Love to be unknown
Counted as nothing
Thomas à Kempis, who wrote so searchingly on the inner life, left a counsel that stops a recognition-hungry soul in its tracks: love to be unknown, and to be counted as nothing. To a self that craves to be noticed and esteemed, it sounds almost like misery — until you grasp that it is the path of profound freedom. The one who no longer needs to be known has nothing left to protect or promote, and is free at last to live for Christ rather than for reputation.
This is the social face of the death of self, and Paul gives it its deepest ground. Far be it from me to boast, he says, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. The cross has severed him from the world's applause; he is dead to its opinion and it to him, and the only thing left worth boasting in is Christ crucified. A soul crucified to the world no longer needs the world to admire it.
John the Baptist lived the same freedom when his crowds drifted away to Jesus: no jealousy, no clutching at his former prominence, only a glad willingness to grow smaller as Christ grew greater. He must increase, but I must decrease, he said — and meant it. To love to be unknown, to boast only in the cross, to be glad to decrease so that Christ increases: this is the death of self set free from the tyranny of being seen. Could you say it, and mean it?
“Far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
— Paul, to the Galatians — Galatians 6:14 (WEB)
Learn to love being unknown and counted as nothing — boasting only in the cross, crucified to the world's applause, and free of the need to be seen.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
We are addicted to being seen, craving recognition and measuring our worth by how noticed we are. The interior work is the freedom Thomas à Kempis named — loving to be unknown and counted as nothing — grounded in Paul's boast in the cross alone, through which we are crucified to the world's applause, so that, like John the Baptist glad to decrease, we are released from the tyranny of needing to be seen.
This week, practice being unknown: deliberately let an accomplishment go unmentioned, point attention away from yourself, and do good no one will know about, settling your worth in Christ rather than in recognition.
The hunger to be seen runs deep, bristling at every slight and quietly tallying who noticed; it would rather you stay anxious about your reputation than free of it. But a soul crucified to the world's applause has nothing left to guard and nothing left to promote — and there, content to be unknown, it is finally at liberty to live for Christ instead of for the room.
We are addicted to being seen. We crave recognition, bristle at being overlooked, and quietly measure our worth by how noticed we are. Thomas à Kempis names the cure in words that sound, at first, unbearable: love to be unknown, and to be counted as nothing. Yet what sounds like misery to the recognition-hungry self is in fact a profound liberation — for the one who no longer needs to be known has nothing left to protect or promote, and is free.
Paul gives that freedom its root: he boasts in nothing but the cross, through which he has been crucified to the world and the world to him. The cross severs us from the world's applause, so that its opinion — good or bad — no longer rules us. This is the death of self in its social form: like John the Baptist, glad to decrease so that Christ may increase, free of the desperate need to be seen. Imagine being genuinely content to be unknown, your worth settled in Christ and not in being noticed. Would you dare to love it?
- Am I addicted to being seen and esteemed?
- Has the cross crucified me to the world's applause, or does its opinion still rule me?
- Could I be genuinely content to be unknown, my worth settled in Christ?
Lord, I am addicted to being seen and measure my worth by being noticed. Teach me to love to be unknown and counted as nothing, boasting only in the cross of Christ, through which I am crucified to the world. Settle my worth in you, and set me free from the need to be seen. Amen.