And the day before dad went in for his first surgery the Lord reminded me of a verse He'd gotten my attention with a couple of months earlier.

"For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." 2 Corinthians 4:17

That verse is very comforting and reveals so much about the nature of God. God's glory has weight. I have a hard time even comprehending that. Here's the best example I can think of. If I have never been to the gym and go to the bench press, I won't be able to do much beyond the bar. But if I were to go a few times a week, then months later, I'd be able to lift a lot more.

God's glory is heavy. We can't handle all of it, but God wants us to have it. It takes God training and preparing us to be able to handle more of it. What might seem overwhelming at first, with God's preparation, can be experienced more easily. But God doesn't want us to be satisfied with a comfortable level of Himself, so He allows us to be prepared for more of His infiniteness (to create a word), and in the case of this verse, preparation comes from trials.

The hardest times give us the chance to rely on God more. The more we rely on God, the more we're in His presence and the more we're in His presence, the more we'll be ready to handle more of Him.

We can't be content with staying at the same level in our relationship with God. If we are, that's just laziness, and laziness is sin. So in order to get closer to God and to experience more of His glory, we have to be willing to go through crap.

As bad as this stuff is, if going through it brings me and my family closer to the Lord, then it will all be worth it.