8 Relinquishing the Need to Be Seen for the Gift of Seeing Others: Glory

8

Relinquishing the Need

to Be Seen for the Gift

of Seeing Others

Glory

The glory that you have given me I have given them.

The glory to which man is called is that he should grow more godlike by growing more human.

IMAGINE STANDING AT THE EDGE of a quiet pond. The surface is still. You toss in a pebble. It sinks quickly, and ripples run across the water. The first wave is tall, the next softer, the final one fades before it reaches the edge. Now toss in a stone. The sound is deeper. The ripples go further—they almost touch the shore. Now heave in a boulder. The pond shudders. Waves slap against the bank and you step back to avoid getting wet.

The principle is simple: The greater the weight, the greater the wave.

And the same principle holds for our transformation into Christlikeness: The greater the goodness, the greater the glory.

In the purgative stage, our goodness is no more than a pebble. In the illuminative stage, it grows stone-sized. But in the unitive stage, our goodness becomes as big as boulders.

We don’t try to make waves.

But we do.

The Coiled Whisper

The first time I was asked to speak on a Sunday morning was at my dad’s church—a medium-sized congregation that had known me most of my life. I said yes. And immediately, the clock started ticking in my mind.

In the days leading up, I was a mess. I’d go to bed rewriting lines in my head. I’d wake up with dread sitting in my stomach. I knew nerves were normal, but this felt deeper, existential—like my whole identity was on the line.

And then the day came.

I sat on the front row while the last verse of the final song ended. My dad introduced me and I stood, palms sweating. I walked slowly to the pulpit, placed my notes down, and looked up. And began.

I don’t remember much of what I said. But I do remember the anxiety receding. An ease settled in, and that felt like a miracle. Afterward, I sat down. I remember the long exhale, the adrenaline draining from my body. I made it through.

But then a different kind of anxiety crept in. Not like pounding drums, but more like a coiled whisper: How did I come across?

Did they like it?

Was it good?

Was I good?

I knew my family would encourage me—they had to say something nice. But what I really craved was affirmation from people who weren’t obligated to give it. So when the service ended, I started scanning faces. Waiting for someone to say something. There were a few handshakes and hugs—

“Thanks, Jon.”

“Well done.”

“That really spoke to me.”

I smiled and nodded, still searching, hoping for more—without looking desperate, of course. The pre-talk nerves I expected. But this feeling afterward, this craving for affirmation? That caught me off guard. I had felt traces of it before, like during casual coffee conversations; after saying something insightful or vulnerable, I’d quietly hope the other person was impressed or moved.

What was this need to be seen? To be praised? To be approved of? It took me a while to name it. But eventually I did.

Vainglory.

The Craving and the Counterfeit

The word vain means “empty”—without weight or substance. So vainglory is the absence of real glory. It often shows up as a craving to appear spiritually deep or religiously mature before we actually are. It wants the image of transformation without the long intimate journey that produces it. As Henri Nouwen put it: “We so much want to be looked at that we are ill-prepared to be seen.”

I’ve said elsewhere in this book that I was shaped by a form of Christianity that emphasized speed, performance, and image—what I’ve come to call transactional Christianity. In that world, growth is often measured by appearance, and it’s easy to skip the slow interior work. The result? Vainglory. Not because everyone’s trying to impress, but because the system rewards visibility, platform, and the illusion of goodness.

Transformational Christianity cuts against all of that:

But what does this have to do with union? After all, isn’t vainglory something we wrestle with earlier in the journey—when we’re still trying to perform or prove ourselves? That’s what I thought.

But the truth is, vainglory doesn’t disappear with maturity—it just becomes more dangerous. The further we journey, the more it hides beneath our goodness. In other words, the more you’re transformed, the more tempting it is to want to be seen for it. When virtue actually takes root, when your words begin to carry more weight, when others notice your peace, patience, and self-control—a little recognition comes. And if we’re not careful, our need to be seen as transformed can quietly replace our actual desire to be transformed.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be recognized and approved of. We all need someone to look at us, really look, and say, “Yes, I see you. You’re good.” This desire isn’t a sin—it’s human, it’s God-given.

You’ve seen it in the face of a baby looking for her mother’s smile.

You’ve heard it in the joy of a child’s voice who brings his drawing to hang on the fridge.

You’ve felt it in the quiet ache of every person who’s ever thought: Do you see me?

And yes, it’s even somewhere in a twenty-something’s twisted longing for positive reinforcement after preaching his first sermon.

