The search for significance

Is obscurity an essential part of the search for significance? I would have to resoundingly answer yes! I read tons of blogs daily. I really enjoy the opportunity to experience people's lives; living vicariously through them as they bare their souls for the blogging world to see (that includes me mind you). I think we are all searching for some sort of significance (if that were not true, we wouldn't be thrilled to bits when complete strangers make positive comments on our blogs). As a matter of fact we wouldn't even be blogging if we didn't want people to hear what we had to say and give careful consideration to the validity of our thoughts and ideas. As someone so rightly said, if we didn't want people to visit our blogs we would just keep journals!

Obscurity is the perfect breeding ground for either humility and gratitude or bitterness. On the one hand, we can see the value of making so many of our mistakes in obscurity, and successfully navigating through them without too much fallout. On the other hand, we can become bitter about the fact that we labor and toil and seem to produce so little "fruit," comparatively speaking. The truth is though, that obscurity is the place that reveals the true nature of our hearts. We pray in obscurity because we love God and not because it is the right thing to do, or because others are watching and listening. We serve and love in obscurity because our hearts are consumed with a love for God and for people, and not because of the accolades of men who would see us serving. We endure pain and suffering in obscurity, not because we want people to see how resilient we are, not even because we have all the answers to the "curve balls" life throws at us, but because character is formed in us and demonstrated during these seasons of adversity.

I think that when we find ourselves in seasons of obscurity, we'd best embrace them and use them as a thermometer to test the "temperature" of our love for God and for people, rather than complain and moan about how unfair and difficult life is. Ultimately it is not the nature of the difficulties we face in obscurity that count, but how we navigate through them and allow them to change us. Are you being changed in obscurity?