God’s glory

Nobody wants bad things. I’m probably not unusual that I take them personally.

When I get sick or hurt, or when events keep me from something I was hoping for, I can get resentful. Sometimes I get angry. Life isn’t fair; I work hard, do the right things, and don’t expect much in return. Is a sunny Sunday when I finally have time to run too much to ask?

But then I think about all the folks in Florida dealing with hurricane damage. I think of my friends coping with cancer. Even then, though, I tend to parse it in personal terms: “I’m such a bad person for moping about my small troubles.” “I’m grateful I’m not going through that.” Oh, I think about and pray for the people involved, but my first thoughts are often about me.

I do that even though I’ve learned that very little of life is actually about me. But everything is about God.

John 11:1-4: “Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’

‘When he heard this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’”

Lazarus, Mary and Martha must have looked at Lazarus’ illness as very personal. It had to have consumed their lives. And yet, Jesus tells us that the story of Lazarus was intended from the beginning to be all about God. Lazarus would sicken, die and be brought back to life to glorify Jesus.

That’s what my life is supposed to do, too. All of my conscious choices are supposed to glorify him. My responses to the things I don’t choose should as well. I know this, and I profess to live it.

So why is it that, too often, my reactions are first of all about me? 

Once again, it’s a reminder that my default state is selfishness. Unless I focus on Jesus, unless I feel the gratitude that moves me to selflessness, unless I put effort into looking outward, I will naturally go back to belly-button gazing. I make myself the center of the universe every moment I’m not consciously working to please the creator of the universe.

I wonder if it would help to remind myself, as often as necessary, that my life and Lazarus’s death have the same purpose. God is to be glorified in all of it.