Glory Declared

He was a young business owner with the wife, kids, house, toys, and accessories that all pointed to one thing: he had arrived ahead of schedule to the destination of the American dream. He even had a luxury car with vanity plates to flaunt it. When we met at a kid’s birthday party he was suffering through an unexpectedly long and difficult recovery after serious complications from an elective surgery. This tumultuous interruption to his otherwise fast-tracked journey to success had him questioning everything. We struck up a conversation where he shared his story, and I shared my faith. He freely admitted that he previously wouldn’t have cared to hear what I had to say, but his current condition had him open to anything. We exchanged contact information and agreed to get together to talk further.

Sometime later he invited me over for that conversation. We sat in luxurious leather recliners in his home theater, and I offered him the hope of the gospel. He was seeking something, and he was willing to listen to anything, but it quickly became evident that his heart remained hard. He shared with me that he questioned the existence of God and what happened next gave me the clearest view I’ve ever seen of the spiritual blindness that accompanies a hard heart.

With Psalm 19 and Romans 1 in mind I did my best to invoke awe at the beauty in the variety of colors and textures and formations and complexities and wonder that exists in everything around us and how the spectacular artistry in it all reveals the existence and glory of the artist who made it. He told me that he does not see wonder in the world. For him, there was no glory in creation.

But then, for a moment, his humanity broke through his hardness. He sat back in his chair and shifted his gaze upward as if he were looking through the ceiling as people often do when enjoying a memory. He told me of a time he camped in the Grand Canyon and laid in entranced amazement at the countless stars in the expanse of the darkest nighttime sky he had ever seen. 

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 

I so wanted to be a fisher of men and, in that moment, I thought I had a bite. But when I tried to reel him in his hardness resurfaced and he refused to connect his amazement with the glory of God. God had spoken to him at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but he did not want to listen.

Like the rich young ruler, he walked away sad from our conversation. He had invited me over because he knew he needed something but clinging so tightly to the perceived glory of his riches in created things, he was blinded to the true riches found in the glory of the creator.

We long for every man, woman, and child to have the opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel. Sometimes that response is rejection. In the end, all we can do is point and pray. We point to the glory of God revealed in creation and in Christ and pray that God would do the miraculous work of opening blind eyes to see it.

2 Corinthians 4:4–6 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

~ Andy Barker grew up in Boston, Ma. and relocated to Charlotte in 2008. He currently serves as an elder at LIFE Fellowship. He and his wife Melanie have five children and have attended LIFE Fellowship for ten years.