When You Feel Invisible

He sat in silence, away from the crowd. Small, tiny, almost completely unannounced. A world’s hustle and bustle around. They missed the humblest born.

The crowd moved en mass. Leaving the town from the holy event. Noise, sacrifices, children like a caravan. Yet, a boy wasn’t with them.  Instead, He was found in His Father’s house.

Today, we place modern figures in the center, encamped by praising people. Yet, didn’t the lowliest ride a donkey? Did He call to Him a crowd? When He slipped away did He beg to be found; despising the quiet connections with His Father?

Maybe you feel invisible as you read this today? The words you speak, the actions you take aren’t seen, and you fell small and insignificant. Maybe in a world of platforms and big personas, you’ve left the stage…

In a land of people’s own faces, tastes, and preferences….you’ve retreated from the crowd, feel lost, or find yourself, invisible.

A few years ago, I would have demanded to the broken; rise, stand, be seen and know your significance. But the crucial mistake I made was that we were never called to walk in our own significance.

We are called to walk solely embodied by the One who shed His blood for us.

The narrow path harbors no screens or name in harrowing lights. It doesn’t promote, rise up, or call to those we want praise and accolades from….

Instead, it lives in the shadow of the One who took our place.

And like Jesus to Calvary; we can’t separate suffering from the glory that awaits. We can’t ride in gold chariots, and make mansions out of a gospel based on the One we say we serve, giving His life away….

Will the proud even see His Kingdom come?

His way is not us at the center; our thoughts, our ideas, our ways, names or faces….

The way to the cross is through His purchase of sacrifice, love and obedience, leading to us taking up our crosses and willingly following Him.

We need not fear being invisible.

In God’s Kingdom the unseen, small and quiet, sick or broken are those most pursued by the good and perfect Physician.

The last are first, the first are last. The meek inherit the earth, the proud are cast so far from His presence.

Yet, we shift the gospel in America; want to rise to be first, seen, important. And then wonder why we miss His goodness.

We make doctrines around us, thrones to our own selfishness, and then paste on a label of Christ, though nothing of us even look like His life….

Selfless, serving, humble, meek….blessed are the poor in spirit, those who exalt no one else but the King of Kings.

Yet, you say you fear invisible? Long to be seen, important, powerful, significant…

Isn’t it His name that we are to lift up? His life and character we are to exalt above all else; this earth and all possessions?

I want to be small. I long to set myself aside and let Him rise in all power, might and strength within me, so others can see Him.

I am tired of the prideful and powerful. Those who taint the name of Jesus, by rejoicing and promoting and exalting their own brand or symbol.

• Where are the quiet and humble, meek and unseen? Oh God, where are the people who proclaim your name with faithful diligence and humility?
• Where are those who put themselves last and lift up your name so all men can be drawn to you, simply you alone?
• Why have we stripped a gospel from it’s purity and holiness? Taken your gospel and complicated it with extra, alternative motives?
• Why have we mixed our culture of wealth and self-esteem to a gospel that calls us to be servants of a God who should be seen as worthy of gaining our sole adoration?

And when performances end and the stage curtain is drawn, who will they applaud if we live lives to make a name for ourselves?

Will you God, be high and lifted up? Or will we fight for the applause, make ourselves great, push for the entourage to follow us instead?

And if you feel invisible today, friend? Don’t fear. That is the place and people God uses, has chosen to use throughout scripture. 

The unseen He calls home; the broken know the fullness of His grace and mercy.

Let’s fight to remain unseen, embrace a life of invisible. Fight to keep the place where we become progressively less and He becomes increasingly more….

Let’s keep Him at the center, our sole and only affection, the one our eyes are constantly fixed upon.

Personal glory rots a gospel that offers an infant, unseen in a manger and the God-man walking towards a cross that others scoffed and rejected.

A risen Christ knows our names and makes a place for us. Isn’t that enough? Those invisible in this world, will find their place standing face-to-face with God….

For all eternity.

Isn’t that enough?