God’s Grace + My Gratitude = God’s Glory

“God can’t trust some people with burnt toast.” I sat in Dr. G’s office surrounded by pictures of his family, framed medical degrees, awards for academic excellence, and Scripture verses. I admit I was somewhat startled by his statement, instead expecting the results from the latest battery of medical testing. I don’t remember the exact words that followed. But his comments fundamentally became a guiding light through the health storms that followed. Dr. G stared me in the eyes and said, ‘Sarah-Marie, decide now that no matter how God answers, you will bring Him glory with your burnt toast or when you feel God has let you down.” My 18-year-old self had no idea what medical trials lay ahead of me. Likewise, I had no clue how even the best surgeons and medical minds in the nation wouldn’t be enough to cure my maladies. At this point, I was a few years into a search for the latest and ‘bestest’ treatments for asthma. We were trying to control what had been dubbed “childhood asthma” while waiting for that “magic moment” when I would outgrow it.

I walked out of his office and absently drove toward home. Burnt toast, Doc? Will medicine fail me? How often I would later sit in different specialists’ offices, bypassing the exam room for what felt like the ‘situation room’ as we discussed test results and treatment options. How many times Dr. G’s words would come back to me in those moments. While Dr. G never found the solution for my asthma, he may well have set me on a path for spiritual survival in the medical obstacles ahead.

Oxford Languages defines glory as “high renown or honor won by notable achievements.” So it seems that to bring God glory, I need a notable achievement of great renown. A ‘wow God’ moment. For me, that would be brachial pathways moving air freely. Dead bones with supernatural blood restoration. A pancreas that remarkably started producing proper amounts of insulin. Spinal compression fractures that were instantaneously repaired. Adrenal glands miraculously come alive after medical death. Ya know, like the big God stuff! Then I could bring Him glory. Then I could shout from the rooftops, “How great is my God!! Look, America! Look, World! Come and see what my God can do!” But what does it mean to bring Him glory when modern medicine fails? When His hand doesn’t do the miraculous? When prayers feel like they bounce off the ceiling? When my toast isn’t just plum burnt but gloriously (pun intended) on fire? What about when my burnt toast threatens to catch my whole life on fire? What should I declare, “Come and see, world? Come and see that my God is good! Taste this charcoal bread. It’s not as bad as it looks. Watch my house of dreams and desires crumble to the ground. Wanna play in the ash with me? I’ll share some. I heard it’s a great skin exfoliant! Come on, worship my God with me. He’s a good God!” That should bring the questioning world running to learn more about who I serve, right? Who doesn’t want a fire-breathing God to hand out life-destroying burnt toast?

So how do I declare my God’s glory without the “notable achievement” part? How do I show the waiting, desperate people around me that my God is indeed good? Good, even when everything around me seems to be going up in smoke. My God loves me even when I wonder how this truth could be absolute. How do I stand on the street corner and proclaim from my wheelchair, “Come and see, friend! My God is gentle and offers me rest in a restless situation. Take a peek into my life and see His goodness!” Goodness disguised as brittle anaphylactic asthma, Avascular Necrosis, Diabetes, Cushing’s Syndrome, Adrenal Insufficiency, Osteoporosis, and the list could go on and on. What’s your list? How is His goodness disguised in your life today?

I’ve wrestled with this question of bringing God glory from an isolated sick bed for over twenty-six years. I’ve cried out to the Lord, “Bring glory through my life as I struggle through these health challenges. Show me how to honor you when no one is watching. If you don’t get glory from these struggles, what is the use in my continued fight?” Or some days it’s, “How, Lord? How do I declare Your glory through the suffering of sickness when You often answer “wait” or “not now” or even a flat-out “no, my child.” How do I bring Your name glory when surrounded by sackcloth and ashes? How do I bring You glory when You don’t seem to be doing acts of great renown in or through my life?”

I don’t have the eloquent words of today’s finest sufferers in Christ. I just have this inner voice that spurs me toward the sovereign God of the Universe. A bible teacher recently reminded me that it was not my job to defend the glory of God. It was okay to sit alone in the ashes of life and raise weary hands of surrender. I didn’t need to fabricate a story that made God “look better.” He alone was responsible for how He moved in my life and what it looked like to a watching world. He could turn my ashes into a “notable achievement” in a moment of His sovereignty; He could if wanted to.

It’s been about 15 years since I asked God to heal me completely. This is a shocking statement to many. And some may come at me for my lack of faith. But after many days and weeks of genuinely wrestling with the Lord and Scripture, I have come to understand that it is not His plan to heal all my physical illnesses. Instead, for reasons I won’t know until I walk on streets of gold, He will receive greater glory through my struggles than through my healing.

