This was written several years ago, from a very special place. It was a place where the enemy tried to destroy the good work that God had begun in me. But God…He turned torment into treasure, and revealed Himself to me in ways I had never known possible.
This is a sweet, sweet memory, and I just want to share it with you today.
As I, once again, settle into my rocker, I know God is ready to speak to me. This is the place to which I am called when He wants to bless me with His glorious presence. Most of the time, His glory is His chosen topic of revelation.
He talks to me through my senses here, through the birds, the trees, the earthly and heavenly landscapes. A dove becomes a messenger, trees reach forever Heaven-ward in praise, songbirds warble worship, and clouds are transformed into passing notions. He personifies everything in my vision for an instant, just long enough to drive home a point, a bit of knowledge, a grand revelation.
This morning I sit in my appointed rocker, and I feel His glory, His purpose and majesty. It is for me. It is mine in which to revel. In my chair, His glory is revealed to me.
My attention shifts. Outside of my self-contained rocker-world is the expanse of my porch. I have decorated it, creating a pleasant atmosphere to contain me and my chair. I am thankful for this porch and the peace I find here. It is home for me and my rocker, a place safe from the ill-effects of storms, yet open to what lies beyond…and my eyes seek beyond.
Oh, my perfect little back yard! Its beauty lends itself to even greater revelations of my Father. It is home to so many creatures…of course, the birds (some just passing by), rabbits, squirrels, deer, voles, moles, mice, opossums, and an occasional skunk or raccoon. The often jubilant rock-bottomed creek that flows through the yard gives life and sustenance to these creatures, and to the ever-changing flora serving as its border, its framework.
In this chair, on this porch, in this place, He speaks to me of Himself and His purpose in and for me. This place is for me.
The light on this scene changes, its quality alters, taking my gaze upward in search of the source of change. Layer upon layer of clouds, every shape, every kind, float by, edges tinted first violet, then pink, then golden. Through windows, here and there, glorious white light touches the earth of my little yard, my little back porch, my rocker and me. Greater truth is revealed in the glorious transformation that occurs as a result of that outpouring.
“Thus is the glory and greater glory of God,” SAYS God.
I’ve always seen moving from glory to glory, being transformed into God’s own image, as steps on a ladder, or a staircase, moving upward, step by step. But in His glory, in my rocker, on my porch, in this place, covered by the constantly shifting, billowing, and wisping clouds, brightened and bejeweled by His glorious lightshow, He tells me something else. He brings my attention to 2 Peter 1:3.
“According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”
And then to 2 Corinthians 3:18.
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
My vision of His glory no longer calls to mind stair steps. Stair steps can take such exhausting human effort. He doesn’t want me to be exhausted. No, His glory is like this:
It is here. It is with us. We are in it, and we have it already. He has given it to us, to the fullest extent possible within these fleshly bodies. Moving from glory to glory is only accomplished through expanding our vision, looking beyond what is immediate and past what we’ve already seen.
So, here I am in my chair, on my porch, in my yard, under God’s picture-perfect expanse of sky, moving from glory to glory with my gaze. The clouds part, revealing yet another layer…a brilliant, bright blue beyond…
The Peace of the Path 