reflected glory

February 7, 2005

it always amazes me how God can take the ordinary and make something supernatural out of it. every now and then, analogies from everyday life jump out at me that are specific to my circumstances. a long time ago, it was almost a daily occurrence. God knows the best way to communicate with us. He did make us after all. i figure for me, one of those ways is through nature and every day life things—things that i can see.

last week, the Spirit of God spoke to my heart as i stood showering at the club after hitting the pool. for some reason, that morning i took notice of how the door to the steam room reflected images. i wasn't sure whether this was a property of all glass doors, so i stood a while watching and thinking about it. i noticed that when the steam room was full of steam, the door reflected external images more than when the steam room was empty. a pretty interesting phenomena.

since the Spirit has used the steam room as an analogy of my life before, i realized that it was the Spirit prompting me again about something new. in prior days, i had been thinking a lot about my circumstances, about eric, about having fm. at one point, i wondered if God was still being glorified through my situation even though so much time had passed. His answer came to me that morning. the steam represented the circumstances i faced. the steam room itself, was what i was in. the reflection on the door represented God's glory. reflected glory. because my life was so full of steam, it helped to reflect God's glory to those looking in (at me, my life). had my life been been void of steam, the reflection would have been less (but let's not go there, because you do not need to face suffering/trials in your life to reflect the glory of God). in a nutshell, the answer was yes. God was still being glorified through me though i did not realize it.

it got me thinking back to the whole idea of influence (in essence, my trip with cti this past summer). if we walk with Christ, if we desire to magnify Him in all things, people will see Christ in us. we carry the aroma of Christ wherever we go. so wherever we go, people will smell the fragrance of Christ. it makes no difference whether we can see people's reactions since we have no idea what the Holy Spirit is doing in the hearts of people.

people have told me they are encouraged by how i can persevere through all that i've been through. there's no secret behind it really. i mean, i'm no different than anybody else. i'm just an ordinary guy trying to make it through life. but, one thing i've learned through this journey of life, is that in extreme suffering and trials: it's about trusting, believing, banking your hope and faith in the only One that can be trusted; it's remembering that God has given us a privilege of existing on earth in order to bring glory and honour to His name; it's knowing that that privilege may come at a "cost to us" but at the end of the day, it's not about us, but Him; it's about valuing what's important in life—Him.

"the Day is coming when you'll have it all--life healed and whole. i know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. when Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of His victory.you never saw Him, yet you love Him. you still don't see him, yet you trust Him--with laughter and singing. because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation" - 1 peter 1:5-9 [the message]

wow. i felt prompted to read through 1 peter tonight. since there's so many versions/translations on my bookshelf, i decided to check them all out. the message version was the one that struck me the most. it's so encouraging. especially verse seven (the one bolded). suffering for the glory of God is a holy privilege of all believers; if God uses suffering in order to demonstrate His victory... it really brings perspective to things. amen!

Posted by Leo Chan at February 7, 2005 8:32 PM