More Desolation and Glory

"...for upon all the glory shall be a defense." Isaiah 4:5b

The glory that comes after desolation is marked by the presence of God. The restoration of Jerusalem to glory is not merely superficial: it is not just the restoration of buildings and lands. It is the restoration of a people back to their God.
The glory of Jerusalem is the presence of God, and the glory brought about by the desolation is the return of that presence: "The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night..." (Isaiah 4:5a). Any Jew (and any Christian with a Sunday School education) would recognize those two images as the presence of God (hint: remember the Exodus?). "And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert [i.e., covering] from storm and from rain." (Isaiah 4:6). The tabernacle was the dwelling place of God, and it will return after (or perhaps, because of) the desolation. God's presence is the glory (and therefore the purpose of the desolation).
The glory that follows desolation is not marked by power, wealth, health, recognition, or sound sleep. Those things may (or may not) come with the glory, but they do not mark it, i.e., they are not its most important and predominant feature. What marks the glory that comes from desolation is the presence of God, and subsequently closer communion with Him. That single feature is the point of desolation and glory, nothing else.
We cheat ourselves if we submit to the desolation for the sake of something and not Someone. Moses, in the wilderness (i.e., in the desolation), asked God to show him "thy way" for one purpose only: "that I may know thee..." (Exodus 33:13). Paul counted all things as loss so "that I may know Him..." (Philippians 3:10). The point of Job's sufferings was not so that his "latter end" would be more blessed than his beginning, but so he could say, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee" (Job 42:5). The desolation and the glory are to draw us closer and closer to God, nothing more and nothing less.