You’re the girl sitting alone at the lunch table. You’re the woman in the back pew. You look at your Facebook news feed and realize suddenly: you’re the only one who didn’t get invited.

Or maybe you’re the blogger with a handful of followers, the pastor with a half-empty church, or the writer who can’t get a publisher to even take one look at your manuscript.

It’s this feeling: I’m a nobody. I wow no one. Not a single soul is dazzled by me. Worse: I am completely unseen.

It’s not just women. A male friend of ours told us recently that when he’s in a group of other men, he always feels less-than. He feels he’s not as spiritual, as “successful,” or as accomplished as his peers. And it seems like no one is looking his way to seek his input in a group conversation. And he ached over it.

In the midst of it, you can feel like a complete loser.

Our culture has an answer for all of us: The Wow Factor. Wow them with your dance, your song, your voice, … even your snarkiness and your sass.

But what the world offers — apart from God — simply isn’t working.

What if we became less interested in wowing others, and more focused on being wowed by God? 

God is right there, waving His arms, saying, “Look! Look! See what I’ve made for you here? See, now, the wonder of your very own children, and the dazzling night sky, and the ruby color in the communion cup? Child, you are adored, cherished, important, and all kinds of WOW to me.”

I think now of the example of Christ, who was constantly being baited into showing off and producing the Wow for the crowd. And Jesus, again and again, asked the people around him not to tell anyone about His miracles. He asked them not to worship the Wow Factor, but to worship the God of all Wow.

“If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing.”

~ Jesus Christ

Photo from a Casting Crowns concert…

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