In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a Not-So-Secret World
Essay 6: Whittling Followers
The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all of this and were scoffing at Jesus. So He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is prized among men is detestable before God.”
Luke 16:15
As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I kept our beautiful, solitary mountain experience silent. I reluctantly crushed my own dreams–I felt simultaneously foolish and faithful, but only as some foggy notion. If I’d known then I was in good company, what an encouragement it would’ve been.
The story of Gideon in the book of Judges has always fascinated me. He was a nobody, had nothing to offer, and was, like me, unsure of himself. Maybe he had a stern dad like mine, maybe he never once heard an approving voice. In fact, he must have been scared to death of his dad, because when the Lord commanded him to tear down his dad’s Asherah pole and turn it into firewood, Gideon snuck out to do so in the middle of the night.
Poor Gideon. Passive-aggressiveness hasn’t gotten much farther than a sorry kid like him, a sorry kid like me.
I read his story, and I feel the swell of bravery, the tiniest spark of faith. Sneaking in the dark to defy his dad’s idol worship, then still begging for a sign from God because this was all unfamiliar territory to a nobody. I can relate.
God did something with that mustard seed, and before he hardly knew it, Gideon had 32,000 men willing to follow him into battle.
Any influencer today would beam at his good fortune–he went viral, an overnight success! But then God immediately told him he had too many.
Just as soon as they had appeared, God sent 22,000 of them home. Furthermore, the Lord sorted out the rest of them, until there were only 300 guys left of the 32,000 who had come out in support of Gideon.
Pause for a moment and consider how this would hit anyone with a public platform today. It would strike fear and panic in their soul! The security of their success hinges on numbers. It is the one thing that can secure a book deal, the one thing that validates your worth, the one way I can get paid to promulgate my lifestyle and spread my message, become famous.
Why would God whittle down the crowd? The Lord told Gideon if he kept the 32,000, Israel would “become boastful, saying ‘My own power has delivered me.’” (Judges 7:2)
In other words, God would rather have our worship than let us have success. Popularity is detrimental to that quiet life He wants to live with us.
Followers mean nothing to God.
In fact, they stand in the very way of what God wants to do, powerfully, in your life.
Remember how Jesus’ brothers urged him to take his platform and go public, because “no one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret” (John 7:4)?
Well, Jesus didn’t care about becoming popular, like his brothers thought. He also wasn’t a popular guy, which is sometimes contrary to the charismatic, people-loving Jesus we paint in our mind.
After He laid out the “bread of life” metaphor, the one where He literally told the crowd he was “the living bread that came down from heaven” and “if you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have eternal life”–the people began to look at Him funny. I can’t say that I blame them. If this were my ultimatum, I’d have to say I’d be on the verge of quitting the disciple gig based on gore alone.
And this is exactly the response Jesus got. John tells us that
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:66)
After this disciple-whittling conversation, John says Jesus kind of stayed under cover because the Jews wanted to kill him. It makes me wonder about his personality–how did he balance truth and grace so well? How was he loving and merciful, yet at complete odds with those who tried to stamp out his holy fire? How in the world can I imitate such a wild character?
One of the earliest instances we know of Jesus as a kid is the story of when his family accidentally leaves him behind in Jerusalem. After a few days, his parents realize (no doubt busy keeping an eye on Jesus’s wily younger brothers) that their oldest boy hasn’t checked in with them in awhile. They become frantic, searching within their group, to no avail. When they finally backtracked to Jerusalem, three days after losing him, they found him in the temple. Unfazed, he said, “didn’t you know I would be about my father’s business?” He was teaching the teachers in the temple. Without fanfare, we are introduced to the boy, Jesus, who already understood and valued His relationship with the Father above any earthly accolades, including the typical first son privileges and hanging out with his buddies in the caravan. He wasn’t being sneaky. He would rather be alone with His heavenly Father than on a journey with the family and other teenage travelers. He was twelve years old.
Maybe this ought to hint at His personality–perhaps we might conclude that Jesus was an introvert and not a typical hormone-raging pre-pubescent. But if Jesus is God incarnate, I’d venture a guess that every picture we have of Jesus in his humanity is a reflection of the Father Himself. And He–God–desires intimacy with us. He wants us to be alone. With Him. There is nothing more urgent.
And He will whittle our own circle down, sometimes until we are very lonely. He will knock us down, sometimes over and over, until we realize we cannot do anything on our own. We need Him. We need Jesus, just Jesus.
