We feel we are valuable because we are: beautiful, smart, rich, hard working, Etc. All those can be lost or taken from us. What then? Is there a truly permanent basis for our worth? Is there a reason powerful enough to cover even my blunders?

Self esteem. It affects many areas of our life both obvious and hidden. A lack of self value creates an internal atmosphere of fear and vulnerability leading us to communicate in self protective, attacking, or dishonest manners. This in turn leaves our relationships shallow and filled with conflict. According of one prolific author and therapist “There is no greater barrier to a highly effective marriage than deep-seated feelings that you are unlovable....Without the knowledge that you are lovable, your partner’s love will never seem quite real or convincing.”(1) Those feelings will even affect our ability to accept God’s love and acceptance for us. But it isn’t just therapists and counselors that see self value as critical to our life. In a nursing education text book, it is noted that “Individuals with...high self esteem are better able to...resist psychological and physical illness.” and goes on to indicate that people with low self-esteem often have very low energy levels.(2)

While the term self-esteem is well known, its exact meaning is often not. The definitions include, “Belief in one’s self”, “Self respect”3, “Satisfaction with self”(4), but the one that cuts closest to our souls and lays bare the underlying theme is “how I feel about myself”(5)

The most basic component of how I feel about myself is the amount of value I place on me. Conveniently, our modern world has, or at least advertises, numerous quick fix answers. Clairol hair color insists that the reason to buy their product is because you are worth it, or at least you will be, after you use a box of their 3 easy steps to gorgeous hair and added value. Hundreds of unhealthily thin women are paraded by us and posed as the paragons of beauty. Beauty, of course is believed to solve every problem from finding the right guy to getting the best job as well as giving you a healthy dose of the “aren’t I great!” feeling. What a bargain, all that for only the price of two delicious shakes a day and a sensible dinner! Men are told, through every advertisement imaginable, that having the right car will lead to instant romantic bliss with any one of the previously mentioned under weight, under clothed models of our dreams. In short buy and you will be happy, well liked, lucky and a very confident valuable individual.

Movies would have us believe that being a muscle popping, young, more amazing than life super hero will get you happiness, romance, and of course a huge group of adoring fans. If that isn’t a validation of value what is? Yet somehow so many of our stars of stage and screen are seriously troubled and seem to wander aimlessly from one broken relationship to the next. Even revered sports heroes see a troubling fickleness about such public adoration. The 2000 NASCAR champion Dale Jerette had this to say about people questioning his ability to repeat his performance, almost before the trophy hit his hands. “It’s human nature. We look for people to fail”(6)

But some see through the buy-it, look-it solutions to self-value and search for something a bit more substantial and less threatened by fragile public opinion or a few wrinkles. They seek success, especially as measured by the yardstick of wealth. After all, your money can still be working even after you are gone. Just note the hundreds of foundations and endowments that provide funds for life saving research and other worthy causes. As an added bonus, influence and prestige often come with wealth. Surely, having a much needed hospital named in your honor will secure your place of importance. You could even reasonably argue that you create a role model to help others toward success. And a lasting business could provide secure jobs to thousands of people. What a legacy!

But the question still nags us, somewhere deep in the seldom examined attics of our minds. What if most of the scientists are right? What if we are simply the freak products of a chance collision of atoms. An accident with no plan, purpose or use. Does helping a pointless worthless product of a dice roll add value to us; we who are results of the same roll?

What if we are somehow validated by a source outside ourselves? Would that change our seemingly hopeless situation? To illustrate the point, let’s perform what Albert Einstein called a gedanken experimenten. It is a thought experiment, one you can do in your head with your imagination. Let’s suppose that you have a worn out junk car that has far more miles behind it than in front. You finally got the promotion and accompanying raise that you have been working for, so it’s time to treat yourself to the transportation you deserve. You go down to the Lexus (or your preferred brand) dealer and ask to see the best car on the lot. You test drive it and discover it nearly lives up to those “it will change your whole life” ads and you buy it. Now you must heave your old clunker off on some unsuspecting soul unlucky enough not to afford a real car. But just about the time you put it up for sale you learn your raise is only half what you thought it was going to be. You still desperately want to keep the Lexus but clearly need more money. Consequently you raise the asking price for your old reliable friend and try to sell it for high blue book value. Inspite of numerous ads and several months, you are still stuck with old faithful and are considering the real possibility of trading in the Lexus for a Buick; they are well built cars you know! While you have determined that your old car is nearly worthless, you hoped that someone would see value in it so they would be willing to pay the amount you need. However it spite of all your ads and glowing (exaggerated) sales pitches to prospective buyers you have come to the cold realization that your old car is just that, a near worthless hunk of rusting metal. But let’s suppose that you then discover that one of the previous owners was Elvis Pressley. Then the whole picture changes, you still have an over the hill, bumpers falling off rust mobile but now it is seen, by certain people, as very valuable. It is now likely that you will make more money off the clunker than you spent on your new Lexus. The car didn’t change but somehow the value did. How? Since in objective terms the car is truly only as valuable as the amount someone is willing to pay for it, the actual value must have more to do with someone’s opinion about its value than it’s actual condition. In other words the car itself is irrelevant to it’s value, it is the value someone else, the buyer, places on it that is the measure of it’s true value. So how does this imagination experiment relate to us? We have been bought with a price, the life of the creator of the universe. It is ONLY his value of us that accurately measures our true value! Just as all the demeaning comments made by browsers didn’t diminish the car’s ultimate value so it is with us, only our buyer can set our true value, NEVER the window shoppers.

Recognizing our value as set by God has many advantages over any other measure of our worth. First, nothing on this entire earth including people or things will ever make you as valuable as Christ Himself. Only He can do that! Secondly, based on our immortal infinite God, OUR value is eternal and infinite! Christ has already written the check for your purchase and it was cashed in blood nearly two thousand years ago. It’s a done deal! “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 KJV

God’s permanent immovable love for us set our value at the cross. God’s value of us is entirely independent of everyone and everything around us. Regardless of whither or not you are as slow, bad looking, dumb, talentless or helpless as you think you are, it doesn’t matter. Just as the price of that rust pile car didn’t crumble with the fenders or take a dive with the disparaging comments, so your true value is unaffected by your success or failure. Nothing you do can change your value, which is good, since its all down hill from equaling God’s life!

You and I are equal in value to the life of God Himself regardless of how we feel or how we are treated or even how we act! When we accept Christ as our king we are princes and princesses in kingdom of infinite space and eternity; we cannot afford to forget that beyond this earth we take our thrones!

References:

1 Nancy L. Van Pelt, Highly Effective Marriage (Hagerstown: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2000), p.53

2,5 Kozier, Erb & Olivieri, Fundamentals of Nursing (Redwood City: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.,1991), p.700

3 David B Guralnik Editor in Chief, Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984) p.1292

4 Anne H Soukhanov Senior Editor, Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984), P.1058

6 John Carvalho for Crosswalk.com Sports, http://sports.crosswalk.com/auto/articles/item/1,,5141,00.htm

About the Author

Steven Baerg is 34 years old. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Work and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in preparation for working as a counselor. He is married to a wonderful and supportive wife and has a dog named Bailey. He relies on God’s power and help for inspiration and maintaining a proper focus in life.