Glory for Me

January 28, 2021

Psalm 17:15 reads,”I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.” As if it weren’t enough to someday wake in God’s presence, the promise here is that we shall awake in his likeness. I imagine Paul had this in mind when he penned 2 Corinthians 3:18–“We all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Or 1 Corinthians 13:12–“Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then, face to face.” 

As a teenage new Christian, we sang Charles Gabriel’s hymn, “O That Will Be Glory for Me.” The first two refrains are as follows:

“When all my labors and trials are o’er

And I am safe on that beautiful shore,

Just to be near the dear Lord I adore

Will through the ages be glory for me.

“When by the gift of his infinite grace

I am accorded in heaven a place,

Just to be there and to look on his face

Will through the ages be glory for me.”

I remember singing these words joyfully, but it’s only with more than a half century under my belt that I am beginning to appreciate them. It’s a song of anticipation that the young only appreciate when faced with abject failure or defeat. Anticipation produces either escapism or engagement. People often think of heaven as a way out of life’s problems instead of the natural result of life lived as God planned. Without the anticipation of eternal life, escapism is a logical choice—why engage in a difficult endeavor that has no ultimate goal or meaning?

Contemplation of heaven is merely the fulfillment of what we aspire to be here on earth. At my worst, I reflect only my own fallen likeness. At my best, I hope to exhibit the likeness, a reflection of Jesus Christ, but I usually fall somewhere in between; a faulty and flawed likeness at best. the thought that someday I’ll not only be WITH Christ fully, but LIKE him also, is my hope. As Gabriel said, it’s only by his grace, now and forever. May this hope mold and shape my words and deeds now, in this life, as they will in the life to come!