The Gift of Obscurity

Written By Sara Elsner

Obscurity.

If you’re still with me, you’re braver than I was even only ten years ago. I avoided that word and I feared the thought of it. Who would want that? In my BC years, I had been an approval addict. Once I became a Christ follower, I unfortunately only redirected the addiction instead of seeking freedom from it – and that was even decades before our society was SM-bitten-and- smitten by likes, followers, and thumbs-ups.

“There was pressure to perform as a woman and as a parent, pressure to “make a mark”, and lines seemed blurry about whose glory was really being sought.”

Oh, yes, I know – “He must increase, but I must decrease” – and all that. The well-read Christian woman knows this quote from John 3:30. And so did I. And in a very spiritually gutsy moment, I had bought a book entitled Obscurity, written by “Anonymous” from the bargain bookshelf of a local Christian bookstore – and then I left it lying next to my chair as if I were about to begin reading it, daring to glance at its cover now and then – in brief brave moments. To my relief, someone in my family moved the book before I ever ventured to open it.

I feared obscurity. In my young adult world where pop culture stars with Christian backgrounds were “making Jesus famous”, it was cool and common to join the well-beaten path of wanna- be-influencers – “all for the Kingdom”. There was pressure to perform as a woman and as a parent, pressure to “make a mark”, and lines seemed blurry about whose glory was really being sought.

God has both plowed and allowed some furrows in the field of my heart in the fifty-four years I have been aware of Him, and in the thirty-four years I have walked with Him. These furrows tilled in their prospective seasons have led to harvests of varying degrees of fruitfulness, but I have realized that the most fruitful have been in the allowances of famine – when I have been emptied to the end of myself. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John the Baptist said it. He said it in answer to a scorekeeper who informed him that his follower status was dipping to those of Jesus. Read John 3:26 – that’s exactly what is happening. Then read John 3:27-36 to watch this man graciously empty of himself to become whom Jesus says according to Luke 7:28, “among those born of women there is no one greater than John”. How’s that for score?

Then Jesus plows another furrow “– yet he who is least in the kingdom is greater than [John].” Oh. That’s right. Yes. That economy of heaven, where the last will be first, the greatest is the servant, life must be laid down to be found. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

No! But yes.

It was one thing to poetically consider this paradox of heaven’s scorekeeping. It was another to have it furrowed by an extra chromosome in our fourth child; furrowed by feelings of friend betrayal; furrowed by exhaustion leading to a breakdown; furrowed by my children’s wounds from friends and others who were trusted to be loving; furrowed by daily doses of feeling overwhelmed and not enough – these furrows in the field of my heart yielded a famine in me that led me to His prepared table for me.

And in those furrows, whether plowed or allowed by Him, I learned that times of famine emptied me of self-sufficiency and the fear of not being enough or having enough – whether recognition or resources. The famine born out of these furrows has supernaturally morphed into a fruitful harvest of decreasing me – and increasing Him. And I am so very content.

Obscurity is no longer dreaded. I am free to feast with unclenched hands that yield control, recognition, and the desire to be known. If you knew my battles, you would know this transition is a miracle.

But I have also realized, firsthand, some truths about obscurity.

• –  No one is obscure to the God who sees. Read all about the slave woman in Genesis 16 who named Him “the God who sees me” – the woman in the tough place without approval – the woman whom the angel of the Lord sought after when she ran away, and also blessed with his compassionate counsel.
• –  When we and the people around us decrease in size, and God increases, we are free and undistracted toward being who God created us to be. Like seeds, we germinate in seasons of obscurity as we grow into His purpose. Undistracted by fear or comparison, and directed by trust, we blossom within the furrows, into the placements He has desired for us.

Christine Caine beautifully said, “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.”

We are never left to be idle or even hide in obscurity, but to germinate and yield a harvest. Consider Moses, King David, John the Baptist, Paul the Apostle, and John the writer of Revelation, and all of their seasons of obscurity that eventually bore fruit.

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” – Psalm 16:6

It’s one of my favorite scriptures that nurture trust in any circumstance. Read all of Psalm 16. Ask God to help you enjoy the restful feast of trusting Him within the furrows of apparent obscurity. And watch Him increase.