Show me your glory
Moses' boldest request
Moses already had more of God than almost anyone in history. He had seen the burning bush, parted the sea, received the law, and spoken with God face to face as a friend. And it had not satisfied him; it had made him hungry for more. So he asked the boldest thing a creature can ask: please, show me your glory.
It is the holy audacity of real intimacy. Love is never content with what it has of the beloved; it always wants more. God did not rebuke the request. He said no human could see his face and live — but he would do something. He hid Moses in a cleft of the rock, covered him with his hand, and passed by, proclaiming his own name: the Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.
Moses asked to see God's glory, and what God showed him, first of all, was his goodness. The deepest thing about the glory of God turned out to be his kindness.
“Please show me your glory.”
— Moses, to the LORD — Exodus 33:18 (WEB)
Refuse to settle for a manageable amount of God — ask boldly to see more of his glory, and look for it in the face of Christ.
“He who has seen me has seen the Father.”
We mistake a low expectation for contentment and quietly stop asking for more of God, settling for a manageable amount of him. The interior work is to let your knowledge of God make you hungrier, not satisfied — to recover the holy audacity that always wants more of the beloved — and to seek his glory where it is now revealed, in the face of Jesus.
Pray Moses' bold prayer this week, daily and in earnest: show me your glory. Then go looking for the answer in the Gospels, gazing at the character of Jesus as the visible glory of the Father.
A low expectation likes to dress itself up as maturity, so we stop asking for more of God and call the smallness contentment. But Moses, who had more of God than we will know on this side of heaven, only hungered for more — and a heart truly alive always wants to see further into his glory, now unveiled in the face of Christ.
There is a kind of spiritual contentment that is really just a low expectation — we have settled for a manageable amount of God and stopped asking for more. Moses, who had more of God than we ever will on this side of heaven, refused to settle. The more he knew God, the more he wanted to know him. Hunger for God is not a sign of spiritual immaturity; it is a sign of life.
And what Moses longed to see has now been given a face. Show me your glory, Moses prayed; he who has seen me has seen the Father, Jesus answered. The glory Moses glimpsed from a cleft in the rock, we behold in the face of Christ. Ask boldly to see more of him — and look for the answer in Jesus.
- Have I settled for a manageable amount of God?
- Does knowing God make me hungrier for him, or satisfied?
- Where am I looking for his glory — and have I looked in the face of Christ?
Lord, show me your glory. Make me hungry for more of you, and let me see your glory in the face of Jesus. Amen.