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Ran into this via John Piper’s Twitter. I’m not really a Twitter-er (or, whatever the term would be), but I do follow this one. Definitely worth it. You can read here why Dr. Piper Tweets.

Anyway, this is a good little article–it doesn’t delve into the subject, but gives us something to chew on. How often is my (maybe even subconscious) goal to prove to myself and the world that “Kayleen is glorious”? Kayleen is certainly not glorious–it’s ridiculous, even blasphemous, to say so, but how often do I sin in the subtle and silent ways of life? It goes unsaid–more than too much.

But the equally important question is this: How much of my life is spent–either directly or indirectly–in “making much of God”? Of all the things I do in life, what percentage lines itself up with declaring God to be as great as He really is? The thought that struck me was, “Ya know, photography (and filmmaking) is all about representation. You take a picture of some thing or person that exists, and portray it on a piece of paper. That photograph tells us about who that person is, or what that object is about. Similarly, our lives are supposed to represent the glory of God to the world.” What’s interesting is that God’s glory is also described by words like shine, and bright, and blinding LIGHT. The essence of photography is light entering a dark cavern and burning the information that the light waves are carrying from the source image onto a dark tablet. Once the light has done it’s searing and branding, we can turn around and print a picture of what the light did, what the light illumined, what the light itself was.

Or we can alter things before we do, such that we completely change, distort or hide the original vision.

If I took your portrait and Photoshopped a komodo dragon’s head in the place of yours, you would cancel your order, be very stern and unhappy with me, be highly offended, demand that I change it and never let another soul see it, and tell me that that “thing” looks NOTHING like you, pointy nose as you may have. Or better yet, what if I Photoshopped MY face in place of yours?? It’s not an accurate representation. Not of you. And the point is to represent you.

So the question is, How well is the photograph of my life representing the glory that is Christ Jesus?

Read  what Dr. Piper has to say about WHAT God’s glory is:

What is God’s glory?

Wow. That’s a good question, because we talk about it endlessly, don’t we? And we should know what we’re talking about. And yet it is very difficult to define. I’ll make a stab at it.

The reason it is so important is because in the Bible I don’t know of any truth that is more fundamentally pervasive than God’s zeal to be glorified, which means his zeal for us so to think, so to feel, and so to act as to make him look as glorious as he is. We don’t add to his glory.

So we want to make God’s glory shine. We want to make it visible. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). So the goal of my life should be to so live that when people know me well enough, they would say, “God is glorious!” Not “John is glorious,” but “God is glorious!” (Which is probably why God lets us sin as much as he does. But that’s another question.)

What is it? I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting his glory, because we’re created in his image, and we’re trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.

The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God is what I mean by “glory,” and I base that partly on Isaiah 6, where the seraphim say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—” and you would expect them to say “holiness” and they say “glory.” They’re ascribing “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—” and when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it “glory.”

So God’s glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections.