Here are some ideas to seed your thinking and help spark your creativity about establishing your own ways of learning to live with obscurity as Jesus did.

1. Do a postmortem on a season of obscurity, wilderness, and anonymity that you've experienced in the past. Ask yourself the three questions following this paragraph. Journal your responses, and get together with a few of your friends, asking them to do the same; then share your experiences. See what common ground might surface among you for insights, lessons, and encouragement.

  a. What do you think God was up to in your season of obscurity?

  b. What lessons did you gain from this time?

  c. What honest feelings surfaced in this time about God, yourself, friends, and your faith?

2. A sabbatical is an extended time of being unplugged and unavailable and ceasing from your routine and normal life. It can be a week, a month, a quarter of a year, or longer. If you were to plan your own sabbatical right now, what would you see yourself doing and not doing? Where would you be? What resources would you take with you? Could you make this happen in the next phase of your life? Why or why not?

3. Read Shelley Trebesch's Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of a Leader with your group or class and plan a time to share your insights and observations.

4. What are some creative ways that you can be secluded for a while? Take a week and unplug yourself from technology and people and be alone with God. Or consider a twenty-four-hour silent retreat with a few friends but be careful to remain totally silent during the time. At the end come together and share your insights and feelings about the experience. Try it for longer and see what happens.

5. Interview someone you know who has experienced an extended time of wilderness and anonymity. Ask the person what he or she learned. Find out what the person found valuable and what he or she regretted. What did the person learn about God after that time?

6. Read a biography of someone who has written about an experience of isolation. See what insights you can glean from the person's experience and how his or her story can inform your own.