One of my favorite stories that Dallas Willard used to tell comes from his time as a young seminary student. He remembered the scramble among his classmates to find places to speak—to get booked, noticed, platformed. In the middle of that frenzy, he sensed God’s quiet word: Don’t look for somewhere to speak. Just try to have something to say.

Willard’s life bore that out. He didn’t chase platforms. He chased Christ. He didn’t train to become seen—he trained to become good. And as his goodness quietly grew, people began to ask him to speak. That’s the difference:

And this is one of the signature experiences of union—not that our longing to be seen and approved of disappears, but that we are finally free enough for it to be fulfilled. We no longer need to prove ourselves, make our presence known, chase recognition—we’re satisfied.

God sees us. He delights in us. He approves of us.

Quiet Magnetism

As our union with God deepens, vainglory fades and something new emerges—a largeness of soul, a nobility of spirit. What the old writers called magnanimity. Philosopher Rebecca DeYoung says that “magnanimity is a virtue that showcases the genuine goodness that vainglory undercuts.”

And it’s that growing goodness that makes us gradually magnetic.

People are drawn to us—not because we’re impressive, but because we’re safe. There’s something deeply restful about being with someone who isn’t trying to prove anything. You don’t have to compete. You don’t have to perform. Aren’t these the kind of people you want to be with? The ones who make you feel more alive, not less? Who invite you to relax into yourself rather than manage your image?

This is what makes living in the unitive stage so powerful. As we become more and more united to God, we become more and more united to people. Dorotheos of Gaza, a monk from the sixth century, used an image to explain this. You might try sketching your own version in your journal or in the margin of this book:

A circle with a dot labeled “God " in the center. Four dots labeled "Friend, " "Family Member,” and "Me,” (top left of the circle) and "Someone I Don't Know” (bottom right of the circle) frame the perimeter of the circle. Arrows from the outer dots point toward the center dot.

That’s what the unitive stage is all about. It’s about becoming oned—one with God and one with others. I knew this when I started the journey—but I didn’t know it. I found it easier to focus on loving God while overlooking the people around me.

Not on purpose—it just sort of happened. The temptation to isolate and “just work on yourself” can feel noble but usually turns inward. These days I use the following question as a barometer for my transformation: How well am I loving the people closest to me?

It’s a revealing measure. Because the truth is, we can’t really grow in love for God without also growing in love for others. The two are inseparable. As Maria Skobtsova said, “The way to God lies through love of people.”

Boulder People

The Christian tradition has a name for these kind of magnetic people—saints.

Not flawless icons in stained glass. Not moral achievers who performed their way into spiritual greatness. But real men and women—earthy, ordinary, flawed—who were profoundly formed into the likeness of Christ. These are people who journeyed far along the threefold path. So far, in fact, that their hunger to be seen was fully satisfied by God. And because of that, they became safe to be seen.

But here’s a question: Have you seen them?

My Christian tradition treated the saints of the past with suspicion—worried that reverence might slip into idolatry. But in reacting against veneration, my tradition lost something vital: the ability to see what a life in Christ can become.

That’s what saints do.

They show us what the divine life looks like in a real body, with real quirks and contours. They’re not sinless, but they do sin less. Ultimately, their lives give us glimpses of God. As Saint Pachomius, the founder of Christian monasticism, put it, “If you see a person pure in heart and humble, that is a great vision. For what is greater than . . . to see the invisible God in a visible man?”

And there’s this too: The more we learn to see the saints, the more something unexpected happens—we also see our self. That’s because a saint is like a mirror. Through them, we catch glimpses of something we always hoped was true but rarely dared to believe: That beneath all of our contradictions and illusions, something beautiful is there.

The Russian priest Sergius Bulgakov put it this way: “We ourselves do not know what we possess from God, and then suddenly a saint—through his own soul—manifests to us our own power and our own beauty in all our infirmity. And then the soul, taking flight, ascends to the heavenly heights and bathes in light and air.”

That’s what saints do. They don’t just draw us in and show us who they are; they reveal who we are—beneath the layers of our woundedness and willfulness, beneath the ache of all our longings. They call us upward. They remind us we have wings. Saints have become so full of God’s life that others can’t help but feel the possibility of their own.

These are the boulder people.

We need them. They aren’t optional. They’re essential. And if we hope to make progress along the threefold path, we must surround ourselves with them. These saints may have left the earth, but they haven’t left the church. Their lives still speak. Their witness still shapes us. And there are so many ways to stay close to them. For example, you could:

Get as creative as you like—because you need them. We all do. When we read their words, remember their lives, and revere their witness, we’re not just recalling the past. We’re inviting them to walk with us in the present. And if we let them, they’ll do what saints have always done: They’ll remind us of who we are, and who we’re capable of becoming.

