Reflections on God’s Glory
Imagine a dark room. You are in that dark room with only one item—a flashlight. You turn on your flashlight and shine it around and then focus that light on an object in that dark room. We are not lighting up ourselves, but rather lighting up that object we are focusing the light on.
That is a very simple object lesson to teach kids how to glorify God. We are not making ourselves shine (look what I am doing for God), but rather turning our focus on how great God is.
It is easy to ask children, “Why did God make you and all things?” and have them repeat back “For His own glory”. But really, HOW do we teach our kids to give God glory? We can say that we need to obey Him and do what He commands. Absolutely! But it goes beyond that. What is glorifying God? What does it all mean? How can we present it in a way that it will be a constant reminder for our children? Here are several ways for kids – and yes, even ourselves- to visualize and understand how to give God glory.
The flashlight example could be a starter. It is all about God, not about me. Glorify does not mean to make glorious. It is different than the word beautify. When we beautify something, we make it even more beautiful. We can’t make God more glorious. It is rather the idea of how we see God and helping others see God as a glorious God. We love what we see, and we act it out. The Bible is filled with examples of our behavior showing how glorious God is.
First is by our words. I Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed…be God.” Verse 12 in chapter 2 goes on to say that we need to conduct ourselves in a certain way so that others can see God as glorious. So our words and actions should show God as glorious.
How can we teach that to our children? First, we can appreciate God for His size—He’s really, really big! Have your child hold up his thumb against a distant big tree, a tower, or a multi-storied building. His thumb overshadows that big object. But get right next to that object. Look how small you are in comparison to that big object. God is soooo big—so much bigger than we are! We can exclaim to ourselves, to others, and to God how big and awesome He really is!
God is also really, really valuable. His value is so much that we wouldn’t want to trade Him for anything else in the world! You prefer God, you want God more than anything. He is precious to you. More precious than any treasure or any person. That is bringing glory to God.
God is beautiful. The most beautiful thing we could think of looking upon. Not beautiful like the way sunsets or flowers are beautiful (and He created them), but beautiful in character and strength and wisdom. Our kids are brought up to think of heroes and villains. What makes them a hero? It is their character, their strength, their wisdom as they fight against the ugly, messed-up bad guy. Can we cheer when God wins against the bad guys? Can we exclaim His greatness when He appears in the story of our life? Can we stand in awe of His perfect character? He’s so great and beautiful – especially when compared to the villain and the evil that villain dishes out.
We don’t make God bigger, more valuable, or more beautiful. He already is the biggest and the best in all things of value and beauty. We can rejoice in that and let everyone around us know, and tell God how much we love Him for those very things.
For our kids (and with our kids), we can use our five senses to search out His glory and make it personal to each. You might think of this as looking for God sightings or going on a glory hunt. Here are a few practical ways to do this.
1) Being out in nature will develop the sense of sight, hearing, touching, smelling, and even tasting the greatness of God and His creativeness in what He has made.
2) Going to the zoo and looking at the animals—and wondering (in awe) of God’s uniqueness in His creation. Stand in awe of the stripes on the zebra and the long neck of the giraffe and the gigantic legs of an elephant!
3) God’s character comes out in His creation—so be creative ourselves! Get out the blank canvas and the paints, the clay or playdough, the crayons.
4) Make a joyful noise of praise to God through the powerful mediums of music and dance.
5) Try new foods or cook with what you’ve got on hand. Think of where those ingredients came from and how God uses food to nourish our bodies and make us grow.
6) Read. Read books that make us ask questions, wonder at His creation, nurture our faith, and make connections in what we are learning about God. And above all, read His own words to us in the Bible. Make it a daily habit in our family life, in our own life, and in our children’s lives to get into the Bible and pray.
Psalm 19:1-4 says this,
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
How do you think the clouds, the sun, the moon, God’s Creation declare the glory of God? One little boy replied, “They give God glory when they do what God created them to do.” What an awesome response. We also are part of God’s Creation. Let’s encourage our children (and show by example) to give God glory by doing what we are created to do!
Because Kids Matter,
Shari Coelho
Children’s Ministry Director