Unseen

The Gift of Being Hidden in a World That Loves to Be Noticed

Sara Hagerty

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9780310339984
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How do we find contentment in God when we feel so hidden?

Sara Hagerty unfolds the truths found in the biblical story of Mary of Bethany to discover the scandalous love of God and explore the spiritual richness of being hidden in him.

Every heart longs to be seen and understood. Yet most of our lives is unwitnessed. We spend our days working, driving, parenting. We sometimes spend whole seasons feeling unnoticed and unappreciated.

In Unseen, Sara Hagerty suggests that this is exactly what God intended. He is the only One who truly knows us. He is the only One who understands the value of the unseen in our lives. When this truth seeps into our souls, we realize that only when we hide ourselves in God can we give ourselves to others in true freedom--and know the joy of a deeper relationship with the God who sees us.

Our culture applauds what we can produce, what we can show, what we can upload to social media. Only when we give all of ourselves to God--unedited, abandoned, apparently wasteful in its lack of productivity--can we live out who God created us to be. As Hagerty writes, "Maybe my seemingly unproductive, looking-up-at-Him life produces awe among the angels."

Through an eloquent exploration of both personal and biblical story, Hagerty calls us to offer every unseen minute of our lives to God. God is in the secret places of our lives that no one else witnesses. But we've not been relegated to these places. We've been invited.

We may be "wasting" ourselves in a hidden corner today: The cubicle on the fourth floor. The hospital bedside of an elderly parent. The laundry room. But these are the places God uses to meet us with a radical love. These are the places that produce the kind of unhinged love in us that gives everything at His feet, whether or not anyone else ever proclaims our name, whether or not anyone else ever sees.

God's invitation is not just for a season or a day. It is the question of our lives: "When no one else applauds you, when it makes no sense, when you see no results--will you waste your love on Me?"

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• 1. Beautiful Waste: Opening Our Eyes to the Unseen: “Jesus came to Bethany.”
• 2. Seen And Celebrated: Discovering Who: We Are Apart from What We Do: “And Martha served.”
• 3. Open Hands: Living a Story We Had Not Planned :“A woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil.”
• 4. Love Poured Out: Leaning into Our Call to Greatness: “Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head.”
• 5. Uncovered: Becoming Vulnerable: “She wiped His feet with her hair.”
• 6. Invitation to Wonder: Training Our Eyes to See God’s Beauty: “And the house was filled with the fragrance of oil.”
• 7. Secret Extravagance: Wasting Ourselves on God: “Why this waste?”
• 8. The Needs around Us: Changing the World at Jesus’ Feet: “For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”
• 9. Voices: Hearing God’s Truth above: the Criticism and Chatter “And they criticized her sharply.”
• 10. Thirsty Seasons: Learning to Long for God’s Presence: “Me you do not have always.”
• 11. God Is for Us: Healing in the Hiding: “She has done what she could.”
• 12. Holy Whispers: Embracing the Mysteries of God: “She has kept this for the day of My burial.”
• 13. The Hidden Way: Becoming a Friend of God: “Wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
• Acknowledgments
• Notes