Glory Days
Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 iconic music album, Born in the USA, includes a song called Glory Days. In the song the artist talks about how quickly the days of glory in our lives can pass us by. The days of young strength and enrapturing beauty, the days of great physical feats, reckless actions and living with a sense of immortality, those days sprint past us like a Tesla on steroids. The fleeting days of glory in a person’s life are short lived, by design.
In one of his Psalms, King David compares the life of men to a breath and our days to a fleeting shadow (Ps 144:4). James, in his gospel, talks about life being a vapor, in one moment visible and the next gone (James 4:14) There are numerous other references in the Bible to the glory of nations and peoples “flying away”, turning into “shame” or being ruined. Human glory, like life in the flesh, appears to have a designed shelf life. It was never intended to last forever.
The inherent problem with man’s glory is its basis on a finite being. If a person is granted the power to do something worthy of acclaim, it is absolutely inevitable that time and events will wipe away the memory of that glorious act. Time passing will not remove the truth that a person did a deed worthy of accolades. But as time marches forward, without doubt, the shine on the moment will be removed, erasing the memory of the deed. In some cases, when the fancy grabs people, the act may actually be tainted to make it unworthy of praise. Glory in the flesh is doomed to become not.
But there is eternal glory. The everlasting nature of this glory is attributed to the One who possesses the glory. In fact, any true glory that has ever existed belongs to Him and is shared with man according to the Creator’s purpose. In the future forever all glory will be to the One who is truly worthy of glory. All will know that only God is glorious and worthy. All will know that no other being is worthy of glory when compared to our Glorious God.
So what glory do you seek? Man’s or the everlasting glory? Jesus sought to glorify the Father. We should follow Jesus’ lead.