What is My Glory?

What is My Glory?

I wasn’t all that excited about trudging through another Isaiah chapter this morning, but I started anyway. 2 Nephi 20 was my chapter.

Honestly, much of Isaiah still feels like code to me. Sometimes I can follow the imagery, and other times I feel like I’m reading through smoke. So I just started writing notes in the margins and asking questions as I went.

One question stopped me almost immediately:

“Where will ye leave your glory?” (2 Nephi 20:3)

I had written “riches” in the margin. But the more I sat with it, the more I wondered if glory means more than wealth or possessions. What do we glory in? What do we spend our lives building?

The Lord declares His glory very plainly:
“To bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

Should that become my glory too?

Isaiah ties this question directly to the poor, the widows, and the needy. The chapter makes it sound as though people will eventually be judged not just by what they believed, but by how they treated vulnerable people along the way.

And woven through all of it is that repeated reminder that the Lord’s hand is “stretched out still.” Judgment is there in Isaiah, certainly. But somehow mercy is still there too.

Some of the imagery in this chapter is unsettling.

The axe boasting against the one holding it.
The forests consumed by fire.
The lofty trees cut down.
The proud brought low.

Isaiah seems to describe people who become so confident in their own power that they forget they were never the source of it to begin with. The axe has no power without the hand that swings it.

The references and footnotes led me again and again to one recurring problem: pride.

• Pride that comes through riches.
• Pride that ignores the needy.
• Pride that mocks sacred things.
• Pride that rejects revelation.
• Pride that slowly deserts truths once held.

And then comes the strange contrast that gave me hope:
the remnant.

Isaiah says a remnant will return. In my margins I wrote:
“The remnant of Israel is those who repent.”

Repent means to return. Return to what?
Perhaps to covenant keeping. To humility. To God Himself.

It’s comforting that Isaiah makes it sound like returning is still possible. Even after rebellion. Even after pride. Even after destruction has already begun.

Maybe that is why the Lord’s hand remains stretched out still.

By the end of the chapter, I found myself wondering whether Isaiah was only speaking about ancient nations at all. We are in the latter days, aren’t we?

Do we see pride today?
Do we see wealth replacing compassion?
Do we see sacred things mocked?
Do we trust in human strength more than God?

I still don’t pretend to fully understand Isaiah. I know I miss a lot. But this chapter left me asking a question I probably need to ask more often:

What is my glory?