SELF WORTH

If you were to answer honestly, where would you say your sense of self-worth comes from? Does it come from social media which consistently bombards us with images or expectations of what we should be like? Does it come from bullying in the past, the results of which have somehow cemented themselves into your psyche and still affect you daily? Does it come from the way other people currently treat you? The job you have or what you own? What is the yardstick you use to determine your self-worth?

One of the verses I often remind my students of comes from Psalm 139: 14 -  ‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’. Taken to heart, it indicates that when we were created, God was very thoughtful and deliberate in the way He created each one of us and it includes a sense of the creating being holy work. He took his time, thought a lot, and carefully made us in the way of His choosing. 

So then, if God chose to make us this way, and God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18,) why do we give so much credence to the other sources of so-called self-worth in our lives?

Our yardstick needs to be truth and only God is truth. God also says that we are made in His image (Genesis 1:27). Taken to heart, that means we have the ability to reflect God, to show others a little of what God is like. But how can we do that when our self-worth is based on what the ‘world’ says or thinks about us. No matter our failings, shortcomings or our perception of what we should be like, the truth is irrefutable: we are made fearfully and wonderfully in Gods image. Let this be the yardstick by which we measure our self-worth and the yardstick by which we live our lives.

Who we are today may have been shaped by things in our past, but our future need not to be a continuation of that. Taking hold of God’s truth about us and reflecting on that regularly is the best way to lift your self-worth, not in a prideful or boasting way, but in a way that that helps us to realise that no matter what, we are highly valuable and highly valued.