Sacred obscurity

“A voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord.’”

This verse leveled me one day for reasons I still do not understand. I heard it in a song and became completely undone for the rest of the day into the following one. Frankly, deep inside, I still haven’t regained my composure now years later. So let me speak to you about something pertaining to it.

How is your life going? Are you seeing progress in your journey? Are you fulfilled? Are you striving successfully towards your goals and aspirations? Are you living in your purpose?

Here is the real foundational question to all of these: Do people know about what’s going on in your life? IF so, why?

An obscure holy man wades into an ankle deep, bone chilling mountain stream proclaiming to those about him that the realm above the empire of all humanity is about to show up and, despite what you think it will look like, you’ll be wrong. Those who want to experience this new realm will need to come into the water with him and be immersed into the ice-cold shock of a new thought running over your body. Only then will you be prepared to what the divine realm is about to produce.

The wilderness is filled with three types of people. The first are the lost. They have no clue why they’re there or even how they got there. No one likes the feeling of being lost, let alone thinking that there is a purpose for it, but that is for later. Back in the day when I was growing up, I had a few occasions where I got lost from my parents in the department store. Instinctually, after looking around for them for a few minutes, I went back out to the car to sit and wait for them to show up, which they always did. Sometimes you have to go back to what brought you to your lost-ness to be found, again. (That piece of advice is free and might be what your negative answers were searching for.)

The second type of people in the wilderness are people going through it. Unfamiliar terrain doesn’t phase them because they’re focused on arriving at a destination. They’re the kind of people who can drive for hours through the most scenic places on the planet and once they arrive at their destination, can’t even describe the beauty they have been through. Think of snowplows and you’ve got their attitude and drive firmly fixed in your mind. People often follow them, but just don’t try to pass them.

The last type of person is the least found. Those who stay in the wilderness, obscure on purpose. These are people who listen to the faint whispers of the wind and know what it is saying. They are one with the environment and move according to its rhythm. They embrace the fact that they must be sought out to be found for a relationship. They are not encumbered by anything that bounds the wilderness but live in abounding fullness every moment.

A holy man in the wilderness proclaims that the lamb of God has arrived – in the wilderness. A king would appear in his regal garb in the place where subjects would exalt him; that’s what kings do. Carpenters would appear where the work of constructing or repairing is needed; that’s what carpenters do. Moves of God using world changing people with large agendas and small recognition appear always in the wilderness, equal with God, but taking on the form of a servant, humbled by the truth of who they are in God’s eyes and heart, and obedient to their calling to be obscure to the least of these, our brethren.

If your answer to my foundational question is yes, people know about it, I’d ask your then, are you blowing through life? There is sacredness in being obscure while doing good. Accolades are good to have, but matters of the heart, aren’t measured by goals accomplished, but by a simple statement: This is my son in who I am well pleased. There is not a chill in that thought at all.