The Cure of Souls

Many years ago, I read the story of a young monk who was repeatedly assaulted by lust in the middle of the night. Each time the temptation overwhelmed him, he would rise, walk through the dark, and confess everything to an older monk. The old monk would comfort him, revive him, and send him home. But the temptation returned. Again and again, the monk came back. And again and again, the older one received him—never with shame, never with impatience. Only comfort.

“Yield not to the devil,” the old monk said, “nor relax the mind: but rather as often as the devil troubles you, come to me.”

Come to me.

Those are the words of the saints—because they are first the words of Christ. The Christian tradition is full of stories like the old man and the monk, stories that model this kind of vital relationship: one soul helping another. These are not just tales from the past; they model a way we need to recover. It’s been called “The Cure of Souls.” Not cure in the modern medical sense, but in the older Latin sense: cura—to care for, to attend to.

This kind of one-on-one soul care has existed since the very beginning of the Christian tradition: Peter had Jesus, Timothy had Paul, Polycarp had John.

And as the faith spread, so did the pattern.

In the deserts of Egypt and Syria, young disciples had Abbas and Ammas.

In the Irish monastic tradition, the Anam Cara—“soul friend”—was a spiritual companion whose presence and love created space for transformation.

Later in the Medieval West, abbots and abbesses served as spiritual parents within their monastic communities.

Then there were confessors, priests who offered deep, personal guidance to their parishioners.

In the Orthodox East, spiritual guides came to be known as starets—a Russian word meaning “elder.” These were recognized for their spiritual maturity and inner freedom.

This ancient model of transformation—one soul guiding another into goodness—never vanished, but in my tradition it fell dormant. In its place emerged programs, curriculum, and inspiration-based approaches that confused information for formation.

We thought we could mass-produce disciples. If we just got the right content in front of enough people, at the right time, in the right setting, transformation would follow. But it rarely did.

Pastors once carried this relational, soul care work at the heart of their vocation, but over time many surrendered it. The pressure to fill pews shifted their focus from shepherding souls to delivering sermons. But formation doesn’t happen assembly-line style. It happens person to person, life to life, over time.

If we want to recover the fullness of Christian maturity, then we must also recover this sacred work of soul care.

Guided and Guiding

One of the most accessible ways this sacred work is being recovered today is through the quiet presence of spiritual directors. These aren’t spiritual guides in the traditional sense—not monks or abbots, not confessors or starets. But they stand in the same stream.

A spiritual director is someone who listens for God with you. Someone who pays attention to your soul with reverence and care. They don’t control or dictate; they walk beside you. Their role is simple but profound: to help you attend to the presence of God—and respond.

As Eugene Peterson said, “Spiritual direction happens when two people agree to pay attention to what God is doing in one (or both) of their lives and respond in faith.”

As we explored in

As we grow in our capacity to give that attention, those around us begin to receive it—and something happens in that exchange. To be truly seen and heard is to experience a small but real touch of God’s own care. And in that safety, the Spirit works transformation.

Good spiritual directors give this kind of generous attention. And it’s compelling. Because when someone truly pays attention to you, they’re saying something deep: “You matter. I see you. I’m not here to fix you or rush you. I’m simply here with you.” In that kind of presence, people come alive. They feel their worth confirmed.

Fred Rogers was one of the magnetic ones—and in my opinion, he belongs in stained glass. When he spoke to a child, he made them feel like they were the only person in the world. He looked, he listened, and he lingered.

This is why I believe that everyone who can should have a spiritual director, a companion for their threefold journey. Someone who knows how to attend to God and can help others do the same.

I’ve been meeting with my own spiritual director for over a decade. His name is Troy. He’s been a steady presence in my life, opening up new ways of seeing, helping me notice things I would’ve missed on my own. Most of all, he’s modeled a quiet gentleness I’m still learning to live into.

What first nudged me to seek a spiritual director was the realization that so many people I admired in the Christian tradition had one:

Looking at these lives, I realized that this kind of companionship wasn’t optional—it was essential. That’s why Richard Foster said, “In our day, the desperate need is for the emergence of a massive spiritual army of trained spiritual directors who can lovingly come alongside precious people and help them discern how to walk by faith in the circumstances of their own lives.”

But this chapter isn’t just about finding a spiritual director. It’s about becoming the kind of person who can offer that same presence to others. In other words, as our transformation unfolds, and we enter the unitive stage, our role shifts. We’re still pilgrims, always. But we also become guides.

