Embracing Obscurity Quotes

“Christ’s obscurity was as purposefully planned—and equally glorifying to God—as His journey to fame and His fall from the public’s favor.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“The purpose of my influential position is to make God’s name great, to advance His kingdom on Earth, and to serve others.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe. Bernard of Clairvaux7”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“What if embracing obscurity meant that your family members lost a well-known or well-loved circle of acquaintances? Had to move to a smaller house? Drove uglier cars? Wore older clothes? Took fewer or less expensive vacations?”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Do the time, energy, and passion with which I pursue my own interests match the intensity of my faith, obedience, and love for God and others? Is my life mysterious? Or do I live, love, and lust like the rest of the world?”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“The path of the Christian life often leads in the opposite direction of the world around us.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Will we be teachable through the dark moments and difficult seasons?”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Suffering often changes our ambitions. Before his conversion, Saul cared primarily about his reputation and perfecting his religiosity. The transformed Paul left reputation behind and instead boasted in weakness, longing to suffer and share in Christ’s death”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Am I willing to give up my lofty ideas of success—even the “success” of serving God in great and visible ways—and instead content myself to serve in the mundane, to be largely invisible, and to meet the needs of those who can’t return the favor?”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“This is the great difficulty of service: dying to self. How much easier to hear and obey God’s call to leave all for a tribe in Africa than to let the car to my left have the right of way.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Why do we take consolation from celebrity Christians who judge success by the standards of the world? Why do we take our cues from people so conspicuously different than Jesus? Why do we listen to men who, had they lived in the first century, would have sold tickets to the feeding of the five thousand and charged a fee to watch the raising of Lazarus?”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Whatever sacrifices we make in this life will feel microscopic when we hear Him say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” and “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world” (Matt. 25:21, 34 NLT).”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“I was doing what the world expected me to do. What my mom expected me to do. What my grandma expected me to do. All I knew was football . . . so to say that I was walkin’ away was scary. . . . So I tried to rationalize it . . . but my heart wasn’t in it. And it was hard. It was real hard. Cause when you don’t listen to God’s will and you do what the world expects you to do, you never reach what you’re trying to reach. You’re always strugglin’. You’re in the water and you’re tryin’ to stay afloat. . . . When you fight God and you’re of the kingdom, you’re going to lose that battle eventually. And it’s gonna wear down on your spirit; it’s gonna wear down on you physically, mentally—all that. And it got to the point, man, that I just couldn’t take it.3”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Once a man has experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire to serve. The proud throne of the judge no longer lures him; he wants to be down below with the lowly and the needy, because that is where God found him.8”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Paul knew what revolutionary commands he was giving the Philippians! In order to digest and live out commands like “Don’t be selfish,” “Don’t try to impress others,” “Be humble,” “Think of others as better than yourselves,” and “Take an interest in others,” we must acquire a living and active understanding of Christ’s humility—hence verses 5–11. Only in understanding that the King of everything took the position of a slave can we fathom servanthood ourselves.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. (Phil. 2:3–4 NLT)”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“The trouble with you and me and the rest of humanity is not that we lack self-confidence (as we’re told by the world) but that we have far too much self-importance.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Have you ever had one of these moments? A split second when the enormity of humanity pounds you into a pea-sized lump of insignificance? An occasion when a crowd leaves you feeling a little disillusioned and more than a little irrelevant? If not, look for one. As uncomfortable as is the prospect, unimportance is good for the soul.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. 1 Chronicles 29:15 (NLT)”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christian community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer1”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“Don’t let the simplicity of the love story numb you to the implications of this unlikely romance. We are the object of His desire. We, who are dust, and He, who is everything and needs nothing.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“lud • i • cra • thet • ic \lú-dǝ-krǝ-thé-tik\ adj. : A combination of ludicrous and apathetic, describing a state in which the divinely ridiculous has become so commonplace that it is no longer of special interest or compelling.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“The depth of my own pride is seemingly infinite. Every time I think it’s under wraps, I find some new variety of this cancerous sin hiding out in the darker corners of my heart. And not unlike cancer, what I think is full recovery from pride is oftentimes only remission.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“More like an anaconda than a fuzzy blanket, pride continues to tighten its death grip, eventually choking out all humility and ending in our complete consumption with self.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything

“If our solar system were represented on a twelve-inch ruler, our sun (which is more than one hundred times the diameter of Earth) would be smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. On this same scale, our galaxy, The Milky Way, would be larger than the Pacific Ocean.”
― Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God's Everything