The world is telling me I need to find myself and the gospel tells me I need to lose myself. I know who to believe, but it is hard in the day to day, the seeking and finding, the doing and being. It is hard to remember to be lost. To not need to be found.
To not need to be found.
The bible teaches that the last will be first, that the least is the most, and I don't care much about being most or first, but I care about being known.
I care about existing. Being. And being known.
Joy is tangible and everywhere if I am looking for it, and so I do. But the opportunity to be known is scarce and I am scared because of that. I worry little about little, but I worry much about the possibility that no one will ever delve into my soul, pick around, ask the right questions, leave me speechless, unable to articulate a defense or diatribe. I care too much that no one cares enough.
When I was small and the bible was only a book of wicked stories about prostitutes and lion mouths and genocide I would snicker at all the knowing that was going on between men and women. I didn't know the significance of that sort of knowing, but I knew it was hushed and quiet, a secretive sort of knowing that resulted in pages of genealogies.
I worry that I will never be known like that, that my genealogy stops with me.
Enoch walked with God and then He was no more. Another story that left me questioning. But one thing was certain, God knew him. He knew God. They knew each other. They were companions and friends.
Moving a lot teaches me one thing and I learn it over and over and over: being known isn't as important as I think it is; being unknown is far more important.
The world says to search for significance. God says seek insignificance and find my only significance in Him.
Relinquish the mere possibility of ever being known. Walk with God. Be no more.
I wonder sometimes if the reason it was phrased that way, "then he was no more," is because God was trying to teach us even then about being less, decreasing, emptying, walking with God and becoming less, not more.
Someone tells me yesterday that even now, in my short time here, I have made an impact on lives. I stare back at her, still feeling so unknown, insignificant, unimportant in this land of people with plans and lives and schedules. "You know people," she says. "You know them. So many of them. That matters."
I wonder if we find significance, if we are only truly known, when we become less, unknown. When mattering is less about being someone, and more about being no one. When we're not defined by dreams or genealogies, but by how significantly we loved and knew.
Is that what matters?