I don’t mean that we all need to become trained directors, but wouldn’t that be great? We can become companions, however. We can become people who attend. People who make others feel seen. That’s the essence of union. As we grow in goodness, we begin to carry a different kind of presence—one that others feel. One that has weight. One that invites trust, safety, and openness.

Saints Beside Us

When my son was three, he began waking up early and shuffling into the living room in his footed pajamas. Without a word, he would grab one of my books off the coffee table, nestle beside me on the couch, and “read” the book—upside down.

To my surprise, I didn’t have to wake him up early. I didn’t have to invite him to the couch. I didn’t even have to ask him to “read” with me. It just happened. He did it because I did it. As Fred Rogers said: “From the time you were very little, you’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving.”

Just as my son has automatically acquired my likeness, so Christlikeness was meant to be acquired automatically inside relationships. This kind of relational formation has a name: mimēsis. The word comes from the Greek tradition, where it originally referred to “imitation.” This kind of modeling was deeply relational. But I don’t mean that it happened by copying external behaviors, like a novice copying the technique of his master. It reached deeper, to the structure of desire.

Imitating technique matters—it’s how skill is formed—but it’s not the deepest kind of learning. What truly shapes us is the imitation of desire, catching what the master wants. In the end, we need both kinds of imitation: technique and desire, form and longing, the hand and the heart. The first we choose; the second chooses us.

This is why one-on-one relationships are so essential to our transformational journey. Divine life has always spread from person to person.

That’s why I am always asking myself: Who around me is actually living some of the Christ life? Who reflects God’s goodness, not just in words, but in the way they move through the world? And how can I draw close enough for their desire to shape mine? Because that’s how mimēsis works—by proximity.

It’s a beautiful thing: By walking beside them, we become like them.

These everyday saints may be mothers, mentors, spiritual friends—lives who have been slowly shaped by grace. So it’s not just the saints of the past we need, it’s the saints of the present. They don’t need to be official or canonized. All we really need is to surround ourselves with people whose lives bear the quiet weight of Christ.

They will help us.

They will show us things we couldn’t name on our own, lift burdens we didn’t know we were carrying, see past our masks without shaming us for wearing them, invite us to slow down, speak a single sentence that stays with us for years, and make holy things feel ordinary and ordinary things feel holy.

Little Christs

As we grow into union with God, we begin to carry his likeness in ways that others can feel. We become people who are quietly becoming little Christs for the world.

Actually, that’s not quite right—it’s too grandiose. We don’t need to become a little Christ for the world.

I can see now how that phrase “for the world” still carries the residue of my old transactional mindset—the belief that I had to do something big for God. Transactional Christianity emphasizes the extravagant, as if only the impressive counts. But that’s not it.

God isn’t asking me to be a little Christ for the world.

He’s asking me to be a little Christ for my world—the world he’s given me. That means:

These are not heroic acts. But they are exactly the kind of acts where Christ is most likely seen. This is why God is drawing us into deep union. This is why he’s putting vainglory to death and resurrecting magnanimity. He’s making us glorious—so we can become good guides. He’s lifting us up, to lift others.

He’s making us fully, finally, and beautifully human—designed in his image and developing in his likeness.

What Follows Glory

We began this chapter with my longing to be seen, affirmed, and recognized. What we’ve discovered is that longing isn’t wrong. It’s sacred. We were made to be seen. But vainglory distorts that longing. It grabs for what can only be given.

And glory?

Glory is what happens when goodness sinks into us so deeply that it begins to ripple. We begin to be noticed. And eventually, we become the kind of people who can, like the old monk, quietly say: “Come to me . . .” Christ shapes us into physicians of the soul:

People who care.

This is the fruit of the unitive stage—it’s not private but communal. Union with God doesn’t just unite us with him; it unites us with others too.

Growing up, I heard a lot about God’s glory. The phrase often appeared at the end of prayers, almost as a safeguard—as if we needed to remind God that we knew the glory belonged to him and not to us. Over time, that language quietly shaped an image of God as someone obsessed with recognition, concerned with being seen, eager for credit.

But that’s not the kind of glory Scripture reveals.

God’s glory isn’t self-centered; it’s self-giving. He receives glory by giving it—by pouring his life into others until they shine with the same light that comes from him. As theologian Bernard Lonergan wrote, “To say that God created the world for his glory, is to say that he created it not for his sake but for ours.”

As Jesus once prayed, “The glory you have given me, I have given them” (John 17:22). That’s how God has always been glorified, by glorifying others. And that’s our destiny too: to be just like him—radiant, secure, free.

This is where the journey of union brings us—but it brings us further still—not to the end of our transformation, but to its deepest expression.

To love.

In Sum

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