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To Know and To Be Known
- 04/07/11
- 31
I pay little attention to the statistics software that runs in the background on this site. Every time someone visits, every time someone looks at a page, that software makes a little notation and at the end of the day I can look and see how many people browsed the blog. I don’t look all that often because, frankly, I’m just not all that interested. I guess if I was a better blogger I’d be monitoring it closely, looking for patterns, looking for the kinds of articles that draw in the readers.
But the other day I took a look and saw that in the course of the day somewhere around 70,000 people had visited the site and read one of my articles. That’s a lot of people. It’s an atypical number of people, but at least for that day it was true. I found myself in a small moment of pride, remembering the days when 7 people visited the site (at least 6 of whom were relatives). But quickly I caught myself and began to ponder the implications of that pride. I began to ponder the implications of the number 70,000.
Let me give you just a little glimpse into my life. I feel strange even writing about this—prideful even. But I suppose that’s what this blog is, at least in part—me wrestling through the implications of living this life. Here are questions I have been thinking about lately. Who am I? Who tells me who I am? Who tells me what I do well, what I’m succeeding at, what I’m failing at? Who tells me my strengths and weaknesses? What is the relationship between me at home, me in my church, me on my blog, me before an audience at a conference? How do I weigh and measure all of these things? How do I evaluate them?
I love the readers of this site. I know that a lot of you have enjoyed its articles over the long haul. Many of you have sent along words of encouragement over the years. You’ve bought my books and become Friends of the Blog and otherwise been good friends. But when I stop to think about it I realize that I do not give up a lot of information about myself here. I can easily reveal my best while hiding my worst. You see only as much of me as I’m willing to reveal and I see only as much of you as you are willing to reveal. This means that I am relatively easy to love. This does not make our relationship meaningless; not at all. But it does mean that our relationship must be simple. It cannot go very deep.
The people of my church see a lot more of me. They see me in the pulpit, trying to teach them God’s Word. They see me trying to lead them, to shepherd them. They see me in small group contexts, hearing details of my life. They see far more of me than the readers of this site ever will. And they love me. They love me, but they’re not impressed by me. That’s a good thing, I’m sure.
The question is, what if I care more about what the 70,000 think than the 200 or so who attend Grace Fellowship Church? It is relatively easy to be impressive from afar. But wouldn’t it be sad if the 70,000 thought more of me than the 200 who know me better? Wouldn’t it be sad if I cared more for the many than the few?
I sometimes joke that the greatest proof of my wife’s love for me is that she has seen me naked and continues to love me. It’s a marriage joke and one I think a lot of men can identify with. It’s true on a physical level, but it’s even more true on just about every other level. My wife is the one I love most in all the world; my wife is the one I’ve hurt most in all the world. She has seen me at my best and she has seen me at my worst. She’s seen who I am in crisis, in pain, in sorrow, in anger, in sin. She has heard me speak words of love even while acting hateful. She has seen me love my children as a father should and exasperate my children as no father should. And she loves me. It’s remarkable. Her love means so much because she knows so much. There are so few secrets between us, so little about me that is hidden to her.
What if all the blog readers are impressed but my wife is entirely unimpressed? There are many pastors who are loved all around the world but who have earned very little respect in their own church. There are many men who are admired far and wide but whose wife and children struggle to find any reason to respect them.
And here is what I have been grappling with over the past couple of weeks: What a tragedy it would be if at the end of my life there were 70,000 people who thought I was one thing and one person, my wife, who knew I was something or someone very different. This is a surprising relevation from the life of A.W. Tozer. Other examples abound. The history of the church is full of them. His church loved him, his wife did not. The multitudes thought he was godly, his family knew better.
My heart is sinful. My strength is weak. And already I feel the pull to care more for the many than for the few, to seek to be impressive to the many while being indifferent to the few. That pull must grow exponentially as the many becomes the very many. I feel for the men who are given a great platform and great popularity. The greater the crowds, the more difficult it must be to remain faithful to the few—the few who matter most.
