Value

In my teens, I developed a pretty skewed perception of "self-esteem," based on what my parents believed about the subject. My mother’s misconceptions seemed to be primarily rooted in a painful incident from her school days; my dad’s misconceptions were largely in rebellion toward the hogwash that was forced on him as a school teacher: you must not give a child a bad (accurate) grade, because it will damage his or her self-esteem.

Perhaps as a result of this, the idea of self-esteem was ridiculed, and the importance of believing oneself to be valuable was totally overlooked. Since then I have, partly by means of numerous painful experiences, become convinced that our self-valuation is at the very heart of our lives, and that everything we do, for good or evil, comes out of it. If we don’t believe we are valuable, we’ll either accomplish nothing at all (what a waste!) or we’ll spend our whole lives in attempting to accomplish and thereby gain value. We’ll either let people walk all over us (why not? We have no value, and they probably do) or we’ll aggressively attempt to prove our value. All of that comes up empty sooner or later.

This morning, I became very much aware, for a few quiet moments, of the drastic differences in how we come to attach a value to ourselves. This may be largely a male/female difference, but it is a frequent topic in scripture, with no regard to gender. Am I valuable because I do something? Or am I valuable enough that someone else will do something for me?

Throughout the scriptures there is an interesting pattern that develops. We see God doing something for those He saw as valuable—and it was rarely, if ever, because of something they did. Consider that God delivered Noah from the destruction of the flood—not because Noah built an ark, either; that was just the means of salvation. Consider that God delivered Israel from Egypt. Consider that God made outrageous promises to an old, childless man. The very idea of redemption, which seems to be the theme of the entire book of Isaiah, is about purchasing something that had previously been discarded. None of the persons or groups in question became valuable by doing something; God valued them, and did something for them.

This is also at the heart of the entire concept of "grace." The law was entirely about gaining value by what you did. ‘I do well, therefore I am valuable, therefore God pays me.’ Faith, at its root, is believing that you are valuable because of what Jesus did for you. ‘I am valuable, therefore Jesus gave himself for me and God gave me an inheritance, therefore I do well.’

‘I will bless you and make you famous,’ God said to Abraham, and so showed him he was valuable by doing something for him. ‘And you will be a blessing.’

I know I have value only when I know He does for me.

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