Make Me Invisible

Anonymous. Nameless. Unidentified. Unknown.

My fleshly arrogance shudders at the words. My desire for appreciation, affirmation, applause, approval, and admiration screams inside of me at the mere though of anonymity.  But the still small voice of the Holy Spirit whispers words of conviction to the deepest part of my soul that harbors my pride and my falsly perceived self-importance.

And it tells me to let it go.

In a world that tells us that our value is based on the accolades assigned to us by others, God’s Word clearly tells us that our worth is found solely in our identity as a child of our Heavenly Father. It clearly says that apart from the Creator, His creations are nothing. It clearly preaches that our lives are best spent taking the focus, attention, and glory off of ourselves and reassigning it to the only One who is truly worthy of it all.

I was warned by a wise fellow missionary before my trip home about guarding against pride and arrogance. “Prepare yourself,” she told me. “Someone is going to call you a ‘hero’ when you get there and you’re going to need to know to respond. People will think of you as the ‘super Christian’ and it’s your job as a missionary to redirect the praise.”  It only took 2 days for me to face it. I am so thankful that the Lord was preparing my heart before the comment came my way. “Kristin, we’re so proud of you. You’re really a hero to my family.” And that’s the first time I prayed for the Lord to make me invisible.

As I already said, my natural desire is for recognition and praise. However, since my return to Monte Plata, the Lord has been convicting me of my pride and leading me to live a more God-glorifying, self-concealing life. Maybe a better way to say it is that I desire to be so deeply hidden in the Father’s love and overshadowed by His glory that when others look at me, they see only Christ because I am so profoundly covered by Him. When I’m raking leaves and picking up trash at the residential facility, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I’m teaching math to fifth graders, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I’m playing piano and singing with our girls, “Lord, make me invisible.” When I find myself thinking “If only the people at home could see me now,” I reject that fleshly desire and run as fast as I can back to “Lord, make me invisible.” It is a day-by-day, sometimes moment-by-moment fight. But as an anonymous writer said in his book, “ As we learn to embrace our humble King, we might just come to appreciate our true and right place in this world: We are nothing. He is everything.” And one of the many wonderful things about my humble King is that He chooses to share His joy with me – for when He is most glorified, most honored, most exalted, and most admired, I am truly most joyful.

Take a look at this extra blog page for more of my favorite quotes from the book that inspired this blog post. (Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything)

“Are you ready to be less than a drop in the bucket? To be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are all used up and exhausted – not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister?”

 – Oswald Chambers