irrelevant

irrelevant
–adjective
1.not relevant; not applicable or pertinent

So many times this word seems frightening, like walking into a room of people I have never met. This word makes me shutter, like the room is too cold. Walking with bare feet subject to all the harshness of gravel, naked, exposed, and irrelevant.
We try and avoid conflict, or even contact, hiding behind a guise that displays a culturally pleasing image. We give people what they want. We feed people like children, giving them chocolate covered anything so they never taste the bitterness of reality. We relate to everything. Our middle aged men dye their hair, our women get surgery, no one wants to be outdated; no one wants to be irrelevant.
Our needs are met by relevance. Television, movies, music, fashion, everything, every industry, every person is looking for the next big thing to grab hold of, the next big thing that will make an impression. We all fall victim to this idea of being relevant. I know that I am subdued by these thoughts to often.
I feel that being relevant is important. I admit that, I also admit that more often than not it makes everything I do that much more stressful. What will this person think? What will do for me? Countless cases of selfishness all of which I am guilty.
It's not about me.
In Luke when Jesus is tempted to feed himself by turning stones into bread he rejects it saying "man does not live by bread alone but by every word from the fathers mouth." H.N. writes what a power this would be to walk through the streets and turn stones into bread, to save the lives of countless children who suffer from malnutrition or even to change the unsanitary water so they can drink. The temptation is to be relevant. The temptation is to be the hope for the people, to be what they need.
Can we say that?
Can we say that we are the cure?
That we are the help? The refuge? The strength? The hope?

Or is it our job to be still...
and know that we are irrelevant.