Chesterton's Elephantine Pursuit of the Obvious

G.K. Chesterton helps us gain a better perspective on how to behold the Glory of God in the every day ordinary:

How much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theater in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.

[..] 

[Children] always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

Emphasis mine
Excerpted from Chesterton's Orthodoxy, 1924

Two points:

1. I am reminded of one of my favorite literary 'shut-down' lines, which comes from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

Ellsworth M. Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."

Howard Roark: "But I don't think of you.”

There may not be a better solution to your personal ego, whether it be too great or too small, than the revelation that most other people have no idea who you are, and if they do, they don't really care.

On the other hand...it assigns an even greater preciousness to those who know you best and most intimately. Your parents, your spouse, your children, your best friends. For them, it is testimony to the mercy of God that they DO know you and have interest in you, but not just you, but YOU, you. Who you REALLY are. And...they care about you anyway. By the same token, do you really want to learn how to love others in the way that 1 Corinthians 13 describes? Start with the premise that others don't care about you first. You will then, as Chesterton writes, be walking in a street "full of splendid strangers," with entire worlds unbeknownst to you, ready to be opened and explored. If you meet people this way, they will feel loved and valued by you.

2. God's delight in performing what we perceive to be mundane and ordinary is part of the impact of our fallen, sinful nature. The entry of sin into the world meant that our lives would be marked and that one day we will die. As such, our perception toward God's glory in all things is corrupted, not forever, but until we reach Heaven and we have new eyes to see all things the way God intended.

In another way, God's infancy, or as Chesterton states, the fact that He is younger than we, is a reflection on an idea that we can never get our human minds around - God's eternal nature. Daniel calls God "The Ancient of Days" (Daniel 7:22) in part because God predates recorded history, but God is not 'old' in the way we think of age. In fact, 'old' and 'young' are meaningless outside of any frame of reference. A one year old baby is 'young' compared to me but 'old' compared to a tsetse fly. My father is 'old' to me but not compared to the 100 year old tortoise we saw in the zoo. So it is with a God who exists outside of time. 'Young' and 'old' have no meaning, so it makes quite a bit of sense that God could perceive things through both the wisdom that age brings us as well as the joy that youth brings from perceiving things anew, and perceiving them both at the same time.