My value, Your value

Sometimes I have moments where I just look back at my life. I analyze every moment, I replay certain scenes, I relive certain feelings. I think about the wrongs people did to me, and what it made me believe about them, about myself, about the world. I can see now that so often I believed what people did to me, or against me, was because of me. People hurt me because of some flaw in me. Friends mistreated me because I wasn't important, I didn't feel loved by my family because I simply wasn't lovable, guys didn't like me because there wasn't much to like. I thought my value came from how people treated me, or what they thought of me.

So I tried to create value for myself by being pretty, funny, smart, likable,charming, easy going, carefree, the life of the party.

But when your value is based off of people, it can never be constant. It's always changing, and you're always scrambling, adjusting, apologizing, seeking. There are so many people to please it gets exhausting. What someone has to say about you can shatter everything you have tried to build and sustain. Living life becomes like drifting in the ocean, trying to keep your head above water, never knowing when the next big wave will knock you back under.

At some point you get tired of living like that. I got tired. I got tired of caring whether a guy thought I was worthy of his attention or not. I got tired of worrying about what random people thought about my life or my decisions. I got tired of holding back on who I was, in fear of how people would receive me.

So in tears one day I just cried out. God why do I care? Why do I find value in these things? Why can't I find my value in you? People can tell me I'm valued, but I have to believe it. You have to show me, you have to make me believe. I need to feel it in my soul, in my depths, in the broken places that cry out for understanding.

"The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep." Genesis 1:2

Mikela, in the darkness, I had a vision of you.  His words were so clear.

I knew the mistakes you would make. I knew how many times you would reject me and run the opposite way.I made you anyway. You were worth it to me. That's what makes you valuable, not your gifts, talents, personality, failures or successes. None of that matters. You matter.

Before the world was formed he had a vision of me. He saw me, all of me. He knit me in my mothers womb. He literally tied the fabrics of my life together. He knows me inside and out. My failures are of no surprise to him. My successes are of no consequence. He is neither impressed nor distraught over either. He made me. He knew the choices I would make, the mistakes. And I was still worth it.

You know what God thought I was worth. A perfect sacrifice. I was a captive, a prisoner in this world, a slave to my sin. And God paid my ransom with Jesus. That's what I'm worth. I'm worth someone who lived a perfect life. That was an equal exchange in God's eyes. He sacrificed his son so I could become a daughter. He bought me. He paid a price, the ultimate price, his only Son, to make me his daughter.

That's where my value comes from, the fact that I am his. I am his daughter. I am a daughter of the king. Made in his image. Revealing something about his amazing character only I can. And I have been forgiven, completely, in full. And that doesn't change. It can't change. Because he's not changing. It says he is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is seated on his throne. Good days, bad days, after compliments or criticism, after love, or heartbreak. He remains King. So my identity as a daughter of the creator of the world can't change.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." Jeremiah 31:3

So I can handle all life throws at me because I know where my identity is. People don't mistreat me because of who I am. They mistreat me because they are lost and that is what lost people do. They operate out of sin and brokenness. They live selfishly and self-servingly. Until they know Christ, they are under the reign and rule of Satan because he has temporary authority over the earth. And Satan longs to see us broken and destroyed. He lies, he is the deceiver. He wants us to doubt our identity, our value. He wants us to forget who God said we were, what God showed us we were worth, and walk us back into the prison we were in before. But.....

"...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."- 2 Corinthians 3:17

God set us free. So we can choose to go back into the darkness, believe the lies Satan tells us about who we are and what were worth. But we are the ones chaining ourselves there. The jail door has already been open. I've been there. I've sat in my jail cell chained to the very things that only brought me brokenness, staring at the open door, wanting to believe that these chains weren't that bad, telling myself they brought me happiness sometimes. Those cell walls were all I ever knew. They seemed comfortable and safe. But light peeks through the open door, and God tenderly calls your forward, softly reminding you of you're worth. But its a choice. It's not an easy choice, but its a choice. He can't make it for you, but hes provided a way. I can't make it for you, but I can point you to the fact he's made a way. And I honestly think it stems from whether or not you think you are more valuable than darkness and brokenness.

He created us for freedom, and light. Not bondage and darkness. He created us for light because he is light.

"This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." 1 John 5-7

We were not adopted to be put back in darkness, to believe old lies, to seek value in the world and the people in it. We were created with value and with a purpose. I wasn't created as an after thought. I was intentional. He has a plan for my life, a purpose. A much bigger purpose than going to school, having friends, getting a job, starting a family, or just being happy.

He created me to delight in me, for me to delight in him, and to bring the lost back to him, like he brought me back, so he can delight in them, and they can delight in him. It's this wonderful life giving cycle that I get to be apart of. And its beautiful, and its complicated. And its as easy as it sounds, and as hard as it seems. Will we believe our worth and have faith to leave the old behind and walk forward in faith? Because he's waiting. He's ready to cleanse you of your past, your mistakes, to trade your sorrows for joy, to show you freedom.

"For the Lord has ransomed [you] and has redeemed [you] from hands too strong for [you]...
I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them and give them gladness for sorrow...
I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. And they shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them."- Jeremiah 31:11,13 , 33:8-9