My wife has a saying that she says anytime she sees someone naked running through the house. She says they are "in all their glory." Now I must clarify that naked people running through our house doesn't happen often and now that the kids are older it hasn't happened recently. Of course the typical situation where this would occur would be a child escaping a diaper changing or an unwanted bath. You know, NORMAL situations that occur in a NORMAL family. It's all very NORMAL. Just sayin'.
But the point I wanted to make is not about streakers but more about this idea of a person being "in all their glory" when they are unclothed. As I thought about the oddity of that statement, it struck me that it might be closer to the truth than we would care to think.
It is interesting to me that Mankind was created by God "in our image" and that it wasn't until after the Fall Mankind was clothed in any way. There is much in the Bible about the Glory of God and it seems to be a much more tangible thing than how we typically view glory in our world. What if we also had Glory when we were created and that Glory was so diminished by our sin that it had to be hid, and we have been hiding it ever since? We dress ourselves up, we style our hair, we "make up" our faces, and we spend billions modifying our bodies and those of us who are good enough at it often become "glorified" at some level.
Imagine; being glorified for covering up our Glory.
To wrap it all up, I also found it interesting that in Scripture when it talks about our re-uniting with our bodies, they are referred to as our glorified bodies. It seems we are being restored to our previous state that is in a much closer relationship with God than we are capable of now. And maybe at even a more basic level that has been lost for so long, we have forgotten it ever existed. I find it intriguing that we might be considering as shameful, our very God-given Glory.
Now, I am not bringing this up to advocate some crazy idea that nudity should be celebrated not covered as our society seems more and more comfortable in doing. Not at all. I am throwing out these speculations (and speculations are what they are, I have done 0 research, I am writing as I am thinking about it) because what has come to my mind while considering this idea is that this might just be a physical presentation of what has happened to us spiritually through the Fall. Just think about the last time you paused for a moment in front of the mirror stepping out of the shower. And think of the thoughts that went through your mind. What if what you were looking at was your Glory? How humiliating would that be, that the thing that should bring you the most praise of anything you have done or possess is that thing that was staring back at you from that mirror? I don't know, maybe you have the perfect body by society's standards and maybe you are just vain enough to think you are just that amazing, but I would imagine that the other 99.9% of us would find this idea appalling.
What a devastatingly sad state we are in and how desperately do we need God's Glory to shine through our lives while we remain in this diminished state. To think that this image in the mirror is the best we have to offer is truly humbling. But equally humbling is the thought that the most beautiful example of a human being is so diminished from its intended Glory that is should be covered in shame. Wow. That makes the thought of what awaits us in Heaven quite inconceivable. And then to think that even as unbelievable that will be, it will be so overwhelmed by God's Glory that we may not even notice it.
Who are we to consider equality with God something to be grasped at any level? So maybe the next time you find yourself entertaining the idea that you might know better than God or that you can accomplish something without Him, you should take a peak at yourself "in all your glory". That should snap you back to reality rather quickly I would think.
How about you?
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