Day 68 – Thankful that God is my glory

“But You, O Lord, are a shield about me,
My glory, and the One who lifts my head.” Psalm 3:3 NASB

The Lord has given me so many things for which to be thankful these last couple of months, but when it comes down to it, He is my biggest reason to be thankful!

I have loved this verse for a long time for the image of One who is so great, also being so gentle and encouraging!

But today I’m focusing on Him as my glory.

One of the Hebrew meanings for this word is “heavy”, so some people believe it refers to the weight of the shield. And I can kind of see that. God as my Shield is certainly a shield that is too heavy for me to carry around to defend myself with! Rather, He surrounds me with His protective presence! He holds onto me, whether I cognitively or actively am grabbing on to Him or not!

And some translations translate “glory” as “victory”, which is also a great picture if we see it as Him fighting for us in the battles from which He is shielding us.

But another meaning for glory can be “praise be to the Lord”, and one of the English dictionary definitions for glory is “very great praise”.

So it could be read that Jehovah is my very great praise!

What that means to me is that any glory that I appear to merit belongs to Him, for not only does He give me victory, but He also gives me the strength, the ability, the talent, and the very breath of life!

I would not be alive or able to function without Him! Were it not for His being my Shield of protection, I might not have survived this long to do that which is worthy of praise!