Hidden Glory

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.”
R. S. Thomas

There is a deep and relentless ache within the human soul—a yearning that propels men to etch their names into stone, to chase the ever-fading applause, to strain toward the assurance that they matter. This is no mere cultural impulse but an ancient cry, echoing from Babel to the latest viral post. We are creatures who long to be seen, known, and remembered. And yet, here is the paradox: the more fiercely we grasp for significance through self-exaltation, the more elusive it becomes. It is a hunger placed within us by design, not as a cruel joke but as an invitation—a longing that finds its resolution not in making a name but in surrendering to the Name above all names. To be human is to bear the imago Dei (Genesis 1:27), to be created in His image for His glory. But when that longing is severed from its true source, it distorts into idolatry, leaving us endlessly unsatisfied, exhausted from striving, and blind to the paradox that in losing ourselves, we are truly found (Matthew 16:25).

The Tower and the Cross
Genesis 11 gives us the first great monument to human ambition divorced from God: the Tower of Babel. “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves...” (Genesis 11:4, ESV). The intention is unmistakable—not worship, but self- definition. Not dependence, but defiance. Their pursuit of significance ended not in triumph but in dispersion and confusion, a monument to futility rather than success. Contrast this with Philippians 2, where Paul reveals the ultimate counterpoint to Babel: Christ, “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself...” (Philippians 2:6-7, ESV). Babel was man reaching up; the Cross was God reaching down. One grasped for greatness and was scattered; the other embraced obscurity and was exalted above every name (Philippians 2:9-11). Two paths: one of self-made significance that ends in collapse, and another of surrender that leads to eternal glory. What is remarkable is how this Babel impulse resurfaces in our own time, albeit in subtler ways. Today, towers are not merely structures of brick and mortar but digital platforms, curated identities, and the relentless pursuit of relevance. Our culture worships visibility. The more eyes upon us, the more validated we feel. Yet, the irony is clear—those most obsessed with securing a name for themselves are often the most haunted by their own insignificance. The monument of self ultimately crumbles under the weight of its own inadequacy.

The Insatiable Drive for Recognition
This hunger for significance manifests in endless ways. Some chase career success, others seek validation in influence, relationships, even ministry itself. The subtle danger is always the same: the temptation to make a name rather than magnify The Name. Ecclesiastes diagnoses this restlessness with precision: “He has put eternity into man’s heart...” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV). We are imprinted with eternity, yet in a fallen world, that imprint often drives us to chase significance where it can never be found. Fame fades, power corrupts, accomplishments erode, and even the grandest names are swallowed by time. If our worth is tied to recognition, what happens when the world moves on? What then? The biblical answer is not to deny our need for significance but to redefine where it is found.

From Seen to Hidden
John the Baptist understood this paradox. When his disciples fretted that Jesus’ rising ministry was eclipsing his own, he answered with words that cut against every impulse of self-importance: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30, ESV). This was not resignation, but liberation. The men and women whom God uses most powerfully are often first hidden—Moses in the wilderness, David in the pasture, Joseph in the prison, Ruth in the fields, Esther and Daniel both in exile in Babylon. God delights in shaping His people away from the eyes of the crowd. And yet, this ‘hiddenness’ is what we fear most. To be unseen feels like failure. But what if these quiet places are the very soil where true significance is formed? If recognition is fleeting and self-made significance is a mirage, where then is true worth found? The world says visibility equals value. Scripture dismantles this entirely. The God who does His deepest work in hidden places, Jesus who chose obscurity over grandeur, the Kingdom where the first are last and the last are first—this is the upside-down nature of real significance. Worth is not achieved, but bestowed. Adam was given dominion in Eden, his significance a gift, not an accomplishment. The Fall corrupted this, twisting purpose into striving. Jesus confronted this when He asked, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36, ESV). To chase significance apart from God is to chase shadows that vanish when grasped.

Obscurity: The Furnace of God’s Purpose
Throughout Scripture, God forms His servants in secret before revealing them. Moses, David, Joseph, even Jesus—thirty hidden years before three in ministry. Why? Because significance is not in being seen, but in being faithful. Jesus said, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6, ESV). Yet in an age obsessed with platforms, we resist this truth. If the unseen seasons are preparation, what does it say about our reluctance to embrace them? Are we so conditioned to equate visibility with value that we miss the very means by which God refines and prepares us for something far greater? Perhaps obscurity is not a punishment but a gift, the chiseling away of all that distracts from the true work God is doing in us. But heaven records what the world overlooks—the mother raising children in quiet faithfulness, the believer persevering in prayer unseen, the person laboring where no one notices. These are the stories that will last when all else fades. The world demands self-promotion; Christ calls us to self-denial. “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39, ESV). Paul, once a man of prominence, came to count all as loss “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ” (Philippians 3:8, ESV). If the paradox of universal significance is that we cannot find it in ourselves, the answer must be found in receiving it from Another. The world says, “Make a name for yourself.” The Gospel says, “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels” (Revelation 3:5). The world shouts, “Be seen!” Christ whispers, “Be faithful.” True significance is not in what we build, but in Whose we are.

Dear reader, when the noise crescendos—when the people demand your attention, your output, your proof—you must resist the pull to measure your life by the world’s visibility. You were never meant to carry the burden of your own significance. You were meant to bear the weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). Not a fleeting, fabricated glory, but the kind that is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). Do not believe the lie that value must be dramatic to be real. Some of the most eternal things happen quietly: prayers whispered in the dark, faithfulness offered in obscurity, obedience with no audience but heaven. These are not lesser things. They are the holy ground where eternity presses into time. The world may clamor for urgency, but God is never in a hurry. The world may demand you prove your worth, but Christ has already declared it—on the Cross, in the tomb, through the empty grave. You are not lost in the crowd. You are not forgotten in the silence. You are not wasted in the waiting. The same God who carved galaxies into motion has written your name on His hands—that is not sentiment, it is Scripture (Isaiah 49:16). And if He has called you by name (Isaiah 43:1), then no moment of your life is insignificant, no act of surrender small, no faithful step unseen. So fix your eyes not on relevance, but on resurrection. Not on platforms, but on promise. Let the Babels fall. Let the striving cease. The question is no longer, Do I matter? but rather, Am I His? In Him, every ordinary moment is imbued with glory. Hidden. Eternal. Enough.