Search for the Glory

by Bob A Clifton

Raising children is interesting. For those of you that have children and jobs and wives, you know the complexity you experience in managing all of those and still finding sometime for yourself. As you have heard me talk about, transitioning to work has been a difficult process. Even when you change one good thing for another good thing, you still have a grieving process for giving up the good you had. Got all that good? As I sit here today I have a card pinned in front of me from my daughter. For church during Fathers Day the kids got to write cards to their fathers. My daughter simply wrote “We love you. You are the best. When you are at work I miss you.” Fantastic! Did you notice as she wrote those words the only thing she thinks about, at this point as a seven year old, is all of dad’s good qualities?

This reminds me of how our Father see’s us. He is always checking out our best qualities. Growing up, my life did not resemble someone always searching out my best qualities. Sparing you the details of the brokenness, my mother came from a home that was full of verbal abuse. When you grow up in an environment that is full of bad words, it is real hard to think of and express the good you see in other people. So for much of my childhood I have memories of my mom pointing out what was wrong with me. I still see some of this today. It is not that many people would view this as bad, but it is easy to see when you were a part of that for years.

Early on in my parenting I took note of the same expression that came from past generations. The expression of what was wrong with my daughter instead of what was right. I was fortunate enough to catch up with that early on and have been able to repent and correct that place in my heart. Just last week a wife told me that it feels so fake complimenting someone when all they have done is everyday stuff. When we get down to the details, if someone has not poured compliments into our life, we are going to have a hard time pouring life into someone else.

Dr. Larry Crabb’s latest book called Connecting brings this point home. Dr. Crabb brings attention to what we see in people. He says that western Christianity is so focused on finding the sin, exposing it, and then bringing accountability around it that it sometimes will miss the glory of someone. Crabb says “why do we so infrequently delight in one another? Its people who don’t know us well that often finds the most to appreciate in us.” I think we see people on television or someone across the street that seems to have the car, house, wife, and smile and we think what went wrong. How did people delight in you when you were younger? Is it easy for you delight in other people and express that to them?

Being delighted in is the main emotional task for a 0 to 3 year old. One of the ways that we develop is by being delighted in as infants. When we have a lot of eye to eye contact with our parents and see many smiles it makes us feel like our world is safe. When we do not have much face time with mom and dad or if our time is full of mad and sad faces we feel like our world is unsafe. Amazing that the age when we usually bear children is the same time we are working harder than ever and finding our place in the work market. With the increase in two parent incomes it can become a difficult task to delight in your children as much as you would like too.

Can I make a suggestion this week? Instead of finding the sin in people, just look for their glory. When you find their glory, let it be known what you see. This, I believe, was Jesus biggest strength in building community and relationships with others. He called out people’s glory and created ways for people to shine. Some of the best days of my life are surrounded with praise and affirmation from people I care about. I am reminded anymore when people compliment me of the work that Christ has done and is doing in my life. Find something to delight in this week!