I’m grateful to know God and to be known by God. God knows me better than I know myself. He knows not just what I do, but what I think, not just my actions but even the hidden motives behind them. He knows things about me that I can only guess at. And through his Word he wants to speak to me, he wants to lay my heart bare, he wants to tell me who I am and who I must serve. He is trustworthy, he is kind, he is loving, he is unimpressed. He seeks his own glory through me. I can see that he is my only hope.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (31)
A-FREAKIN-MEN!
Tim,
Thanks for the frank reminder that we need to sweep around our own door before we seek to impress others. I was reminded of some of the same things by reading Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals. Though he doesn’t report on Christians, for the most part, he shows how many of history’s most respected intellectuals were terribly unsuccessful at caring for those in their own homes.
Tim, you hit so many things in this article with a velvet hammer. It made me appreciate my local church, my wife, and the grace of God more—and myself less. Thanks for writing it.
& i’m glad to be 1 of the 70k
Sorry not to comment on the emotional stuff but thanks for being honest. What is the country breakdown of your visitors, how many international visitors compared to American ones?
Wise words Tim.
Tim, thank you so much for this post. I think it is powerful truth from a pastors’ perspective, but it is truth for all of us. I think that the internet is such an amazing tool for inflating our pride. I am a “mommy blogger” and I can relate so much to your words. It is so tempting for me to click on the “site stats” button multiple times a day to see how many people are reading my blog. I love affirmation, and numbers are a quick fix. I had over 400 hits this week on a post, and I was giddy.
But like you said, what if my readers really knew all the truth? That there have been days where I am clicking away at the keyboard while at 11am my kids are still in their pajamas, watching their third hour of the Disney Channel, having long grown tired of trying to get mommy’s attention.I know of much more “successful” mommy bloggers who somehow tweet and blog all day long while their many children do what?
I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking a machine and people on a screen are more important to me than them. So I have a new habit; I will shut my computer down in a few minutes, and it won’t come back on until late this afternoon. I am a much better mama, wife and homemaker that way.Site stats mean nothing if my home is in disarray.Thank you for the reminder!
For a moment I thought, “I don’t LOVE Tim”, but then I realized I check challies.com before even my email in the morning. Obviously I need to check my heart a bit too.
Thanks for this revealing article. It, like many others, is used by the Holy Spirit to (as psalm 139 says) see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
Ok, now I am going to go tell my wife how much I love her.
z.
This really hit me:”Who am I? Who tells me who I am? Who tells me what I do well, what I’m succeeding at, what I’m failing at?”
Regardless of what we are doing - ministry, blogging, business, parenting - where does my source of fulfillment come from? Is it from my relative successes or from knowing that Jesus died on my behalf?
Awesome Tim. Now your challenge will be to capture the great feedback you get from this ;) … I am on your wavelength somehow, with your recent blog about the shallowness of social media and with this post. I just shared the same predicament on my blog, which is read by about 7 people, mine was more from the angle of ‘hypothetical’ good things that align with the affirmation of others but always seem unattainable and how to, like Christ, accept the cup that is given to us.
Christ ran away from a great thing in John 6… the people wanted to make Him King and I always can’t help but wonder what my response would have been; with the best of intention. This has been my personal journey the last few years… desiring and being frustrated with no outlet to pastor the masses, and struggling to pastor my family with integrity. Father knows best.
Here is a great exhortation from Paul Washer to young mena along these lines. It’s only 10 minutes long. Grace and peace.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=331111456445
Your post motivated me to check my own stats, something I had not done before! I’m no more impressed with myself now than I was before I read it, lol. Your post expressed many of the thoughts I’ve had to work through in life and I thank you for it. So glad that those who know us best still truly love us - wrinkles, warts and all. That’s amazing! I enjoy your blog, but hardly ever comment.
Tim,
This rings so true.”I’m grateful to know God and to be known by God. God knows me better than I know myself. He knows not just what I do, but what I think, not just my actions but even the hidden motives behind them.”
Amen.
Tim I appreciate this post! I think facebook has the same premise or any networking site. I think it is true for all of us. I do appreciate the information you put out there and your review on books are valuable to me. There is so much out there it can be hard to know what is good and not good. You have been consistent and I appreciate that. I am thankful for those that do know us best (our family, children and spouse and afew good friends) and continue to love us anyways. I know not everyone has that. I am thankful that I do and I am thankful for those that do have it. Your post brought that to my mind, so thank you for that. I guess the most important audience is the audience of one. I know my heart years for truth, do I always do what my heart yearns for…no, many times I don’t think what I am doing so I pretty much act in the flesh. I guess that is the struggle that we all share!
