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To God Be the Glory
May we always see past the hardships and distractions of our life. May we always focus on the grace of our God.
Job 19:26-27, 2 Corinthians 12:10
To God be the glory. We sometimes hear Christians say that when they accomplish a personal achievement, when they reach a goal, when their team wins the championship, and that’s a good thing. We want to recognize God as the giver of all that is good. We want to glorify his name.
And it’s easy to an extent when good things are happening. But what about when they’re not? What about when life is difficult? What about when you get that health diagnosis? You might have a permanent disability. What’s interesting is the story of the hymn writer of the Hymn to God be the Glory, Fanny Crosby. She had a difficult life. At six weeks of age she developed inflammation in her eyes and underwent a procedure that left her permanently blind. At six months, her father passed away. She was raised by her mother and grandmother. Who did raise her in the Christian faith. And so she became a hymn writer.
Her best known hymns are Take the World, but Give Me Jesus and To God Be the Glory. How could she write to God be the glory in the midst of such a difficult life? Having to deal with a permanent disability? Well, I think she answers that well in the first verse of her hymn.
To God be the glory great things He has done. He so loved the world that He gave us his Son, who yielded his life in Atonement for sin and opened the life gate that all may come in.
Fanny Crosby knew the eternal hope that we have waiting for us because of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. And so she was focused on that future glory. She once commented that when her eyesight was restored, when she was in heaven, that the first thing she would see would be her Savior’s face. You and I have that same joy that we can look forward to. We think about the words of Job in Job 19 beginning at verse 26.
Then even after my skin has been destroyed, nevertheless, in my own flesh, I will see God. I myself will see Him. My own eyes will see him and not as a stranger. My emotions are in turmoil within me. (Job 19:26-27)
Others translate it “how my heart yearns within me.” No matter how good or bad our eyesight is in this life, we will see our Savior with our own eyes. And what about the difficulties of life that we have to endure as Jesus leads us to our heavenly home? Well, they keep us focused on what really matters. It’s interesting, Crosby also once commented that if she could have her eyesight restored, she would not take it. She said I think that if I could see, I would be too distracted by all the beautiful and interesting things about me, and I would not have become a hymn writer and written the hymn to God Be the Glory.
Our hardships, our struggles, our disabilities, they keep us focused on the grace of our God. As Paul writes, the Apostle Paul in second Corinthians 12, verse ten.
That is why I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships and persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then my strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
May we always see past the hardships and distractions of our life. May we always focus on the grace of our God. And may we always say and sing to God be the glory. Amen.
