How to Make Space for God’s Weighty Glory Today

I see spattered throughout the early books in the Bible moments when the weighty glory of God caused His people to drop to the ground in awe. Truthfully, I get the response. It was carved in my character at an early age to still my heart, mind, and body and practice listening for what God might whisper. I understand that sometimes it’s easiest to see God when your eyes are closed and your head bowed low.

The details of my life are different from Abraham’s, Moses’s, and Aaron’s, but it’s the same God who overwhelms me when I linger facedown on the floor. The same God who blazes holy and intensely benevolent, righteous and worthy.

Moments Captured Through Songs

2023 was a year of lingering long on my knees and worship songs on repeat. Waiting and letting go. Bold and honest prayers. Filling out nearly all the pages in Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God. Setting 5:15 alarms and often waking up without it because early mornings with Jesus are my favorite. Adding another 2k or so lines to my gratitude journal. Starting new things and learning when to say no. Pushing against my Enneagram 9 grain and opening up.

Recently, I pulled up the playlist I’d created from the songs I played on repeat throughout the year. Each song brought a flood of memories:

Grief.

Gratitude.

Surrender.

Rejection.

Countless prayers.

Sweet conversation with Jesus on my knees.

Tears I couldn’t hold back.

What they helped me to let go:

Striving.

Expectations.

Outcomes.

Timing.

Reciprocation.

Answers.

Acknowledgment.

Control.

It was a year of both hard and holy. I spent more time facedown than I have since I was in college. Cried more than I ever knew I could. Cried because He’s holy and it overwhelms me. Cried because He loves me without me doing a single thing. Cried because I care. Cried because He cares and knows and knows best.

These songs are prayers on repeat. Honest questions. Trusting that God’s good because He’s not done yet. Moments when weighty glory left me in a muddle on the floor.

I often share the songs I’m listening to with my email friends (join me here), and you can get the whole playlist here:

Response to Weighty Glory

Kneeling in His presence is an act of reverence. A declaration that He is God and I am not. I need that reminder daily because I’m quick to overstep, as if I can chart my own course better than He can.

I put unbending expectations on my work, then raise the bar for everything next.

Pay far too much attention to my self-critical inner voice.

Pressure myself to never let anyone down.

Maybe, like me, your bent is to do it yourself. Admitting you were wrong or are insufficient is incredibly hard. But even harder is asking for help.

Leave it to Scripture to offer a better way to live for perfectionists and people-pleasers. A solution that is simple and humbling: get low. Choose with your physical posture to give credit to God and surrender what you’re tempted to clench tight. Pause your can-do and gaze on the all-consuming glory of a God who wants to hug you tight and show you His face.

Kneeling in His presence is an act of reverence. A declaration that He is God and I am not.

The Posture of Surrender

This posture isn’t reserved for the moments you feel desperately in need of an answer, intervention, miracle. Like gratitude, I find that it’s a before, not an after. It sets the precedence for how we will respond when hard things hit because it becomes a deeply set habit.

No striving.

No pretending.

No performing.

Just you, honest and in awe.

Humble and expectant.

Wholly trusting.

Bolding coming close, knowing Whose you are.

How true is this line from Bristol House’s song “Abide”: “I’ve seen You in the light so I will find You in the dark.” When life feels smooth, even boring, then—especially then—behold the glory of God and let it wreck you. Choosing surrender with our posture even when our heart lags behind grows our hunger. And the hungrier you are to know this glory-clad God, the steadier you’ll stand when life caves and hope wanes.

Like a Ripple Effect

Show up daily, facedown and surrendered, and it ripples into the rest of your day. Rights the motivations of your heart. Brings to the surface memorized verses like Psalm 19:13-14,

So may the words of my mouth, my meditation-thoughts, and every movement of my heart be always pure and pleasing, acceptable before your eyes, Yahweh, my only Redeemer, my Protector.
TPT

You find that slowly, you’re looking more like Jesus. He’s often on your mind as you are on His. Often in your stories because you’re actively surrendering and seeking His direction.

The grace that lines your words, the forgiveness you extend, the kindness you pay forward because you can’t get over the way God’s tender with you—that’s evidence of time spent with Jesus. Time that changes you but also creates a ripple effect.

Truth is the work God does in our hearts as we rest in His presence isn’t meant just for us. His plan is always to multiply what He plants.

The work God does in our hearts as we rest in His presence isn’t meant just for us_Twyla Franz quote for Begin Within: A Gratitude Series

Let’s pray.

God, open my eyes to see You. May Your glory fill me with awe and gratitude. May the work You do in my heart as I spend time on my knees start a ripple effect.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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