I continue to struggle or more like God continues to remind me why I started blogging several years ago. I wanted to communicate to the women of our church where my husband is senior pastor, teaching them God’s truth and how to live out the gospel as a wife, mother, friend, etc. Along the way others have started reading. I watch my stats too, but I still want to glorify God in my writing to those who are the closed to me…the 200. Thanks for this post and your transparency.
Great post, Tim. It’s important to check ourselves now and again… it’s also important to remain humble when the Lord checks us as well.Blessings to you.
Excellent post Tim. John Owen -like exposure of the inner workings of our hearts. How easily we look to define ourselves and our worth outside of Christ and his righteousness! Thanks for your humility and honesty.
This article is such a timely blessing for me. As I have just begun blogging, I’ve been asking myself whether I am spending more time on article writing than teaching my own children. Thank you for your honesty—just goes to show how we all need the gospel preached to us everyday!
Tim,
As always, good counsel from you. Sometimes I check the stats on my blog. Occasionally, I see hits from some unexpected places. With the tracking software I use, I’ll see a “No Referring Link” from places in which I don’t know a living soul. I think that message means that someone has directly entered the URL for the blog and didn’t come into via another path. I’m amazed that someone in Moscow or London is reading what I’ve written.
With all that said, I purposely try to keep mind that when I see such hits, I thank God that He has allowed me to be a channel of His grace to individuals that I would never have met under other conditions. May the Lord God continue to be glorified by Christian bloggers and their sites.
It’s funny that you wrote about this, because I scheduled a blog post that will be up in a couple of days with similar thoughts. Although my stats are not nearly close to 70,000, I too ponder the same questions. I too, wrote that people only see the side of me that I portray, not say that I’m lying, but there’s definitely filters when you write. We write things to encourage and teach others, while at the same time God uses those things to teach and encourage us.
Anyway, thanks for the honesty.
When I bring these concerns up, a few hear it. When you bring them up, lots of people hear it. I’m grateful for the wide audience you have, and the humility you show us.I think it’s strange that leaders of believers often see this paradox: A man lives so near to Christ and yet so far from his family. True? Is this a paradox or is it just not true?In other words, a man living close to the thrillsvilles of study - and many men know just how thrilling it is, and how it becomes so thrilling that it replaces the presence of God - is a man we say lives close to Christ. However, at the feet of Christ, we find men doing what he commands. Loving one another, loving their wives as Christ loves his church, nurturing their children with God’s word at any time of day, and all kinds of wonderful things that crowds don’t have the patience for. We find them studying as well, and studying hard, as he commands and implies with the strict warning “let not many become teachers”. I’m not a great blogger like you (yeah - I read your article on superiority and really enjoyed it - thanks!), so I’ve been rambling, I think. Here’s my question: shouldn’t someone have gone to Tozer
http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/aw-tozer-a-passion-for-god
(any confidant or close brother, anyway) and said, “God uses your studies immensely; they’re a huge help. But Tozer, I could be a huge help to people with flat tires if I leave my family forever and ride around the highways with tires and tools the rest of my life. I’d be a servant. I’d be expressing Christ’s love to others. But I’d be a lie. I don’t allow my children to stay in bed all day because they’re obeying my command to go to bed the night before. You’re still in bed. Help us less, and obey Christ more. Go love your wife and children. We’ll wait and see what Christ does through that.” I think we reason that if not for men that leave their families, the church of Christ would go unfed and unlearned, as though our academic needs trump the broader scope of the commands of Christ. I think we’d have fewer brain-lazy believers if we realized our teachers will often leave us in order to love their families. And what a beautiful adornment to the gospel - teachers observing all Christ’s commands, expressing in every walk the love of Christ, quietly rebuking the demands of crowds by saying with their lives, “Look at me. I love my family. You go and do likewise.” We can’t ignore his commands in order to teach them, no matter how greatly used we and others feel we are.
Tim,
Whether to a single person or to 70,000, the Gospel Truth is the Gospel Truth!
