The Glory of a Blank Screen
I was coming to the end of one of those days, a day that didn’t seem to be worth much. I planned to spend many hours with the Lord. How many pages of my journal would I fill, one, two, three, or more? A day filled with new insights would be a good day, and if I could write something to share with people, all the better.
When evening came, I sat staring at a blank screen. I didn’t write a word. Often our self-esteem comes from what we accomplish. When we are productive, we think our days count. They are worth something. Yet, when we cannot make our days important, we don’t feel good about ourselves. I labeled my day a waste and looked at myself with contempt.
No one wants to be a failure at the things that matter. To some of us, our relationships are more important than anything. If they are good, life is good. We want our days to be filled with people we love, but if our only company in the evenings is our TV, we can label ourselves a nobody. An empty house becomes an empty heart.
We also count our money. A meager bank balance makes it hard to feel positive about life and our future. As I write this, the stock market is fluctuating wildly, so people’s emotions are swinging back and forth. One day they are euphoric and optimistic; the next day gloom and panic take over, and the TV experts serve as cheerleaders and prophets to make the ride even wilder.
What counts is not just what we have but what we do. We assume this matters most to God. Our good works please the Lord. The bad things make our lives a waste, and the mundane has no meaning. Some of us cannot separate our deeds from our worth. You may know someone who is driven to be good. They excel in charitable deeds, ministry, and everything we church folks admire. We sometimes call them super-spiritual, or we say they have a strong conscience. Outwardly this looks wonderful, but inwardly these people are often in search of their own worth. They are walking down a road that will never take them home. I have been down that road myself.
What counts to you? We are all scorekeepers, measuring our lives by the things we believe are important. We think God is the greatest Accountant of all. He gives us so many days, then watches what we do with them. When we die, seeing God face to face is a reckoning that will result in either honor or shame. Even though we talk about grace, when we meet God face to face that will not be the matter at hand but the worth of our days.
This is the common view of God and life. If you have read my articles enough, you know I will challenge this paradigm. Is the Lord really the great scorekeeper in the sky, or is He something far more magnificent? Is our measure of life’s meaning the same one God has, or has He given us something far more glorious?
When we consider our lives, we usually look at what we have and what we do. Having encompasses money, possessions, relationships, health, and a myriad of other things. If we determine we don’t have enough, we experience depression, self-loathing, fear, or other negative feelings. What we do or don’t do is tied to honor and shame. If we consider ourselves a good person and others agree, we experience honor. What we and those around us think about our deeds can also bring shame. This is how the ego looks at life. (1) It is a roller coaster ride that never ends. At times we are up; other times we are down. Sometimes we pat ourselves on the back, and sometimes we kick ourselves.
We assume that God has the same mind, and we look to Him to help us with doing and having. How often do we ask the Lord to help us do something or stop doing something? How often do we pray God will give us something or keep us from loss? Our prayers reveal the nature of our relationship with the Lord.
When we think of God’s will in our lives, we use the ego’s framework. He is calling us to a task or working to bless us. We say trials improve our lives. When God sends trouble, it is to strengthen us. When the Lord takes away good things, it is only so He can give us something better. He has a grand future for us if we follow Him. That is where He is going, and we better go along with Him!
The road to doing and having has been around for an exceedingly long time. I would argue that it is the direction Adam and Eve chose. It looks like a good path, a delight to the eyes. It promises to give us rest. Someday we will get there! But we never do. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He invited those who were tired of the old way to a new one, one that would finally give them peace. It can take years, even decades to become weary of doing and having to have, but when you reach such a place, you are blessed. You are on the verge of something extraordinary. The Lord has brought you to futility’s end. From here He reveals His infinite glory, and we realize it defines us and every moment of our lives.
““Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.” (Ephesians 5:14)”
What is God doing in your life? That’s an enormous question, and it is vital we seek to know the answer. We could focus on how God changes our behavior, how He uses us, or blesses us. These are all frameworks from which we can describe our relationship with God. Yet, in Paul’s writings, we see another perspective. The Lord is working to wake us up!