And, friends, God is more concerned about His glory than my comfort. Again, this may seem harsh on the surface, but I confidently believe it. In Isaiah 43, God says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”[1] Why did He form and make humans? So they could seek happiness and pursue liberty and life? So they could joyfully have comfort on this earth? So they could witness the mighty miraculous acts of God each time they asked? No! Simply, no! His main reason for creating His children was so that we could bring Him glory. Is He a gracious, merciful God who gives us opportunities to pursue liberty, have joyful comfort on this earth, and witness His mighty power? Yes… sometimes. But was that His purpose when He made us at the beginning of all time? As I read and study Scripture, His goal for placing us on this earth was to turn others back to His mighty, glorious character. John Piper says, “I think that’s what glorify means: to show God to be glorious — that is, show him to be great or beautiful or valuable. Or you could break it down: show him to be wise, strong, kind, good, loving, just, holy, merciful, gracious, satisfying. So, to glorify is to make clear to others what God is like, so as to seek their praise and admiration of him, so that they join us in seeking to show how great he is. That’s what glorify means, as I understand it. God is seen more clearly to be glorious because I have more clearly reflected his character.”[2]

I recently was challenged to approach Scripture as a book about God. Not a book about me and how I should do this or that. After all, Scripture is HIStory. We are told in Genesis that we are made in the image of God.[3] Why? What is the purpose of an image? If my daughter draws a picture of her foursome family, the goal of the drawing is to remind me of her, her grandfather, her grandmother, and myself. So, God has put humans all over this world to remind us of Himself. The whole point of humankind is to prompt us to remember God. Romans even reminds us that all humanity is born with the knowledge that God is… that He exists. “Since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.”[4] There seems to be a correlation between gratitude and God’s glory in multiple places in the Bible.

Does the above change my view of bringing God glory? Certainly. I must continually remind myself that I am not responsible for defending God’s reputation with my family, friends, and acquaintances. My constant temptation is to voice counterfeit statements making life look like roses, rainbows, and unicorns.

How do I hope to bring Him glory in my life of ashes? It must be grace. Grace over grace. And then allow the Lord to pour on a little more grace. Paul knew that the grace of the Lord overflowing on him, even with his “thorn in the flesh,” gave him the power to live the life he was called. So likewise, by accepting the free grace given by my Savior, my heart can then find thankfulness in the ashes and thereby bring the Lord glory.

Additionally, Paul’s words, written from Macedonia, offer a key to conveying glory to our God when “burnt toast” feels like it has destroyed our life’s plan. “It is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”[5] Oh, how easy that sounds! Accept the free-flowing grace of God, give thanks, and His name will be glorified. No mighty God-act needed. No notable God-only deed is required. Accept grace in hard times. Give sincere thanks when life has crumbled. God’s name will be glorified through your life.

GOD’S GRACE + MY GRATITUDE = GOD’S GLORY

But, If I’m down-to-earth, authentic, and vulnerable with you right now, my readers, that’s not an easy equation for me. What if I’m right in the thick of it with Paul? “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”[6] What if I tell you that I don’t often feel thankful for my chronic pain, wheelchairs, surgeries, or medical isolation? My life’s ashes surround me; the stink of burning dreams fills my nostrils. I’m downright sick of eating burnt toast for the last 7,000+ days. (Sound familiar? The Children of Isreal said, “But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”[7])

What if I confess that I often wake up without considering what I’m genuinely grateful for? That my heart continues to mourn those lost dreams? What if I confess my mind is often too consumed with all that went wrong in my Life: In The Blink of an Eye? What if, like David, I cry, “Lord, my every desire is known to You; my sighing is not hidden from You. My heart races, my strength leaves me, and even the light of my eyes has faded. My loved ones and friends stand back from my affliction, and my relatives stand at a distance.”[8] And while I have the finest pity party, satan[9] begins his quiet whisper, “But what does it matter anyway? No one is watching. No one sees you stuck in your little house. After all, His glory shouldn’t be your life’s work. Think of your needs! You can’t bring someone glory who won’t give you glorious things to proclaim! He is God overall. He should be doing “wowsers” right and left. You can get back to trying to glorify God when He does that.” If I’m not careful, I stop right here. Feeling defeated but rightly defended at the same time.

