We all have it. That one sin that somehow creeps into literally every situation imaginable, and you’re left with a choice to fall into temptation and indulge in that sin- or not to. Usually for me, it’s the former.
My go-to sin is my self-worth.
I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault that I struggle with my self worth. And I believe I have to make a conscious effort to sin in it. But I do believe that there have been factors in my life that have attributed to why I have such a hard time with myself.
I think it can be accredited a lot to my lack of a father figure. My dad left my household when I was a baby, and rarely saw him during the first sixteen years of my life. Sure, I saw him ‘every other weekend’, but not once did he show up to a choir concert, soccer game or school play. And although I regret wholeheartedly to say this, for my father’s sake, and for my own, I allowed myself to believe (contrary to what even my church had taught me), that my Heavenly father was the same way.
So I began to take a very lax approach to my relationship with God, because everything I had been shown by my example, my father pointed to a Father that might say that He loved me on the outside, but truly didn’t seem to matter so much.
And the line between truth and lies became blurrier and blurrier.
And I got to the point where I was allowing Satan to use my own voice.
It wasn’t deafening, it wasn’t ‘big’ for lack of a better term, but it was present. It was quiet, and it was lying to me.
And it’s something that God has had to deal with me lately, more than ever before.
When you attend Asbury (and you’re a female), really you’re two main jobs are to a) get married and b) go on a mission trip. That being said, I’ve obviously been thinking more and more about the day when I’ll get married- and to be completely honest, for a long time I convinced myself that that would be what cures me of my self-worth issues. That being married would fix me.
Marriage, (from what I’ve heard) is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But what God has revealed to me is that my worth cannot be defined by anything except Christ.
Everything is secondary to Him. And if I ever plan on being able to give my entire heart to a man, then I must first allow Christ to hold and cherish it.
And I can tell you that letting Christ carry the burden of my heart was the best decision I could have made for myself.
I no longer beg to know where my worth is, because I know it is found in Christ.
God repeatedly reminds us of how worth it we are. And He’s proven to me some critical points about my worth. First off, David wrote,
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
My frame was not hidden from you,
When I was made in the secret place,
Intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
In your book were written, everyone one of them,
The days that were formed for me,
When as yet there was none of them.
Coming from an ‘artist’ (I use the term lightly), when I make something, I do not hang it up in a gallery unless it is the most beautiful piece I think I’ve ever made. It’s no different with God and His creation.
But God goes further than that. Paul tells the church in his letter to the Romans that
God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinning, Christ died for us.
Now I can understand love when it’s the ‘for better’ half of the vow. But something is to be said about the love a man has for another who is willing to love them despite the fact that they clearly are not returning the gesture.
If that doesn’t make a person intrinsically have worth, then I don’t know what does.
The point is, that I am worth it. I am a daughter of the king, and I am blameless in His sight.
My beauty cannot fade.
My worth isn’t defined by anything I can do, have done, or could hope to do.
My worth comes from God’s innate desire to have me in His presence.
