Faithfully Living a Hidden Life

At the beginning of 2020, I dragged my then very new girlfriend to see a film called A Hidden Life.

Upon reflection watching an intense three-hour artsy film might not have been the best date idea – but it’s a film that has stuck with me ever since.

The film is based on the true story of an Austrian farmer in WWII who has to decide whether he will join the German army or refuse to pledge an oath to Hitler, risking the lives and reputation of his family. The title of the film comes from this quote from the book Middlemarch by George Elliot: 

‘The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts: and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.’

What struck me when I first heard this quote was the way it subverts our idea that change happens through strong and powerful leaders who are ‘seen’.

Little did I know that two months after watching the film, this idea of a ‘hidden life’ would become more of a reality than I ever expected.

These past 11 months have reshaped our lives in ways that none of us would ever have anticipated. I’ve gone from regularly interacting with hundreds of people a week to seeing a handful of people face-to-face. I spent two months on furlough, having to navigate who I was when I couldn’t work.

Maybe you’ve gone to university this year – with all the expectations and excitement of moving to a new city and making new friendships. But instead you have been faced with hours sitting in your room watching online lectures and slightly underwhelming Zoom socials. Or perhaps you’re at school and you are back to remote learning, spending more time with your parents and siblings than you ever wanted to!

In the face of these real challenges, it’s easy to feel like our life is on pause, that we’re just surviving before things change. Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself religiously checking the news to see how many people in the UK have been vaccinated, longing for the number to go up so my life can get back to normal.

But I wonder if in this moment God wants to teach us a new way to live and to lead, to remind us that our ‘hidden’ decisions might make an impact that echoes into eternity?

In Acts 1, as Jesus is having his final conversation with the disciples before he ascends to heaven, they ask him whether this is the moment he will finally restore the kingdom to Israel (1:6).

What they are expecting is a military victory, for Jesus to finally overthrow the rule of the Roman Empire and deliver the people of God from oppression and suffering.

But Jesus doesn’t give them the answer they were hoping for.

‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’

– Acts 1:7-8

Jesus reframes their expectations – turning their attention away from what he might do in ‘the world’ to what He wants to do in and through them.

I often pray that God would change the external circumstances of my life. And this is a good thing – he often does! But I think I’m missing something of his heart when these are my only prayers.

God longs to partner with his people.

He longs to use us to fulfil his plans and purposes in the world. He has chosen that through us – the Church – ‘the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms’ (Ephesians 3:10).

Why is this? Wouldn’t it be much easier for everyone if God would just cut us out and get on with it himself?

I think that it reflects his heart as a father. He’s not like a boss who just wants to get the job done. He longs to partner with us because he wants to be with us and cares about who we are becoming.

And this happens not just in the spectacular and the historic, but in the ordinary and the hidden places of our lives.

We often measure ‘leadership’ or influence on the impact that our actions have or the size of the following we might be able to gain.

These twelve disciples all died before they saw the full impact that their lives would have. But we know today that their faithfulness to the call of Jesus would lead to billions of people coming to faith in him, fulfilling the promise that they would be his witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’.

Perhaps at this time, when it feels like we’re stuck in our homes and unable to make a difference in the world, Jesus is calling us to faithfully live hidden lives – to choose and believe that our daily decisions to trust him in the unseen, unglamorous decisions we make can influence and shape the world around us.