Sometimes it
doesn’t take much for us to start beating up on ourselves. Generally we have
disappointed someone else or ourselves. We didn’t come up to expectations. We
didn’t meet the standard. We didn’t succeed when we felt we should have. We
just blew it.
Anytime we
compare ourselves to others we will meet situations in which we come out on the
short end of the deal. Someone else is more gifted, has more material
resources, more opportunities for advancement, more success in school or on the
job, etc. When we focus on this attitude long enough, the dark cloud of
depression settles upon us and the sense of worthlessness begins to overwhelm
us.
We must
avoid the other extreme as well. We will always find someone who has less going
for them than we do. When we allow that perception to dominate our thinking,
then it is prideful arrogance that will make life miserable for us and everyone
around us.
In this
writing, however, it is the former situation that is my focus. Every individual
has a personal value that cannot be compared to that of another. No matter how
good life looks for someone else, we each have something special in our favor.
It may not be obvious to the world, but that superlative value is within us
nonetheless.
Forces that
would make us think less of ourselves are all around us. They may be as spirit
quenching as that coworker who gets the promotion. We would like to have had it,
but we also recognize that other individual’s educational achievements, work
habits, and general office skills. They deserved it and you didn’t! Now there
is no way for you to catch up or gain the needed requirements for the next
promotion. Your sense of worth just got shot down.
Maybe you
feel that sense of worthlessness in relationships with others, especially with
members of the opposite sex. You’re not tall enough. You’re too tall. You weigh
too much or not enough. You don’t have the right physique or personality. You
don’t have the needed conversational skills or talents that will impress
someone special. Your job is nothing to brag about and your income certainly
won’t let you share pictures of world cruises you have taken. You see nothing
about yourself that would make you have value or be appreciated in the eyes of
others.
There are
those people who always seem to have it all together. They are the most
creative. They are the ones who can outline the challenge, describe the
solution, and identify all the necessary resources in one meeting. Everyone is
impressed, including you, and in the process you tell yourself you could never
have thought of all those details. You have nothing to add to the meeting or
even life.
We will
always find someone who is better at whatever we want to do. If they are not
present now, they will come along. We know they will and we question our own
value and role around such people. What we think we are worth gets smaller and
smaller.
Then Jesus
comes along and tells us what we are worth in the eyes of God and that lasts
for eternity.
Mat
10:29-31 For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls
to the ground without your Father's consent. As for you, even the hairs of your
head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than
many sparrows!
God sees
you. God knows you. God cares about you. When you don’t think you have much
value, God knows you are very valuable. When those others around you cannot see
the value in you, God knows it is there. When you don’t live up to your
expectations or the expectations of others, God still thinks you are worth the
price he paid to make you his own, the life of his Son. Our value is obvious in
the eyes of God, and he thinks each of us is uniquely special.
