Glory in Intercession

There was something that I read recently that has penetrated my heart and shifted something within me.  We speak of the glory of God and how it fills the earth and we long to know His glory.  We talk it, preach it, sing it, we yearn for it.  The splendor and majesty of God Almighty we will never fully fathom until heaven one day.  I think sometimes we tend to think that the glory of God is like a freebie at some garage sale, "while supplies last."  Oh how we have belittled the omnipotent and sovereign God of the universe to fit into our little boxes.  So then the question at hand is this:  Where can one encounter the glory of God?  While I propose that I know much of anything, I would like to turn our attention to perhaps a familiar passage of Scripture:

And the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.  Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."  Exodus 33:21-23

Wow!  Can you imagine?!  Like God just totally told Moses that He would allow him to see as much of Him as possible, but that He would protect him too.  Could you imagine God's huge hand covering you?  The very thought overwhelms me.  What is even more significant to me if you begin reading in verse 12 of this same chapter, Moses is actually interceding for the people of God who have sinned yet again.  Moses is pleading and reminding God that they too are His people.  As always is the case with our Faithful Father, He keeps His word and says He will do the very thing being pleaded for (vs. 17).

There is glory in intercession beloved!  Of course that is not the reason we plead our case before God.  We go to Him in the darkest of valleys and in the midst of our fiercest giants and we stand in the gap and wage war with our prayers.  We don't pray according to our state of mind or faith, or lack thereof.  But we tenaciously pray according to the character of God Almighty.  And our prayers and intercession begin to line up with His will as the Spirit intercedes for us and teaches us how to pray.  It is in these trenches that I believe God's glory is found.

Too often we want to pray a 1 minute prayer and see the results we're looking for and gaze into His eyes of fire as an added bonus.  Oh saints how we have lost the art of intercession and true communion with the Father.  No war is fought and resolved in 1 day.  Moses had already been given the 10 Commandments on the 2 stones after time with holy God on the mountain.  When he came down and saw that the people had sinned greatly and worshipped this golden calf  that came out of the fire, his fury raged and he threw the tablets to the ground, crushing them to pieces.

Perhaps just when Moses thought he was on a breakthrough, things turned for the worse.  Maybe just when you thought your prayers had been answered, things turned out to be otherwise.  Moses persisted and climbed that mountain again, and he interceded.  Not only were his prayers heard and answered, but the glory of God was made known in a very real way to Moses that day.  Moses was in the trenches of intercession yet again, but in those trenches was the mighty hand of God moving to cover, protect, save, and deliver.

There is something that shifts in the spiritual realm when we dig down deep into the trenches of intercession and plead our case before a just and sovereign God and remind Him of His promises.  It is no longer a matter of the giant at the top of the hill taunting you, or the enemy who surrounds you on every side, but a matter of God's mighty hand resting above you and doing the very things that only our omnipotent God can do!  Oh saints, there is glory in intercession.  May you climb the mountain yet again to drink deeply and wage war...