Y’all, I’m a writer, an artist. I’m gonna be honest with you: I desperately want what I write and produce to be useful and meaningful to someone. I want so badly for my work to make a difference in the world.

I’m sure you can relate to some degree.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing to make a difference in the world.

And I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with needing attention. I need attention. I need to be noticed. We all need it.

But if attention and being noticed by humans is what we are chasing after and what we love, if being escorted over to the best seat at the party, at the meeting, is what we live for, then that’s a problem. Christ said it’s a problem. The Pharisees sought after that stuff, and Christ “woe-d” them. Christ further woe-d them and compared them to graves.

These Pharisees, who seemed so alive and noticed and recognized and who seemed to be making a difference in the world, were compared to unmarked graves. They were vessels that held death inside of them.

People thought that these Pharisees were alive and living and the life of the party, and didn’t know that on the inside they were just dead and holding death. They weren’t alive, with God living inside of them at all. They didn’t enjoy the attention and praise of God.

We need attention, need to be praised, need to be noticed.

But if we don’t have attention from God, if we are not girded up with praises and recognitions from the invisible God, if we are not making a difference in the world from the place of life and the Holy Spirit living inside of us, then we are nothing but vessels of death. We have death living inside of us and we will never truly be satisfied.

The thing to do, then, is to ask God, and seek God out, for his praise and recognition. We will know we have God’s recognition when we stop incessantly and habitually seeking after the praise of humans, and we know without a doubt that God is real and that he loves us just because.

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Romans 2:29