becoming new under the sun

This past Sunday morning, I was blessed to be awakened early in spite of a late night the night before. Somehow I did not find it difficult to roll out of bed and make a cup of coffee. I settled in my early morning spot, the chair next to the window in the family room, pushed back the curtains to witness the glory of the morning before opening my Bible.

It was a spectacular morning, the sun just piercing gold through the trees. As I sipped and gazed, the words of a post I had read the night before at desiringgod.org illuminated my reverie.

The desire to behold, and in doing so become, beckoned me out the door, camera in hand, to greet the morning and its Maker.

I share with you here excerpts from what I read and pics from my morning walk with the Lord. I do so sheepishly, remembering an incident from my undergrad days, when, coming near the end of a lit paper, tired of thinking and writing, too tired to draw the necessary conclusion, I had ended with, "I cannot say it better than so-and-so who said:" and I quoted so-and-so. When I got the paper back, my professor had scrawled in bold ink in the margins, "Oh, do TRY!"

Forgive me, Dr. Moseley; here I go again.  This time I cannot say it better than John Piper with his encouraging and humble way of writing about the foolishness of change (read the full post here). All glory be given to God for choosing to change me.  More, all glory given to God for God Himself.

The most important text on my emergent frogishness became 2 Corinthians 3:18 —

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

This was one of the greatest secrets I ever discovered: Beholding is becoming.

Introspection must give way to amazement at glory. When it does, becoming happens. If there is any key to maturity it is that. Behold your God in Jesus Christ. Then you will make progress from tadpole to frog. That was a great discovery.

And...

... Self is simply too small to satisfy the exploding longings of my heart. I wanted to taste and see something great and wonderful and beautiful and eternal.

It started with seeing nature and ended with seeing God. It started in literature, and ended in Romans and Psalms. It started with walks through the grass and woods and lagoons, and ended in walks through the high plains of theology. Not that nature and literature and grass and woods and lagoons disappeared, but they became more obviously copies and pointers.

The heavens are telling the glory of God. When you move from heavens to the glory of God, the heavens don’t cease to be glorious. But they are un-deified, when you discover what they are saying. They are pointing. “You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy” (Psalm 65:8). 

What are the sunrise and sunset shouting about so happily? Their Maker! They are beckoning us to join them.

Finally...

Just stay the course and look. Look, look. There is so much to see. The Bible is inexhaustible. Mainly look there. The other book of God, the unauthoritative one—nature—is also inexhaustible. Look. Look. Look. Beholding the glory of the Lord we are being changed.

From the unauthoritative book, copies and pointers...

The pictures don't do justice.  Like me, they don't see, or reflect, enough.   

LORD, open my eyes.  Let me see more of you!