Better late than......

Okay, so I know that I promised you on Wednesday that I would be back tomorrow (which would have been Thursday) with something else from God's Word that Rocked My World....well, I am a day late.....but better late than never, right? I won't even go into detail as to why this is late, but one of the reasons rhymes with Hogan and the other rhymes with Clayton....yesterday was a WILD day!

So, here goes......
As I was reading in Exodus, I came across the following passage(s):

Exodus 33:18
Then Moses said, "Now SHOW ME YOUR GLORY!" (I added the caps and exclamation)
.......
Exodus 33:22-23
When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.

Maybe no bells and whistles for you, but let me just tell you, that scripture blew me out of the water.....I have heard so many people say so many times before that it is okay to be bold with God...are you sure? Really? I have heard speakers, mentors, people whom I respect, friends...so many have said to me that they have questioned God, not disrespectfully but desperately, begging him to understand a circumstance....this has always made me nervous. But lately? I have been reading a lot more than normal (at least more non-fiction than normal) and time and time again I come across words that tell me that God is big enough for anything I might bring him...anger? He can handle it! Questioning? He can handle that too! So, after going through a tough season with God, can we demand for him to show us his glory, YOU BET! Don't you just love that about our God?!? We can say to him, SHOW ME YOUR GLORY and he basically says, Sure! Day in and day out, I know that I miss God's glory so much of the time....he shows it time and time again when I don't even ask, and then, don't you think he is kind of disappointed when we miss it. It is like when we think we have done this awesome thing for someone we love, like bringing home a favorite candy bar, buying tickets to something you think they would enjoy, washing their car...anything...and the response is just an "oh, thanks!" Aren't we sad?! I know that I am....so I am going to start noticing God's glory...below are just a couple of examples of how I already LIVE his glory everyday.....






















































(Maybe the middle one is glory only a mama could love, but isn't that the cutest thing?!?!)

And then God promises to protect us...sometimes when we ask things of him, he answers...and sometimes, we are just not prepared for his answers! At least, I don't think I am...sometimes his glory is just too much! But even if it isn't glory, he promises to protect us with HIS hand...sometimes you can be in a situation and, in the midst of it, we can't see God's hand at all, but maybe we just aren't meant to see everything all at once. I was reading somewhere the other day (probaby something Beth Moore wrote - I am a teeny bit obsessed!)and the writer was talking about this passage (before I read it) and they said that in some situations after it is all said and done, God removes his hand, and we can see his back...so all the time we thought he wasn't there, he was actually covering us, protecting us...and then, when he has seen us through the storm, he lets us see his back, to know he was there....seeing him? Well, that would be too much! But knowing he was there...he wants to make sure of that!

Then, just a few pages over in my One Year Bible, I was reading in Matthew 27:51 which says,
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom....

So, not only does our God look at us when we come to him and say "Bring It!" (no matter what it is)...and not only does he cover us in the cleft of a rock when we can't handle it, through sending Jesus, Sweet Jesus, he made sure that that veil was torn so that we could have DIRECT communion with him...we can come directly to him and ask him to SHOW US HIS GLORY anytime we want. And you know what, he promises us that he will be with us...ALWAYS! No, his answers don't always come just like we had planned out in our minds, but His will, GREATER...his plan, BETTER!

And I don't know about you, but that kind of Rocked My World!