When Hannah and I were in D.C. last week, I was able to visit the the Capitol for the first time. It was a wonderful experience, but neither the greatness of our nation nor architectural prowess left me in the most awe.

Our tour guide ushered us into an opulent room with a dome-shaped, gorgeously ornate ceiling. With our necks arched back to gawk, he rattled off a brilliant-sounding Latin phrase that someone important had given to describe it-- "the glorification of Washington," he translated. We stepped into the adjacent hall and the tour went on, but the words jammed themselves in my brain.

Glorify. "To extol; to honor, praise or admire." With that definition, political leaders aren't the only ones we bestow with pedestals of glory. Church fathers, missionaries, pastors, authors, musicians, doctors, athletes, actors, boyfriends, girlfriends-- no title is exempt. This is what we do. Our natural propensity is to exalt.

But something struck me, as I read the brief encapsulations beneath the Capitol's many statues. Though the legacy of our founding fathers was notable-- their sheer finiteness still wins the day.

George Washington, hero though he was, is dead as an unknown beggar. For all Benjamin Franklin's genius, he's now little more than a face on a $100 bill. Passing one historical figure after another, I was reminded of their earthly absence. Above everything else, the colossal smallness of human beings bowled me over in that tour.

When fancy domes and statues mark the highest earthly reverence that dead men can attain--how significant is "Washington's glorification", really? How is it even remotely logical to desire the spotlight for the spotlight's own sake, when even the highest fame and fanfare mean less than nothing after death?

Even if such accolades could be appreciated by the dead, they're attainable by only a sliver of the population. My name isn't ever going to be in a history book. I'll never join the ranks of marble greats in DC. A few generations after my death, no one at all is going to remember that a girl named Lindsey Wagstaffe ever lived and breathed.

Truth has a way of resizing us.

And this makes me think. If the highest forms of human glory are nothing, and if each of us will slip out of remembrance before long-- what are the day-in, day-out ramifications for normal people like you and I? What-- or who-- is left to exalt?

Only One.

The face of the past looks different, viewed through these lens. All those men who've "changed the course of history", as we're told in books? Yes, they were given roles to play, and many were used of God to accomplish great things-- but "changing history" seems a mite overstated. Even the greatest leaders fall under the sovereign will of God; "the king's heart is like a watercourse in the hand of God-- He directs it wherever He pleases." All their greatest accomplishments, ultimately, must be attributed to the One who supplied them breath, ideas, and the will to carry them out.

The face of the present changes too. What of those pastors, authors, and missionaries who rally us to action? Every gift they've been given came from the Father. Any holiness in their lives-- any truth proceeding from their mouths-- is all His workmanship. And the scientists and artists who amaze us with their ingenuity? Every ounce of their intellect came from the God who is all-wise. As John Piper put it in The Pleasures of God, "to treat any subject without reference to God's glory is not scholarship, but insurrection."

Our pride is forced to wilt when God is gazed upon. Placing fellow human beings on pedestals becomes unthinkable-- how can we, while cognizant that it is God who's acting through them? More personally still: if I truly believe that God is the one who enables men to serve Him, can I ever take credit when something I do comes off well?

Only God deserves to be glorified for every good, praiseworthy act ever accomplished. We will return to dust, but He will remain forever: He alone, whose Name is above all others.