When we sleep, we are not conscious of the real world. We might say we live in a dream. As morning comes, the light breaks, darkness fades, and we become conscious. If someone has a poor grasp of reality, we say, “You are dreaming!” When we awaken, the dream fades, and reality dawns. Paul speaks of our relationship with the Lord using this imagery. The Christian life is an unfolding revelation of Christ.
An awakening is a transformation, but its catalyst is not what we do but what God reveals. God exposes the righteousness of the ego as filthy rags and its lusts as vanity. This is something we cannot recognize without God’s help. The ego is a master at masquerading as the Spirit, and only the Lord can unmask its deception. Yet, at the same time, He shows us the glory of Christ, and we become something new.
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Romans 8:20)”
God trapped the old creation (the flesh) in futility. An awakening begins when God exposes the vanity of the ego. Futility is an effort which accomplishes nothing. Denis Healey, a British politician once said, “Healey’s First Law of Holes: When in one, stop digging.” The problem with the ego is it can’t stop digging. It by nature spends its days trying to dig its way out of the hole God put it in.
We see a picture of humanity’s vanity in the old covenant temple. A veil shrouded the Holiest of Holies. Beyond the veil was the glory of God, the Shekinah. For centuries God’s people gave countless sacrifices and offerings, but the veil remained. Josephus, the first-century historian, wrote of the veil at the entrance to the Holiest of Holies. It was seventy-five feet tall and about four inches thick. Every inch of it said God was unreachable and unknowable. Futility stared them in the face for generations, but they could not comprehend it.
We too taste of futility, but sometimes we are as blind to it as they were. We go to church countless times, sing countless hymns, give countless offerings, listen to countless sermons, but the glory remains elusive. Our walk with God is like a roller coaster ride filled with highs and lows as we think we move closer or farther from God. We trust the roller coaster is going somewhere, but maybe it is just a roller coaster! For some hope dies and we accept the God behind the veil, unknowable and separate. Others keep trying to achieve the impossible, striving to make heaven come down.
Only Jesus, our High Priest, could accomplish the impossible. He entered the heavenly realm for us. It only through finding identity in Him and no longer in self that we become something new. The Spirit dwells in the Holy Place. The ego is left outside forever trying to get in.
“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:17-24)”
The new testament speaks of the vanity of the gentiles. It is the false hope of lust, the futility of having to have. This looks like wisdom to the ego. It makes perfect sense. “The way I become full is by getting what I want. Letting go of ‘what’s in it for me?’ is foolish!” We see a perfect illustration of the ego’s nature in the story of the rich young ruler. He could not give up the finite for the infinite. Jesus’s disciples were stunned that this man with all his good and all his possessions could not enter the Kingdom of God. The lesson of the story is the ego cannot leave its home in doing and having. It is only through the possibility of God we gain the Kingdom.
The call to let go of finite gain is the one the ego protests most. The mind of the ego opposes the mind of Christ. It will always resist God, not just in its evil but also in its good. It continually chooses the glory of the finite over the glory of the infinite. Self-preservation and gain are its essence. It will create a god in its own image who will give it what it wants… at a price. This image preserves and even enhances the glory of self.
The ego only comprehends finite glory. We honor the winners and those who have, never the losers or those who have not. Could you imagine a team lifting the fellow who lost the game on their shoulders and carrying him off the field? How about giving the poorest and least esteemed the seat of honor? This looks like foolishness. (Actually, it would be a monumental statement of faith. To make the last first is an acknowledgement of transcendent glory.) The ego mistakes the glory of finite gain for the glory of God. Yet, like the glory of our efforts to reach God, this glory always fades. Having to have has no end. The path of getting what we want leads nowhere.
