“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” — Psalm 42:1–2
Can you say with full confidence that God has brought you to a place in life where you want nothing more than for others to see His definite and conspicuous position in your heart and life?
That’s a loaded question. And it’s supposed to be.
According to Psalm 26:8, the deepest desire of our hearts should be for the Lord, and for His remembrance, renown, and fame. We should seek to live our lives so that it brings fame to our God, and not to us. In the original Hebrew, the word for “name” is shem, which means “definite and conspicuous position… honor, authority, character… fame.” So let’s rephrase the heart of that verse:
“Your definite and conspicuous position in our lives is the desire of our soul.”
That reframe changes everything. It takes the conversation out of the abstract and puts it right in the middle of how you live, how you lead, and what people actually see when they look at your life.
The Obstruction Problem
Anything else we have to offer this world reeks of rubbish, stinks of flesh, and is nothing short of putrid pride. That’s strong language, but it’s accurate. God has seen fit to allow your past pride to bring plenty of destruction around you, so that you might not forget from what “heights” you have fallen. Imperfect people have absolutely nothing to offer their peers on their own. The blind indeed cannot lead the blind through this journey called life.
But our ever faithful, unchanging, all-knowing, all-powerful God? He is more than able to lead us into all wisdom and truth. No matter what trial or fire we are facing, He is greater, He is stronger, He is with us.
And while we rest in the assurance of that truth, here’s the question that should haunt every leader: do you ever wonder if a dying world can recognize it in your life?
Have you moved yourself out of the way so that He is conspicuous to others? Have you dared to address anything that might obstruct His glorious light from shining through you? Do you love Him enough to surrender anything that hinders His glory, His definite position in your heart?
For most of us, the honest answer is complicated. We want God to be conspicuous in our lives. We really do. But we also want to be seen. We want our gifts to be noticed, our contributions to be appreciated, our leadership to be recognized. And somewhere in the tension between His glory and our glory, things get murky. Not because we consciously choose ourselves over God, but because the drift is so subtle we don’t even notice it happening.
The Leader’s Fame Problem
This is one of the most dangerous places a leader can find themselves, and one of the least talked about. The desire for personal fame in leadership rarely looks like arrogance. It looks like ambition. It looks like drive. It looks like building something significant. And on the surface, those aren’t bad things. But when the underlying motivation shifts from “His name” to “my name,” the whole thing gets poisoned at the root.
I’ve watched leaders build impressive things that had their fingerprints all over them and God’s name nowhere to be found. The church grew, the organization expanded, the numbers looked great. But the fame belonged to the leader, not the Lord. And here’s what usually happens next: when those leaders face difficulty, when the trial comes or the fire gets hot, there’s nothing underneath the structure to hold it up. Because it was built on shem all right, just the wrong one. Their name. Their position. Their fame.
Until we are ready to give up our own worldly fame and glory for the sake of His eternal glory, His position will never be as conspicuous to a dying world as it should be.
Is living for His glory enough for us? Are we fed up with our useless flesh and all the chaos it brings? Are we willing to be crucified with Christ so that we no longer live, but now only let Christ live through us?
Those questions aren’t rhetorical. They require an answer. And the answer shows up in what people see when they watch your life.
What Conspicuous Actually Means
With a little further word study, you’ll discover that the word conspicuous itself means to be easily seen or noticed, or readily visible. Is that what you want? Is your gracious, loving, powerful God easily seen in your life?
And you know what that means. Your flawed and failing flesh will have to move out of the way in order for this to become a reality.
Think about what it means for something to be conspicuous. It’s not hidden. It’s not buried. It’s not one of many things competing for attention. It’s the thing you can’t miss. It’s the first thing people notice. When God holds a conspicuous position in your life, He’s not a background detail. He’s not a footnote in your leadership story. He’s the headline. He’s the thing that defines everything else about you.
For a leader, this is both the highest calling and the hardest discipline. Because leadership by its very nature puts you in the spotlight. People watch you. They listen to you. They look to you. And in that environment, the temptation to become the conspicuous one is constant. Not in a power-hungry, ego-driven way (though that happens too), but in the quiet, almost invisible way that happens when people start giving you credit for what God is doing.
The reliable messenger understands this tension deeply. A messenger’s job is never to draw attention to themselves. A messenger’s job is to deliver the message so faithfully, so clearly, so transparently that the one who sent the message gets all the attention. When people encounter you and walk away talking about how great you are, something has gone wrong. When people encounter you and walk away talking about how great God is, that’s conspicuous.
Moving Yourself Out of the Way
So how do you actually do this? How do you move your flesh out of the way so that God becomes the conspicuous reality in your life and leadership?
It starts with an honest inventory of what you’re building fame for. Not what you say you’re building for. What you’re actually building for. When you get a compliment, where does it land? Does it pass through you to God, or does it settle in you and feed something? When your team succeeds, who gets the credit in your internal narrative? When your ministry grows, whose story do you tell?
Only the Spirit of God can empower you to live each day bowed before the throne of God, surrendered to His will and His ways. Only Christ in all His richness and grace can allow you to choose to die to your selfish ways each day so that He may shine through this earthen vessel and into a dark and dying world. This isn’t something you white-knuckle your way into. It’s something the Holy Spirit produces in you as you surrender daily, repeatedly, honestly.
And the word daily matters. This isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a posture. Every morning, the flesh wakes up wanting the spotlight again. Every day, you have to choose whose fame you’re going to build. Every decision, every conversation, every moment in front of your team is an opportunity to either obstruct God’s light or let it through.
Next Steps for the Leader Who Wants God to Be Conspicuous
Do the fame audit. This week, pay attention to where you feel the pull toward personal recognition. Not to condemn yourself, but to become aware. When you post something, who are you hoping notices? When you lead a meeting well, whose name do you want attached to the outcome? When someone praises your work, do you deflect it to God naturally or do you hold onto it? Awareness is the first step toward surrender.
Identify one obstruction and address it. What is currently blocking God’s conspicuous position in your life? Is it a pattern of self-promotion? A habit of taking credit? An unwillingness to let others shine? A pace of life that leaves no room for the Spirit to lead? Name it honestly. Then bring it to God and ask Him to help you move it out of the way. You can’t remove it in your own strength, but you can surrender it to the One who can.
Redefine success through the lens of shem. What if the measure of your leadership wasn’t how much you built, but whose name was on it? What if the goal of every sermon, every meeting, every strategic initiative was that people walked away more aware of God than they were of you? Let that standard reshape how you evaluate your own effectiveness this week.
Dive into the Word and let the Spirit expose your weakest areas. Will you choose to dive into His Word daily and allow the Holy Spirit to bring your weakest areas into His light? That’s not comfortable. But it’s the only way conspicuousness happens. The areas you refuse to let God’s light touch are the areas that will continue to obstruct His visibility through your life.
Make this your prayer. Ask God to make this your soul’s desire: “Lord, give me a definite and conspicuous position for You in my heart and life. Move me out of the way. Let people see You, not me. Let Your fame be the only thing that remains when my leadership is measured.” That’s a dangerous prayer. It will cost you something. But it will produce in you the kind of leadership that a dying world is desperate to see.
Your definite and conspicuous position in our lives is the desire of our soul. May it be so. And may the people who watch your life see it clearly.