“Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted. He demands our worship, our obedience, our prostration. Do we suppose that they can do Him any good, or fear, like the chorus in Milton, that human irreverence can bring about ‘His glory’s diminution’? A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God— though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain. Yet the call is not only to prostration and awe; it is to a reflection of the Divine life, a creaturely participation in the Divine attributes which is far beyond our present desires. We are bidden to ‘put on Christ’, to become like God. That is, whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want. Once more, we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment, by too much love, not too little “C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).

I love the idea that I can’t diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him any more than a crazy person can blot out the sun by writing the word ‘darkness’ on his walls. My obedience adds nothing to the glory of God. My disobedience takes nothing away from it.

When I obey, I find that God’s words are true and that God is faithful. When I say yes to whatever God asks, I find that what He wants for me is far better than anything I could ever hope for or dream of on my own. When I finally let go of the fear that God doesn’t have my best interests at heart, I figure out that it was my vision for my life that was too small, not God’s.

As I read once, God never gives up the glory of being the giver. Whatever I think I am giving up or sacrificing for God ends up gaining me far more in return. Even the acceptable offerings I make to God come only from God.