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Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.
Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them— any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Psalm 139:16-17 MSG
The true measure of our worth is our life itself. I know this is hard to believe in a prove your worth and secular society, but it is true.
When we believe we are created with intention by a master creator who is ruling the whole world in alignment with a master plan, then our very life is significant. Each person was handcrafted by the master artist, planner, and ruler for this exact time in His story. Each person is created on purpose. Each person is worthy.
That would be enough to state our value, but of course, we are so valuable to God that He does not stop there. He also thinks about us. And when He thinks about us, His thoughts are of delight and willing our good.
We are so valuable to God that He first created us and He thinks about us. This is our true measure of worth and the only measure we should be using.
It should also become our stance in the battle for our worth. We must battle against the ideas taught to us both young in life and continuing every day of our life. Because we don't get to pick the battle. We are already in it.
The entire world is filled with systems that are against the idea of being created significantly. Some of these systems may even seem good, or at least harmless. But we must remember that these systems are from our enemy and intentionally designed to keep us in bondage. Listen to what Dallas Willard says about idea systems from the world and the powers that Apostle Paul refers to in Ephesians 6:12:
"These powers and forces are spiritual agencies that work with the idea systems of evil. These systems are the main tool for dominating humanity" (Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart Daily Practice.)
Ideas or belief systems are the main tools of our enemy - yikes! This is a scary thought, but I find it so true in my daily life. This is the battle - to change our thoughts to the thoughts of God rather than the ones we learned from the world. And yes, it will be hard, but it is a battle that is worth it. And it is a battle in the war that is already won. In the end, God wins. His ways, His truth, and His life are all that will stand.
In the meantime, we must stand against the ideas that come into our minds about proving our worth every single day. Whether these ideas of proving our value are through our appearance, performance, or our possessions, they are lies. None of these things prove our value or add to it because we don't have to prove our value at all. But we must catch it at the thought level, check our core beliefs, and transform our beliefs into ones that line up with God.
We must change our core beliefs about where worth comes from to only this truth - we are created with intention by the master artist for a purpose in the grand story He is writing and He values us so much that He thinks of us often and with delight. We have nothing to prove.
Let's keep battling any other thought with this truth until our thoughts are obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5). That is how we win the war and walk in the truth of where worth truly comes from.
Live out the Truth:
This is the final week of this dive deep into Psalm 139: 13-16, but it is certainly not the end of the battle. The battle will continue daily but will lessen as we change the core belief, by catching thoughts, checking the belief, and aligning them with God's truth.
So this week, and ongoing, try to catch thoughts about your worth and ask yourself about the belief. Maybe it is a thought like one I had earlier today, "Wow, my face is aging fast. I should be worried about that and do something to fix it." The belief is that if I lose my youthful appearance, I lose some value. But, of course, that is not true. That is a worldly belief, no doubt spurred on by the enemy.
Also, continue to affirm your value with this statement or one like it: I am created with intention by the master artist for a purpose in the grand story He is writing and He values me so much that He thinks of me often with delight. I have nothing to prove.