Luke 15:7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
And….
Luke 15:10 “… In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Give all the glory to God and shun pride with all your might! I have always admired your gospel centered sincerity and your humility! And I continue to do so. Stay the course dear brother in Christ… stay the course!
I marvel at how great men and women like R.C. Sproul, John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada and others can stand in the public spot light, preach the Truth of the Gospel, and still remain so humble. All the while giving full credit to the Giver of all good things! Soli Deo Gloria!!!
Remember the commands of our Savior:
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Mark 13:9-10 “… And the gospel must first be preached to all nations…”
You’re dong a great job Tim!
In Christ,
Dan…
Tim - it’s the guy who was rambling a comment or two back. I just want to be clear: If you continue doing what you’re doing, which is positively affecting thousands of people along with questioning your motives and searching out your pride, we’ll all be very, very grateful.A man with your humble concerns is a man worth learning from.
Tim,
This is a heartfelt, powerful post. Obviously I don’t know you well, nor will I probably ever actually meet you. But let me just say that as one of your 70,000 that follow Tim Challies the Blogger, thank you for a glimpse into your heart through this post. I can assure you I will be reflecting on what you’ve shared with us.
Thanks for all you do,Matt
Thank you for this. As a future pastor’s wife, it is a good way I can pray for my own husband, and myself as well. And also on a day for me that is one of those “extra grace required” kinda days-meaning I’m the one who needs the grace-this was an encouragement. Even in my silliness and lack of wisdom, I must look to Christ lest I despair and can only see myself.
I downloaded your book last night. You start talking about nuclear weapons and how the bomb the Russians blew up in the 60s changed everything. I don’t know that my first reaction would be to compare the advent of the digital to the bomb, but since cool things are the bomb, maybe I could be swayed.
Gracias.
Amen, Jenn.
I am going to get off now. ;)
I am kind of ridiculous. I meant to respond to one of the other comments.I know your name is Tim. And while I totally agreed with what you said, I was agreeing with Jenn, another mommy blogger.I feel a tad embarrassed. :)
Thanks for posting this Tim. I think about this often — lots of people know me from ‘afar’ or on the surface, but would my family say I’m a completely different person? I hope (& pray) that is not the case, and may the Lord continue to shape me.
TIm,I’ve been struggling through some of the same issues and was greatly encouraged by this. Keep fighting the fight!
In Christ,
Mark
You’re the most honest blogger I have ever read so far. I think this is the first comment I have made in this blog though I have read one or two articles from the past. Truly we may not know each other but thank you for allowing yourself to be used by God to write and be an encouragement to me and to the 70,000. God bless you!
Thanks :)
Tim: I would be careful about using A. W. Tozer as an example of inconsistent Christian living in regard to family and love of God. Lyle Dorsett’s book is not the last word on the subject. As commented on the *Between Two Worlds* blog other “facts” give a wider perspective.
1) In Snyder’s “In Pursuit of God” (a biography on Tozer), there is a quote from a Tozer sermon regarding his daughter: “We dedicated her formally in the church service, but she was still mine. Then the day came when I had to die to my Becky, my little Rebecca. I had to give her up and turn her over to God to take if He wanted her at any time… When I made that awful, terrible dedication I didn’t know but God would take her from me. But He didn’t… She was safer after I gave her up than she had ever been before.” (p187-188) Chapter 2 of The Pursuit of God “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing” is believed to be how Tozer came biblically to believe he must surrender his daughter to God. A father who struggles so deeply with this, it seems to me, is likely to love his daughter deeply.
2)From a website, “Tozer’s love for words also pervaded his family life. He quizzed his children on what they read and made up bedtime stories for them. “The thing I remember most about my father,” reflects his daughter Rebecca, “was those marvelous stories he would tell.”” She appears to have positive memories of her father.
3) From a website, “At the funeral his daughter Becky said something typical of what Tozer himself would have said. “I can’t feel sad; I know Dad’s happy; he’s lived for this all his life.”” This does not sound like someone who did not feel loved by her father.
Reformed blogs keep repeating Tozer’s supposed *hypocrisy* to point that it now appears to be a form of character bashing. We need to be careful when critiquing the family life of other Christian leaders.