The flesh assumes God will give it what it wants to make it happy. In Jesus’s day the people assumed the Messiah would get rid of what they didn’t want (the Romans) and bring back the finite blessings of the old covenant. The serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve with this same lie. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a delight to the eyes, and it aroused the ego’s great question: “What’s in it for me?” To walk this way promised life but delivered death. Jesus refused this mindset. When the Devil tempted Jesus, he took him to a high place and showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth. They looked good, even glorious. Jesus refused that glory for the glory of the Father. (Matthew 4:1-11)
If the nature of the old creation was vanity, the nature of the new creation is rest. The ego strives; the Spirit rests. The flesh wants to know what it needs to do to have God. Religion is the business of giving people vain answers. Religion, though it looks good on the outside, can be a fit home for the ego, a place where it thrives.
The ego mistakes its own glory for the glory of God. It looks good! Just before His death, the Lord stood with his disciples in the temple.
“Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, “Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!”
And Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:1–2)”
Jesus’s followers stood marveling at the temple’s splendor. “Isn’t this glorious?” Yet, Herod’s temple provided a picture of the egos’ glory, futile and fading. It was a glory Christ came to tear down. It was the end of the age of the possibility of man and the beginning of the age of the possibility of God. The glory of the old had no glory compared to what God was unveiling. (2 Corinthians 3:7-18)
God’s glory is. This is a remarkably simple statement, but it is hard for us to comprehend. The ego wants to make God’s glory to depend on us. We put our confidence in what we do to make it so. We are also certain we can make it not so. This is vanity. It is trying to make God be God.
When the Lord told His name to Moses, He said, “I AM WHO I AM.” His name not only defines who He is but also who we are. It is the essence of everything. In Christ, God was revealing the glory of God’s name. It is a glory that is transcendent, not determined by finite deeds or circumstances. It is so. Through Christ, God invites us to take part in His transcendent glory, one that far exceeds any finite glory. It is a glory that not only defines us but all of life. There is no escaping it, though the ego may try. There is no creating it, though the ego may try that, too. It is, was, and is to come. This is the glory that was behind the veil, a glory that is now our home.
“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” (Luke 9:23–25)”
Many years ago, I believe the Lord spoke a mystery to my heart. He showed me His desire for people who are concerned for His glory. I did not understand what He meant, but this simple statement stuck with me for decades. I wanted to be one of those people, but how? I didn’t realize it meant choosing loss that God might gain.
There is a glory in gaining the whole world. Yet, its pursuit gives no rest for the soul. It baffles the ego, but if we spend our lives pursuing things we can see with our eyes, we are chasing a mirage. It is only when we forgo such glory for the unseen glory of God that we find peace.
To the flesh, losing the glory of the finite is like dying. It dreads having nothing to gain. If we can’t see anything with our eyes, there is nothing there. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” (John 11:25). This is not just about the afterlife! To believe in Christ is to let go of the finite measure of life for the infinite. It is to die to all the ego’s measures of self and of life that we might know eternal life. The Spirit dies every day, something that looks foolish to the ego.
Jesus modeled the way of the Spirit when He went willingly to the cross. He chose loss. Those who were expecting the finite glory of the old covenant could not comprehend it. Through the unimaginable loss of the cross, He gained all glory not only for Himself but for us. We walk the same path with the One who has walked it before us.
It is the ego’s nature to deny God. It is incapable of doing anything else. For example, when the flesh cannot see finite glory, it curses God. “How dare you take away my future and my hope!” Yet, the Spirit sees the glory that is, even when there is no finite glory to be seen. Its response to loss is worship. This is not just “thanking God, anyway.” It is recognizing transcendent glory which the eyes cannot see.
We have all had those conversations with God, the ones where we tell Him He is doing everything wrong. They come when no finite glory is visible. We protest and beg Him to fix things! In such times, I don’t think the Lord turns His back on us. He knows wrestling with Him is part of our journey. Yet, if we have done this enough, we learn with God we win when we lose.
