What does it mean to be obscure to you? Is obscurity something we welcome? Something we shun? To me, obscurity is unavoidable, something that isn't really all that we think it is, and it is a matter of object and quality.

Obscurity for me was, for a long time, simply not flourishing in my context. Maybe I wasn't the best writer in my school, but if I could be then I wouldn't be wallowing any longer in obscurity. If I could just lift the most, run the fastest or cross people up the best then I wouldn't be in obscurity anymore. Even moving past the immature things to the realms of our careers, our friendship circles or our academic goals, how do we see our obscurity? What is "toiling in the shadows" for us? Some relevant truths about obscurity stick out to me.

Obscurity is unavoidable.

This is a great big world we live in, but it's an even bigger universe. We feel we are obscure when we don't have the eyes, don't have the accolades or at least the thanks that we feel we need or deserve. But, in all actuality, has any celebrity ever felt totally content to only ever sell 50,000 tickets, release only one platinum album or only be in one season of a reality TV show? For that matter, has any underground band not been even a little proud of their hipster status, just as their fans are of it? Is it any secret that our fear of obscurity is like a game of Slender, running from a ghost that we always know will show up but jumping in fright every time it does? The reality is that someone will always be bigger, have more, go farther, do better or be what we wish we were in some way. Ultimately, we will always be obscure in some way.

Obscurity isn't what we think it is.

As I pointed out, in both my immature ways and in my newer, more polished adult ways, I often see obscurity as not having the notoriety that I feel I deserve and need. It's that nagging sense of irrelevancy that churns and swirls in all of us. But obscurity is not simply being in a small place, with small skills or with small attention. It's doing small things, with vain (or vainly used) skills and with shallow devotion. True obscurity is a deep hope in insignificant things for our validation, our confirmation of our purpose, meaning or destiny. You can be looked at by millions and still be in obscurity. You can be the very best and be obscure. That's because obscurity is, ultimately, not measured by people. Hence our feelings of inadequacy always piling up when compared to others.

Obscurity is a matter of object and quality.

We often feel the deception that if we can get to where they are, if we can get our social network as big as theirs, if we can achieve what they have, we'll be content. This is a lie. The logic is simple; just ask that person, the one you're striving to come alongside, how they feel about those "ahead" of them. Odds are, if they're being candid, they'll tell you they feel in over their heads, inadequate or even insignificant despite all their outward success. This is because the object and quality of our position in life is what really matters, not the quantities that we can amass. The objects we chase continue to run, and the quality of our works and our goals are often perishable, fragile or frankly just petty. We want, we desperately need whether we feel the desperation right now or not, to be able to sit with our obscurity in contentment. In finding the object and in discovering what real quality work is lies our only hope.

Everything, fundamentally, is small because all the universe is under God. The numbers, the promotions and all the capital we are trying to acquire are simply measurements less of what we have done but rather of where we are, simply scenery that will pass by on this short trip we've got. The battle to sit with my obscurity begins and ends with Christ, who wants nothing more than to say ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (English Standard Version, Matthew 25:23). True obscurity, the obscurity of having all the wrong eyes for all the wrong reasons, is not worth it, so lets put aside our obscured lenses of what it means to be valued or significant by people and come into Him who is the chief determiner of value and significance, ready to take purpose from Him who made you for it and gives it freely by grace through faith.