Glorifying God

THAT, to me, is the best condition, the best moment we can

have in this life. To be able to glorify God presumes that we have

been able to identify ourselves with God in his will and in his ways

as revealed fully in Christ, the Son who became man to save us,

offering us the way of how to be with God in spite of our limitations,

mistakes and sins. It is in this condition that we can attain our

supreme joy and our total fulfilment.

            It corresponds to what St. Paul once said, “Whether you

eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” (1

Cor 10,31) And the ultimate foundation of that assertion is because

the purpose of our creation is none other than to give glory to God.

In fact, the ultimate purpose of the whole of creation is to give

glory to God, its creator. There is no other reason why God chose to

create instead of just being by himself.

            It is not an expression of selfishness on the part of God

that he be given glory. He does not need that. He is the fullness of

being already. But by giving glory to God, we make ourselves, and the

rest of creation, to participate in God’s glory. That’s when we

achieve the best and ultimate dignity we can ever have.

            We need to be most conscious of this duty and do all we

can to carry it out in every act we make, whether it is physical,

mental or spiritual, etc. The big problem we have today is that

instead of giving glory to God, we tend to give glory to ourselves,

thinking that that is where we will find our joy and fulfillment.

            That’s when we fall into vainglory that can come to us in

many and very subtle ways. It can only be a false glorification of

ourselves and a very deceptive one that can give us some degree of joy

and pleasure but is actually setting us for a bigger and graver fall.

            We have to be wary of this danger. Instead, we have to see

to it that we are conscious in truly giving glory to God in all that

we do and in any situation that we may find ourselves in, whether such

situation is happy or sad, good or bad in human terms.

            In this regard, we have to closely follow the example of

Christ, “the way, the truth and the life” for us, who did nothing

other than to give glory to the Father by doing the Father’s will all

the time.

            It is with Christ that we can manage to give glory to God

in everything that we do and in any situation we may find ourselves

in, especially in those unavoidable difficult situations where we are

made to suffer in this life.

            Yes, every situation can and should be an occasion to give

glory to God. As long as we follow the example of Christ, and more, as

long as we identify ourselves with Christ, we can manage to give glory

to God even in our worst predicament.

            The awareness of this duty and the development of the

relevant attitudes and skills should be spread more widely, especially

to the young ones who are dangerously exposed to all sorts of new

things that tend to desensitize them from their duty toward God. There

seems to be some kind of systematic secularization of world culture

today that needs to be corrected and reversed.

            Let us hope that we can have credible teachers, endorsers

and models who can make this duty attractive, appreciated and

eventually lived by many if not all of us. To repeat, it is when we

manage to glorify God that we can have our best condition in life, our

best moment of true joy in this life.