Show me your glory

Have you ever seen Soul Surfer or Blue Like Jazz the movie, or any movie that has christian themes and tackles the great challenge of trying to reenact a moment when God is speaking and revealing his truth in the middle of a youth group gathering or someone sharing about a missions trip or a church service or something. I gotta hand it to those directors because to create that scene without making it look cheesy or cliche has to be a daunting task. Because honestly it probably looks that cheesy in real life too, but when God speaks all you remember from the moment is not the guy playing guitar in front of a bunch of people sipping coffee or standing with their hands in their pockets tapping their foot, its the fact that somehow in the middle of that pathetic picture, heaven was broken open and you heard from God. It's something you are convinced of inside where there is an explosion of revelation but can no way make someone understand if they just view the outside picture. And thus we have these cheesy recounts where the leader speaks the perfect words and the girl answers the question and has some kind of epiphany or someone starts crying, in an effort to display what is happening inside. Because when God takes the program with the guitar and the worship songs and the teaching and the overhead projector and the old floorboards and comes and inhabits his people it just can't quite be caught on camera.
Im not sure if I'm getting the thought across but anyway, lately every now and then I have these moments where I'm sitting at bible study or standing during worship at the core or wherever and I just kinda feel like I'm in a movie. And like people watching it must think its pretty cheesy. Like maybe its a movie about me discovering who Jesus really is and what it means to really follow him. So you see this journey of me encountering him  through all different situations with different people or in different places. But since you can't see inside my heart, or hear his voice in my spirit it just looks like a bunch of little services or churchy things. Sometimes when I get these little glimpses of what it must look like from the outside I feel tempted to just write it off as cheesy too, and tell everyone to go home cause they don't really believe that what they are saying or singing or hearing is real. Its just a lame christian movie with bad acting trying to get everyone to believe some moral truth that will make the world a better place. ( a little harsh i suppose but i don't know, it can feel like that sometimes) I could almost do it too, if it weren't for the power I know is working in me and through me and them.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

It's foolishness. To wrap your life around one thing, an invisible God who speaks through your spirit and is wrapped in mystery.  Who you can't capture on a screen or fully describe with words or create an image for. Where the best we can do is compare him to things we know; like, He looks like light and sounds like water and is like a lion but also a lamb. You can try to explain what he has done and how you know him but it sounds like foolishness to anyone who doesn't have eyes to see inside or ears to hear in the quiet or a heart to understand that which surpasses knowledge.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men...But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 
that no flesh should glory in his presence. 

Maybe this little christian world we have pieced together (I imagine like in a big city how there are little areas like china town or little italy etc...picture little christian town, or little hipster town) with our lingo and our t shirts and coffee shop conversation; our bible studies and worship nights can look a little foolish. While we figure out what it looks like to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength, it can look pretty cliche, sound a little weak, seem like not much of anything real. All this if it weren't for Him.

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God-and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption- that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord." 
1 Corinthians 1

Without him we have NOTHING. Nothing to boast about, nothing new to offer the world except another group to be a part of, or another place to maybe fit in, another mold to belong to. Without him its just a lifestyle to try out and see if it "works for me like it did for him". It's just a book, just a song, just a retreat, just a cheesy movie.
Maybe this sheds some light on the conversation Moses and God have in Exodus 33. The people were being really ridiculas, basically telling God with their actions that they didn't want anything to do with Him anymore. But God isn't going to go back on his promise so He tells them that they should just keep going to the promise land without Him. Moses' response is pretty intense. He says,
If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us down from here. 
For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in your sight, except you go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.
He recognized that without God, without His presence inhabiting every move they made, the people would be just like any other people. They would have their ways and little customs but they wouldn't be true, they wouldn't be set apart from any other nation with their ways and beliefs. It is the same with us. Our reading and singing and studying and getting together and dressing alike and thinking alike and
all the other things we do would be just the same as any other group of people you can think of with similar ways as each other. We would have no grounds to say that our way is the way of true life.
But God is with us. He is in us and we are in Him. We are in Christ Jesus so our wisdom isn't just what everyone calls smart, its actually Gods wisdom, and our goodness isn't just what people know as good, its His righteousness. This thing we do, this life we live has weight, it is loaded with the only true God and His glory.
I wish I knew how to describe glory. Maybe its just the opposite of what I was describing earlier. I said how I can sometimes see it all from an outside point of view, and it just looks like religion, it looks empty and even a little cheesy, foolish. There is no glory in practices and ideas and things. They have no weight until they are inhabited. From the inside, I know it is all about the God who is God. Words are failing me right now. Its the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the One. the only One. And this adds weight. It makes everything alive because He inhabits it. He inhabits the praises of His people, inhabits our prayers and our disciplines. And then He even inhabits our driving and our working and our sleeping and our eating and our thinking and any kind of doing that we do.
He inhabits our being and He makes everything glorious. Full of eternal glory. Now everything has weight (that is the only word I can think of and its driving me crazy haha) breathing isn't just breathing anymore, it contains God.
God answered Moses and agreed to go with them, because "you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name"
And then Moses takes everything a giant leap forward and asks,
"Please show me your glory."

He is saying, okay this is great, you're coming with us, you will be with us and you will set us apart with your presence, but I want to know what that is like. Who are you? What is your glory? what kind of weight do you bear? You are the only God and that alone makes you worthy and having extreme importance, but what are you like?
This is my question as well. Because my lifestyle is not attractive to the world, it isn't even attractive to me without his presence. I don't want the promised land without Him. He is my promise. Eternal life, to know Him, to be with him. So now its just to discover what He is like.

When I finish a movie there is a lingering feeling that stays with me for the next few hours. Sometimes thats a feeling of dead brain cells and disgust that just needs to wear off as soon as possible. And other times its that I'm stuck in the fantasy world I was just observing and need some time to readjust myself to reality, or its that something about what I just watched was impactful. Something just touched a desire deep inside of me, and freed me to believe that maybe, just maybe it's possible. That "it" I believe  is truth, beauty, and/or goodness. When a story reveals some bit of truth that is just true in that deep place in my heart (and yours) I can believe for a minute that there is one accurate description of reality and maybe there is freedom there. Or when I experience just a piece of real beauty, art in its truest awe provoking form, I'm free to believe that beauty is not something we just strive for and labor over, it's refreshing and full of rest. When I witness a story that is good, and speaks of goodness; I dare to believe that good does exist and it is attainable.
These movies reveal God. He is true, and beautiful and good.

It's really hard to capture real God in a movie. And I think some directors do a great job and other directors don't even realize it but they are producing a story that reflects Gods truth beauty or goodness. My hope is that the story or movie of my life, or the life of my church or the life of my community or the life of my family; would contain God. "The desire of my heart is for the renown of Your name." I want to observe life, observe the world and people and see Him. And I want others to be able to observe me and my life and see Him.

If I have found grace in your sight, please show me Your glory.