Here, the cycle of declaring the Lord’s glory through my life can begin in earnest! It’s here that I cry out to the Lord for His power to overcome the lies of satan and accept the free-flowing gift of grace. Because grace seems to be the starting place for our life’s work, it looks as if we should clearly understand what grace is. My father has always described grace as “The ability to do through the Spirit what I cannot do in the flesh.” James reassures us that God’s gift of grace isn’t a one-and-done present but that God “gives more grace”[10] Paul says that it is through God’s grace that he can boldly write the truth to the Romans.[11] Or, said in my own words, do in the Spirit what he would not have had the courage to do in his flesh. Paul also reminds the church of Thessalonica that they receive comfort and hope through the grace of Jesus Christ, neither of which are fleshly traits but spiritual courage. Paul further exhorts the Romans to draw near to the throne of grace so that they may receive mercy and find more grace to assist them in their time of need.[12] [13] Indeed, the power to do in the Spirit what we cannot in the flesh is a “time of need” – would you not agree? Titus chapter two sums up what I believe is the biblical definition of grace by expressing, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, [doing in the spirit what we cannot do in the flesh] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ….”[14]

Shew… now that I feel like we went through a mini boot camp on grace, we move on to thanksgiving in our quest to bring glory to God through our lives. Even burnt toast lives!

On the surface, gratitude or thanksgiving seems pretty self-explanatory. And it is. But when I looked at the Greek word for thanksgiving, I noted that it was thanksgiving to God, not others. In the Psalms, David often talks about a sacrifice of thanksgiving.[15] This gives hope to my heart, honestly! My friend, good ol’ Meriam Webster defined a sacrifice as, “an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.” So a sacrifice of thanksgiving is giving up my broken dreams for the promised glory directed at my Savior. A sacrifice also carries a tint of sadness… the giving up part. It’s just that we realize that the giving up part is worth the end result. But I don’t have to joyfully, with bubbly excitement, offer God my thankfulness for a broken body and physical pain. There is a twinge of sadness that I don’t have a working body to offer. So instead, I offer this sacrifice of thanksgiving – what I have been given – to the house of the Lord; trusting it is worthy enough for Him to receive glory. And through that emotional process of offering what I have – albeit a piece of really burnt toast – I stand back to watch the Lord accept that sacrifice of thanksgiving. Then, with eyes firmly fixed on my Lord, I wait, wonder, and watch for Him to turn that sacrifice of thanksgiving into something that brings Him glory. It costs me something. But I offer that sacrifice of Thanksgiving because His glory is worth more. And what it costs me each day may vary. Some days it may cost me a pity party to give Him thanks. Some days it may cost my dreams of the future to give Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Still, on other days it may cost me trembling hands of fear of the unknown to offer Him a sacrifice of praise. And some days, it may just be a joyous gift of praise – without the sacrifice. Our original equation, remember, doesn’t require sacrifice. Though it often will.

GOD’S GRACE + MY GRATITUDE = GOD’S GLORY

But often, that Thanksgiving part holds me up when life is hard. Especially when life has been hard for a long time, and there doesn’t seem to be an “eject” button on this ride of life. Maybe that’s why the Lord put GRACE first. Because without His ability to offer a gift of THANKSGIVING, we would never be able to get to the “EQUALS (=) GOD’S GLORY” part. And it’s once God’s Glory is made known we experience a wave of deep peace and joy, even while sitting in the ashes of our lives, eating a piece of burnt toast for yet another day.

---

[1] Isaiah 43:6b–7. Emphasis added by the author. [2] Ask Pastor John: Can We Really Give God More or Less Glory? [3] Genesis 1:26 [4] Romans 1:19-23 (Holman Christian Standard Bible) [5] 2 Corinthians 4:15. Emphasis added by the author. [6] Galatians 5:17 [7] Numbers 11:6 [8] Psalm 38:9-11 – Holman Christian Standard Bible [9] The author notes that satan is a personal pronoun that should be capitalized. However, author has chosen not to capitalize the name to remind herself and others that he has lost the battle and will, in the end, lose the war. Jesus has claimed victory over all temptation and sin and has risen and will come back to claim His own! [10] James 4:6 [11] Romans 15:15 [12] Hebrews 4:16 [13] Most theologians agree that Paul wrote Hebrews to the church in Rome because of his closing words, “Grace be with you all” that is used in most of Paul’s other writings. However, some hold to Peter writing Hebrews. The author of this blog notes that whether Peter or Paul, they were inspired words of God and have full application in her life and holy inspiration as the Words of God. [14] Titus 2:11–14 [15] Psalm 107:22, Psalm 116:17