In the times I protest, God takes me up to a high place, not a literal place, but a place of the heart. It is not like the place the Devil took Jesus. That place was for seeing the glory of the finite. God’s high place is to reveal the glory of the infinite. The Lord takes me there, and I see. All my protesting melts away and becomes worship, and in worship the soul finds rest.
God looks for people who are concerned for His glory. Would you ask to be one such as this? When we ask for God’s glory, we rarely know what we are asking. We are giving the Lord permission to strip away all the ego’s glory that that we might behold His glory. The Lord leads us to the end of the finite glories of doing and having to the glory beyond the veil. It is a work that confounds the flesh, but the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of men. (1 Corinthians 1:25)
“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18–24)”
At the end of my meaningless day, I sat staring at my blank screen, and then I saw it… glory! In an instant God exposed the futility of the flesh and revealed the glory of the Spirit. I was tempted to think the Devil was fighting me all day and winning. Distraction after distraction flooded my day. Exciting and important things presented themselves. I couldn’t overcome them. I needed to do better, I thought, but I seemed powerless. Yet, was the Devil at work or God? When the Lord thwarts the ego, the ego calls God the Devil!
The ego always reckons the answer is to do better and doing better leads to gain. Yet, this is not the road to Zion. It was the way of Sinai, a way that was passing away. That old mountain which represented the old covenant was being shaken. Its futility was being exposed.
Are we surprised when God does the same thing in our lives? He exposes the flesh. God does not allow it to make it to Zion. It cannot exist there, let alone comprehend it. It is too wrapped up in the paradigm of doing and having.
God was taking me to Zion that day, and I didn’t know it. God’s ways confound the ego. How can loss lead to gain? How can getting nothing done lead to seeing I have everything? Such things make no sense to the ego. Yet, they make perfect sense to God, and they are part of His consuming love for us! He shakes the road that leads to Sinai, the road of the flesh, and brings it to futility. Our efforts to reach God are meant to fail! Yet, the ego is surprised when they do. Likewise, the ego’s efforts to find life in the finite are also a never-ending road that never reaches home.
Repentance in the day of Hebrews was turning from Sinai to Zion, and this change came under great distress. It often takes great pressure to bring us to a place of revelation. Pressure and revelation go together. If God has taken the glory of doing and having from your life, don’t make your focus getting them back! Look for the glory that is. God waits for us in the places where there is no glory for the eyes to behold. For it is there we can best comprehend grace.
God shows up in places that perplex the ego, like Jesus dining with the tax collectors or talking to a Samaritan woman. We don’t expect Him to behave like that with us, but we should. That day God met with me in a place I never expected Him…a place where I had no boast. In fact, I believe He was leading me there all day long. We might protest, but when we ask God for more of Him, weakness and failure come a knocking! He removes the robes of self-glory that we might wear His glory.
The ego wants to count. It wants to cause God’s presence, and it will also gladly take the credit for keeping Him away. When God shows up in our weakness, it stuns us. It causes our paradigm to crumble and our reality to change. We figure our inabilities and failures don’t have meaning. They, in fact, drive us to meaning. If you conclude you would be better off without them, think again. They are there to help you see the glory of what is. Thank God for blank screens!
What is your blank screen? You might turn your face from it in shame. I am asking you to look again. You might presume it is the place God abandons you, but it is the place He waits for you. Your ego sees only disfavor in such places. The Spirit sees only favor, the hand of God saving our lives, working all things to conform us to His image. The blank screen is where the glory of the ego is dim, but the glory of God shines brightly. It is here when we have none of the world’s measures of finite identity that the Lord gives us an infinite measure of identity… Himself.
The new creation participates in Christ. Would it stun you to learn this is the reason God created you? Sounds like something Love would do. God made us to give Himself to us. May God open the eyes of our hearts, for we are always face to face with the Lord. At every blank screen He whispers to our hearts, “I AM!”
(1) In this article I define the ego as basically the same thing as the flesh. For more information, click here.
