The Fade

We sang the song, "His Glory Never Fades" today at church.

Buy it HERE.

The chorus goes like this:

Holy is the Lord God,
worthy of praise
His glory never fades,
His glory never fades

Mighty is our King,
with no end to his days
His glory never fades,
His glory never fades

I meditated while singing on this premise. It is true. All else fades.

Perhaps this is why we are obsessed with photographs. They stamp in time the best of us and are timeless in that regard. The substance and sentiment behind the photo fade over time however. We are zealous to capture the beautiful, the honorable, the memorable, and make it immortal, but we cannot. Everything fades.

Isaiah 40:6-8

6 A voice says, “Cry!" And I said,“What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

This may explain why we recycle our celebrities as they get older and the luster wears off, the reason why there is so much pornography and so few marriages that actually end in the death of one of the two, why we are so desperate to have that which is beautiful and preserve it, why we are prisoners of the moment and addicted to that which is best for the moment, why we love the newness and freshness of babies, and why sports fan desire another championsihp unsatisfied with last year's if this year's is thwarted. We want to capture and possess the infinite. We desire to hold that which is unchangingly good and satisfying, but we grasp for it in places, persons, and things which can never meet the heavy weights which we place on them.

The flowers of the field fall. The grass withers. Men die. Memories fail.

God never fades. His beauty does not decay. His riches do not rust. His glory is not diminished by controversy, misstep, rumor, or accusation. He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

His glory NEVER fades. He is a picture of beauty, love, justice, mercy, forgivenss, joy, and strength. He is a living picture. He is the substance behind the photo that gives it life, yet He need not be captured in inactivity to avoid decay. He ever lives as the best and grandest to which our hearts and minds could possibly aspire. Put another way: nothing we think or feel as great is greater than God.

We can never out-imagine the enormity that is God's glory. We cannot allegorize it in superlative. We cannot apply to it hyperbole. It is beyond that which we exaggerate.

He is glorious. Forever.