She took me aside in the church office and said “Let me do this!” Her eyes sparkled and her smile was wide.
I tried to protest, but she was determined: she wanted to cover the expense of the fancy bakery bagels and cream cheese for the community-wide Easter celebration at our church. She knew that hundreds of people attend this event on Palm Sunday, and that my budget for planning it was fixed.
I was so touched by her generosity and I couldn’t wait to share this exciting news with the other church staff members at our next meeting. But just as I was about to leave, she touched me gently on the arm and said:
“Now Sarah, let’s just keep this between you and me and leave my name out of it, okay? ‘Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing,’ and all that.”
Of course. I respected her wishes and reported that a “generous donor” was helping us out with the bagels, but it was hard for me to leave her name out of it. I was so grateful to her, and I wanted everyone to know about it!
It takes real humility to choose obscurity instead of recognition. We like to feel good about ourselves—our accomplishments, our talents, our good deeds. We like feeling valued and appreciated and important.
Adele Ahlberg Calhoun calls this practice “secrecy” in her Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. She claims:
“A deed that exists for the sake of recognition is not for God; it’s for you.”
The truth of this makes me wince. If we were brutally honest with ourselves and laid all of our motivations bare, making a color-coded pie chart of them, we might find that looking good to others, or gaining prestige, or getting thanks, or feeling good about ourselves take up a much larger slice of pie than glorifying God.
I don’t think it’s sinful or morally wrong to get something out of what we give. But when that becomes the sole driving force behind our decisions, we start to exploit everything and everyone in our lives for personal gain.
As a writer, my motivations have often been driven by getting maximum exposure to my words, gaining more followers, and growing my reach in order to build my platform (all prerequisites to getting a traditional book deal in the Christian publishing industry). When that became my ultimate goal, it made no sense to keep things hidden, to practice secrecy. Instead, I wanted to rush everything I learned in the dark into the light.
Publishing a book is a good thing. There are many good and worthy goals to chase after. But when a good thing becomes our identity, when a good thing starts to take precedence over relationships, it becomes a problem… because no matter how good the thing, the thing is not God.
Calhoun advises:
“Reveal your naked self and secret motivations to Jesus. Develop your own private love relationship with God. We often plan special and intimate things for those we love, things we don’t share with others. Jesus invites us to do the same with him. We can do special and secret things for God alone—things that will delight his heart as pure, free gift.”1
Choosing the way of secrecy and embracing obscurity feels radically countercultural in our look-at-me world. Doing anything in hiddenness—whether it be writing or serving or giving—purely as a gift to God will increase our intimacy with God, which is a reward worthy of pursuit.
Something I wrote: Easter is behind us now, and I’m still wondering what it looks like to live in the light of the resurrection. One thing I’m sure of because Jesus is alive: our eternal life with God starts NOW, and that has profound implications for our everyday lives.
Something I read and loved: The Secret Garden by
This one made me want to find a garden and get my hands dirty, or—better yet—find my own way to practice resurrection.Something I listened to: Finding Vocational Clarity with Parker Palmer on The Next Right Thing podcast. This conversation was a delight, and gave me lots to think about!
Something I’m cooking: I got sick of my regular lunch (a lazy peanut butter sandwich) and decided to put in a bit more effort and tried this Chickpea Salad Sandwich recipe. I left out the celery and put in chopped pickles instead and it turned out so tasty!
Have you ever tried “praying in color” as a spiritual practice? It’s like doodling while you pray, and it’s both meditative and playful. There’s a website and a book all about it, with a handy FREE resource section where you can download your own praying in color sheets! Hope you try it and enjoy it.
Until next time,
From Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, p. 119
Thank you for these thoughts. You know, I struggled with similar things in writing and speaking. I appreciate you being so candid about it.
This post reminds me of some of the ideas in Henri Nouwen's The Way of the Heart. In a self-centered, noisy culture, the power of stillness and a quiet heart often get overlooked.