When was the last time you glowed?

That question was posed to me by my mentor as we met a few weeks ago. Well, to be fully accurate, he was telling me about how he posed the question to someone else, but that’s really not the point.

The question draws back to the story of Moses and the Israelites in the desert. In those days, Moses would go off to the mountain to meet with God, in a manner that I don’t know to have been duplicated anywhere else in Scripture. When he returned to the camp, God’s glory reflected off him to such a degree that we’re told he quite literally glowed, to the point where he had to wear a veil, because the people became afraid of him.

The implication of the question is clear – the presence of God is transformational. It makes a difference – one that people can see. So when was the last time you, or when was the last time I, were so impacted by experiencing God’s presence that people noticed?

Since achieving an actual physical glow seems to be reserved for a very select few (Moses is the only one in Scripture I can think off the top of my head), perhaps we might do well to look at a Biblical example that has more practical application – something we could realistically expect to happen. Fast forward a few thousand years from Moses to the earliest days of the church. Peter and John were called before the Sanhedrin and required to defend themselves for, of all things, performing a miraculous healing. After they had spoken, we’re told of the Sanhedrin’s reaction: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Peter and John’s faces might not have literally been lit up like Moses’, but it’s clear – they glowed. There was something about them in that place was so evidently different, so beyond what would have been expected from a couple of former fisherman, that even their accusers took note of the effect Jesus’ presence had had on them.

You know what I’m talking about here, because I’m sure you’ve seen it before. New believers glow – especially those who have come to know Christ out tragic or ugly circumstances. That initial influence of the presence of God in someone’s life makes such a profound difference, someone would have to be blind not to see it, even if they couldn’t necessarily figure out what the change was at a glance. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been jealous of that “new believer glow” at times, and of the genuine passion and enthusiasm that typically marks it.

Unfortunately, however, that glow often fades over time. It may happen more quickly for some then others, but it happens. We settle into every day life, to our jobs, our routines. We settle into a church culture that, at least to a large extent, focuses more on how much we know about God than on how well we know Him, and that is built more around doing God-centered things than on actually experiencing relationship with Him. And it some ways, that’s only natural – those things are much easier to get our human minds around.

Being natural, however, does not make something correct. The idea that the “glow” is primarily only a new believer thing is a lie that I’m sure our enemy loves when we buy into. The truth is this: It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been following Christ, what state your life is in, what your bumps and bruises are, or how many of them there: the presence of Christ is every bit as transformational for you now as it’s ever been.

I’m becoming convinced that everything I really needed to know about following Christ I learned from a Steven Curtis Chapman song, and just missed the bigger picture on until recently, because every time I have one of these big realizations, it’s not too long before a lyric that I haven’t heard in months and even years starts running through my head. In this case, a few days ago, the words from a verse of a song called “Live Out Loud” found their way into my inner iPod:
“And if we have been filled with livinghope, we're gonna overflow And if God's love is burning in ourhearts, we're gonna glow There's just no way to keep it in “

I’ve probably heard/sung along with those words literally hundreds of times in my life, and until earlier this week, one of two things always happened. The first, which probably was what happened most, was to just like the catchy lyric and beat and not give it much thought. The rest of the time, I put some thought into it, recognized the truth of the lyric, and focused on what I should be doing to “overflow” and “glow”.

The fact of the matter is that I was focusing on treating the symptoms rather than on curing the disease, as it were. I’m guessing SCC wasn’t consciously focused on the logical constructs of his lyric (then again, how would I know?), but the reality is that these are causes and effects. If God’s love is burning in my heart, then I WILL glow. So, the solution to the absence of a glow is not trying to force a glow, but to press in to God, seek His face and His presence, and make sure that His love is, in fact, burning in my heart – allowing that glow to natural shine from within me. There’s nothing wrong with treating symptoms – in fact, sometimes without treating the symptoms, you’ll never have a chance to cure the disease. The problem is when treating the symptoms gets in the way of curing the disease, or even worse, when we start to believe treating the symptoms IS curing the disease.

I’ve become very aware lately of the extent to which I settle for a saving knowledge of Christ rather than a transformational relationship with Him. It’s not that the former is a bad thing, it’s just that the latter is so much better – so much more. That’s really how I look at much of the Christian life – as a choice between good, better, and best, as opposed to simple right and wrong - though trust me, there are plenty of those choices out there too.

I refuse to believe that the glow that Moses, Peter, John, and others experienced is reserved only for a chosen few. Finding that glow, I believe is a choice. It's not, however, a choice to put on a forced glow, one which, by the way, most everyone can see through. Instead, it’s a choice to make seeking and experiencing the presence of God in my life my first priority. Am I always successful? Probably not – but that’s not a reason not to seek after a God who makes it very clear that if we seek after Him, we will find Him. Seeking after the presence of God in my life is a daily choice – and one that can’t just be an act of simple discipline, but instead has to be driven by an inner understand and belief that this is what I need. It’s about saying to God “Here I am. What do you have for me today?”

I can think of nothing else I’d rather have said about me when I’m done on this earth than that I was just an ordinary person, but you could tell I had been with Jesus. So simple, so profound, so powerful. It is the cry of my heart to glow – to allow the presence of Christ to so fundamentally transform my life, that without even thinking about it, I radiate His glory to those around me.