May God Be Glorified

             Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty— he is the King of glory. (Psalm 24:8,9)

            At the time of this writing, we are officially six days and nine hours away from the retreat we are co-hosting, It’s a Jungle Out There: Trusting God to Be Your Guide.  Rebecca Carrell, co-founder of Love, Serve, Shine Ministries and I have either been praying daily with each other or with others for this retreat.  We are asking that the Lord be glorified in every minute of the 24 hours we will be at Camp Copass.

            We throw around the phrase, “May God be glorified” often but what does it really mean?  I asked the Lord to show me so I would truly understand what I pray on a regular basis.

            To explain, He took me back to the Exodus passage when his glory passed by Moses. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34: 6-7) When I read that, I thought, “That’s it!” When we pray for God to be glorified, we are praying that the women of this retreat will feel God’s compassion through us, that we will be overflowing with His love, that they will see our faithfulness to put on this retreat because it is our desire to serve Him.

            However, I dug deeper to understand what God meant when he said that He is maintaining love to thousands. The Hebrew word for “maintain” is nasar. It means “to guard, watch, protect, keep or preserve.  The Hebrew word for love, in this case, is hesed.  It’s not just any love, it mean’s God’s unfailing love, a loyal love, devotion or kindness. We want the women to know our unfailing love for them extends beyond a 24-hour retreat and we are going to ask God to protect that love while we are together and beyond.  We want them to feel God’s kindness.  We want them to see our devotion to them.

            The final part of this passage: forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin also applies. With almost sixty women attending the retreat, there will be all sorts of pasts represented. Our desire is that this will be a refuge with no condemnation or judgment. It will be a venue overflowing with the forgiveness of Christ.  It will be a safe place to be away from the world that can be a jungle at times.

            Through prayer, we are opening the door to our Camp Copass conference room for the King of Glory to come in. Why? Because we cannot do it without Him. Like Moses, we are pleading for His glory to pass by us. We are ready and willing to receive.

            Tickets for the October 18-19 Women’s retreat, “It’s a Jungle Out There: Trusting God to Be Your Guide” are on sale through Monday at Noon for 25 percent off. Just follow the link: http://itsajungleoutthere.eventbrite.com/ and type in Junglediscount.