Yesterday I had a great discussion with my son over the use of “insignificant” in my morning sermon. I had said that people are insignificant.
OK, I’d like to qualify that statement. But more often than not, the sermon is not about what you intended to say, but what someone actually thought you said. My son felt I had said that people are not valuable, and that we have no reason to continue life if we are not significant!
I believe people are invaluable in God’s sight. Each of us is created in God’s image and for that reason alone none of us are insignificant. But, few people remain known to history after a century or a millenium of time. In that sense most of our lives will be insignificant on the scale of human history — as recorded and kept by the archives of the world (a little plug for the greater funding of archives!!).
This is a discussion that has been ongoing for years. The “royal history” which “older historians” recorded was excoriated (flayed verbally, denounced) by a new generation of historians. The “new world” of history would be about the peasant and the man on the street.
Obama was about the man on the street. And guess whose history will be recorded? The plumber or Obama? Strange way we have of remembering who is significant.
But God keeps a record that is perpetual and forever of each and every person, and God can access that record at any time.
So, you are significant in God’s eyes, but maybe not so much in the world’s eyes.