With record numbers of people out of jobs, looking for jobs, and taking whatever jobs they can find, there is a sense, a mood, a question hanging in the air, regarding our worth.
A friend feels the weight of this question as he recently took a job that requires little use of his gifts and abilities. “An idiot can do this job,” he’s said to me. “Does that make me an idiot?” No, is my answer of course, but I’m not sure he believes me. He asks this question a hundred times during his day. Sometimes he pacifies his fear, by reminding himself that this is the only job he can find right now and needs something to pay the bills. But sometimes his fear rises up like a flood, is this all that I am worth?
This question of our value hangs like a low lying fog. Where does my worth come from? What is it about my make-up that continues to scour the external world (job titles, bank accounts, degrees, assets, kids’ accomplishments) to give my internal soul value? Is it really attached to something as fleeting as a job title?
The answer, my fine feathered friends is no. I’ve written about this in a previous blog, but I feel it necessary to circle round this issue again.
My worth is tied to something much harder to grasp than by simply pointing to what I’ve achieved. It is something internal and eternal. My worth is tied to the fact that God created me in his image. He formed within my being the capacity for glory reflective of his likeness; things like goodness, forgiveness, beauty, creativity, and honesty. God likes me, has redeemed me, and is in the process of making all of me reflect all of him. He found a way for all my sin to be forgiven (wiped clean, not swept under the rug) by asking his son, Jesus, to be the final sin offering, on my behalf. I do not have to work for it, this idea of Grace, only receive it. God thinks that I am worth it, that there is something eternally beautiful going on in the inside of me, worth redeeming. He moves me in that direction. And that is what gives me my worth.
It doesn’t matter to Jesus what comes up when you google my name or who knows me or how impressive my job sounds. He cares about me, who I really am, what is going on in my heart, and how I am becoming more like him.
Last Christmas, a friend of mine went to a concert where they sang all the classic Christmas songs. She said the one that stood out the most was, O Holy Night, because of a line in the song she had never heard before. It’s highlighted below.
O holy night
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of my dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in
In sin and terror, pining
Til He appeared and my soul felt it’s worth.
This song doesn’t say, “Til I was a CEO and my soul felt it’s worth.” or “Til I had a million people read my blog and my soul felt it’s worth.”
It doesn’t say, “Til I impressed you with my job title, and my soul felt it’s worth.”
It says, “Til he appeared..”
“Til he appeared, and my soul felt it’s worth.”
My worth is tied up in the decision God made to die for me, redeem me, forgive me, love me, and free me. I hope you experience this kind worthiness. I hope, if you haven’t before, today you would start.
Happy early Christmas, everyone. I will be singing Christmas songs today. Love it if you’d join me. “O holy night…”
The State Of Cate 