Irrelevant

James 4:14, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”

Jim Spivey summed up our Iwo Jima meeting yesterday with a synopsis of our interaction. He said we were “honoring the power of our irrelevance.”

Here we are a nation with ½ of us powerless to elect “our” man. As husbands… powerless to bring true happiness to our wives. As fathers… powerless to bring true protection and provision to our children. As healers… powerless against all manner of physical pain. As ministers… powerless to relief so much emotional pain. As intelligent beings… powerless to convince even a single individual of our perceived truth. And if you dwell on this, on just how powerless you really are, of how much of a vapor you really are; then you can come to a dark place of not only feelings powerless, but insignificant as well.

Some strive against the irrelevance and fight to create their own significance. Building ego and a false sense of security doomed to be a house of glass waiting on one little pebble to shatter it all. Or you can choose an alternative. You can honor the power or your irrelevance. This power of irrelevance is what Paul spoke of in Galatians 2:20. He said, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God…” Paul came face to face with his powerlessness. He realized his efforts, his plans, his theology, his rules had no power, and promoting his ideas he was irrelevant. Yet in that coming face to face with his own irrelevance he was able to embrace the death of his powerless self, and allow Christ to come alive in him. This is what John the Baptist also experienced when he said, “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:20)

Our weaknesses become the very things that make us more dependent upon God. Our thorns in the flesh, though very uncomfortable, are there so that we can give credit where credit is due, and allow and observe the power of God moving, in, around, and through us. Our mistakes become a beautiful reminder of Christ perfection. These same mistakes close doors that our ego would have gladly opened leaving Christ behind.

Do you see?

There is no significance in being significant. There is nothing special about you if God answers all your prayers, and likewise there is nothing un-special about you if He answers none of them. Paul would argue that you can have the power to raise the dead, but if you don’t have love then you have nothing anyway. (1 Cor. 13:1) And so honoring the power of our irrelevance becomes love. In this understanding we do not seek our own; we do not become jealous because we know we are a vapor. We can be kind when no kindness is due because we do not have to have relevance. We can be patient and forgiving when we are irrelevant, and that is the power of it. To honor the power of our own irrelevance is really nothing more than to love. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” (Matt 5:3) “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt 5:8) Blessed are the irrelevant, and those who know they are irrelevant.

Finally the awareness of our irrelevance also leads to a place of designed obedience. With irrelevance comes openness to His plans, and comes a desperate hope that His instructions actually contain His power because we know our own efforts are powerless. It is in this place of true humility, or irrelevance awareness that God can use us, and where we are unconcerned whether He does or does not. Our only relevance is in Christ. And our only significance is Christ in us.