"On the topic of obscurity and a life mostly unnoticed: most of the physical universe is almost completely obscure to us. Or for a different audience. Perhaps that is the point."
So said my beloved Uncle as he considered what I attempted in verse on the question.
And this gives cause for praise, for worship, for jubilance. Most of the life of every person is lived in relative obscurity. Most of the life of one's own mind is only partly known to him, less known to others, not at all known to most. We are obscure to our own selves.
It is curious why we want to be known, even be famous. Something about it is ingrained but I cannot trace it out to the root. We just do think - some more than others, no doubt -- that being known is good and being known on a grand scale is all the better. And because that is a fixed good, to be obscure is a fixed bad.
And yet obscurity is the lot of most persons in all of time.
This innate desire to be known is partly solved in small communities. A mother is the most important thing in the infants' world. That's fame, but the sampling size is rather small. Depth over breadth? To be sure, but most mothers still feel obscure.
But my Uncle's comment suggested something else, something like this: if we live for God in all we do we have an audience of the grandest possible scale. Nothing is obscure if done for God, for He sees all, knows the motive, loves the person for their own sake, joins in the song of glad creation that was the original genesis of every action and word.
A happy corollary is the reminder of nearly infinite bits of nature never seen by human eye. Sea-life at 20,000 feet expresses the sheer delight of their Creator and He is the only One who will ever see them. Obscure? Not at all. God Almighty delights in them.
Everyone throughout time, with extremely rare exceptions, has toiled in obscurity, their work unnoticed by all except those closest. Even if their work benefited a great many people, most never knew nor cared.
But my Uncle's point is that nothing is obscure because everything is seen by God and He is the greatest possible audience. We could put it this way, echoing Jesus.
You have two options:
- Live for this world and you get this world's reward. You will be scarcely known, all your work will be done for the here and now, and you will die.
- Live for God and you will get His reward. He will know you, all you do will be done for Him, and you will live for all eternity.
I think this is the key problem with what we call "worldliness." It is a basic orientation to this present world as our comprehensive value system. And when oriented solely to this world we get only what this world can offer. But when we invest our life with God and for His pleasure, we get all that He is. A dying world vs. an eternal God: the contrast presents a simple choice.
God offers more. I pray for the grace to walk His way and someday enter His eternal Rest.
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