Shine in the Darkness - Part 1Sample

Unnoticed

Working from home with only a computer, video screen, and colleagues who frequent our inboxes and text streams with many words, a smile, a laugh, or a contribution helps me move out of what feels like exile!

It would be easy to feel unnoticed. And not only unnoticed but unaffirmed and unappreciated. When you look down and in, you miss the greater vision and the enlarged perspective that comes with it. The “privilege” of working from home is joy for the introvert and agony for the extrovert.

And yet what happens in the place of the unnoticed? Ministry. 

One of Oswald Chambers' books is entitled just that – The Ministry of the Unnoticed. What an incredible description! In a world that seeks attention and 15 minutes of fame, or a million views on YouTube, comes an antidote . . . a correction . . . a reorientation.

If the title alone weren’t enough to drive you to deeper reflection, he then writes:

"We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark – the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight."

What you are in your place of exile may be your true self. It is the “you” that God sees. It is the part of you that God cares about. Your imagination, your heart, your body all reflect who you really are. Not when you are with everybody at work or school or when you are engaged in work . . . but who and what you are in the dark. The person you are having to live with each day in your place of separation.

My prayer is God would reach down and meet you in this place – the place of who you really are and not just your reputation or what you show to others – and use this time to grow you into a person marked as affirmed, confirmed, and sustained in God’s sight.

Author: Tom De Vries, President & CEO of the Global Leadership Network