The Hidden Life

Have you ever replayed a conversation hours after it ended, not because of what was said, but because of how you might have come across? Or posted something online and then checked it, over and over, to see how many "likes" it got?

Most of us aren't "vain" like Maleficent, asking the mirror on the wall to call us the fairest of them all.

But there's still something connected to vanity that plagues almost all of us. And it usually has to do with what we call our "reputation."

When someone's "reputation" is blasted on social media, when they're "canceled," we're told that this behavior ruined their life.

Really?

Why would that ruin a life? Well, if one's life consists entirely in the opinion of others, I suppose it must.

And this gets most of us more than we'd like to admit. That little whisper, that lurks in the back of our mind, obsessing over other people’s opinion of us.

Jesus addressed this head-on.

Speaking to religious men who could not bring themselves to believe in him, he diagnosed the root of the problem: "How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?" (John 5:44).

The Greek word here is doxa, glory, the same word used for the radiant weight of God’s own presence.

Jesus is saying something startling: there is a kind of glory that passes between people, and a kind that comes only from God. And he sets these two kinds of "glories" up as though they are both competing to lay a claim on our souls.

Later in the same Gospel, John describes those who secretly believed in Jesus but would not confess him out in public, "for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God" (John 12:43).

Notice that the problem was not disbelief. It was not that they did not have faith. They had faith, but all they had was faith. They lacked the proper direction of love. Without the love of Him taking first place, the love of self led them to cowardice.

This is why obsessing over our reputation is not a matter of personal anxiety alone. It is a spiritual condition.

When the opinions of others become the measure of our worth, we begin living for an audience that cannot save us. We shade the truth to be liked. We hide our convictions to avoid friction. We do good things, but we do them in hopes of being seen. And when we do bad things, we give it little thought, unless we're exposed.

We become more focused on our performance than on love.

The Sermon on the Mount addresses this directly. "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven" (Matthew 6:1).

Jesus then describes almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, and three times he uses the same phrase: do it in secret, "and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:4). The Greek is en tō kryptō, “in the hidden place.”

The hidden place is not a punishment. It is a meeting room. It is where God waits, and where he does his best work in us precisely because no one else is watching.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a prime example of someone who understood this fully. On June 9, 1895, she wrote her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, offering herself entirely to God. She was honest here with her desire. “I desire, in a word, to be a saint,” she wrote, “but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God! to be Yourself my Sanctity!” She did not want to be known as holy. She wanted to be holy, and she was content for God alone to know it. Near the end of the Oblation she added: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works.” Empty hands. No résumé of accomplishments. No reputation to present. Just a soul who trusted that being seen by God was enough.

On account of this, she was able to say in her autobiography, Story of a Soul:

"Grant that I may fulfill my engagements in all their perfection; that no one may think of me; that I may be trodden under foot, forgotten, as a little grain of sand. I offer myself to Thee, O my Beloved, that Thou mayest ever perfectly accomplish in me Thy Holy Will, without let or hindrance from creatures." (Ch. VII).

Thérèse lived this out in a cloister where most of her own sisters thought her pleasant but unremarkable. She longed to be like a little grain of sand, unnoticed, trampled underfoot, hidden from every eye but God’s. She died at twenty-four, unknown outside a few walls in Normandy.

And here is the irony the Gospel keeps pressing on us: she is now one of the most beloved saints in the world, a Doctor of the Church, read multiple languages.

The woman who wanted to disappear became impossible to overlook. This is not an accident of history. It is a pattern woven into the kingdom itself. "Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:4).

The path to greatness runs through littleness, not around it. Mary sang the same truth: God "has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant" (Luke 1:48).

St. Paul, who had every reason to defend his reputation against critics in Corinth, chose a different posture. "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court" (1 Corinthians 4:3). And to the Galatians he asked a question we might ask ourselves: "Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10).

Paul was not indifferent to others. He loved them fiercely. But he cared almost nothing for what they thought about him, personally. Because his mission wasn't about him.

Perhaps the deepest word on this comes from Colossians: "for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

The verb is in the perfect tense, kekryptai. It describes something already accomplished and still in effect. Your truest life is not the one people see. It is already hidden, already safe, already held in God. The reputation we guard so anxiously is a shadow. The hidden life is what's real.

So how do we begin to live from the hidden place?

First, do one good thing each day that no one will ever know about. Give, pray, serve, forgive, and tell no one. Let it be a secret between you and the Father who sees in secret.

Second, when you catch yourself replaying how you came across after a conversation, or some other engagement, divert those obsessive thoughts into a short prayer: “Lord, you see me. That is enough.” Let His gaze replace theirs.

Third, practice receiving correction or being overlooked without rushing to explain yourself. This is where littleness gets real, and it bears fruit. So what if someone else gets credit for your deeds? Who cares if someone steals your joke and tells it as if it was their own. Does it matter if someone else reaps the rewards of your efforts, and you are ignored? You have already received the better portion.

Finally, make Thérèse’s words your own. Ask God to be your sanctity. Ask for empty hands. The world may or may not notice. But you will have found the only glory that lasts, and you will discover that the hidden life is not a smaller life. For those who live little in this world are the most magnanimous of souls.

 

God Bless,

Judah