Tag: loved

Value Added

What is it that you value? Your home? Your family? Your work? Your bank account? Your self? The list is probably limitless and varies from person to person. It can be strange to think of valuing our selves, but why not? We certainly aren’t value less. God has created mankind in his image. The Imago Dei. in the image of God. We are beautiful and capable and wonderfully made. We are not just a bunch of cells that dragged ourselves out of a pool of brackish water to rise to the creative humans we are today. We create, we think, we protect, we rationalize, we cry, we get angry, we feel sad, we feel overwhelming joy, we see beauty, we sing and make music. We write plays and produce films. We write songs and symphonies. We paint and we draw. We build houses and cities. All because we are made in the image of a creative and holy God, who displays emotions, love us deeply, and protects and provides. He created the sunsets, stars, mountains and flowers. And He loves all mankind deeply, beyond what we are able to perceive. He gives us grace and mercy when we don’t deserve it. He asks us to love Him and love our fellow man.

We miss so much when we don’t value others. When we don’t see others as made in the image of God. In fact, we often devalue others. We define the unborn children as mere cells and tissues. We label those with handicaps as having a less life, a less quality of life, and we often choose to judge our quality of life, or a normative life as the standard for quality of life. We believe the lies that older people are past their usefulness and aren’t worth saving when they get sick or injured. We value even less those with mental and intellectual disabilities, and in some places choose to abort babies that might have such a disability in utero. We see people as products of the flesh, of an animal nature, but we are not animals. We have the gift of self-realization and awareness, that animals do not posses. We have the ability to communicate with God and reflect Him.

Sometimes, when we aren’t feeling very valuable, we try to add value to ourselves. Maybe through a promotion at work, a new car, a larger home, a title, a college degree, a marriage, a relationship, a bigger bank account, or changing our physical appearance. But, in reality, we don’t need any of these add- ons, we are already valued and loved by God. We are not just “enough” we are more than just “enough” we are God’s beloved. – God Bless You, Nancy

Constant

Do you like change? Or do you like consistency? I admit I am torn between the two. I like to travel and visit new places, but I still resist changes to my schedule or to my comfort zone of my home town. I enjoy new shops and restaurants, but do not like to see the land cleared to make room for these new places. I like the wooded empty lots with the beautiful shade trees. I like my smaller easy to drive back roads instead of the newer widened streets with too much traffic. I like my routine, but at times I get bored and want change.

But, one thing I have learned with all the change from the past two plus years, as the world has been reeling from one crisis to another, I need some change, but also crave the known and consistent. I cannot take too much change. I feel uneasy. I feel anxious. I know the world keeps moving forward, but I need some kind of constant. Something familiar to comfort my anxiety.

It is at these times the Holy Spirit reminds me of the unchanging nature of God. He does not change. He is constant. My relationship with Him is constant. I need not fear His ever abandoning me, or leaving me to fend for myself. He holds me in the palm of His hand and no one can snatch me away. He loves me despite my errors in judgement. He has called me His child. I am His daughter.His perfect love drives out any fear.

The fear that originates in my own mind that somehow I don’t measure up. When my prayers aren’t answered in the way I want them to be answered. When He is silent. When He doesn’t seem to be listening. When He doesn’t see how all these changes to the world, my world, has made me anxious. Or when I want Him to change a situation, that He could easily change.

But then I remember to trust. He does see and know all the turmoil around me. He knows my anxious thoughts. He knows my fears and says “Fear not”. He has called me His own. His child. His sister. His friend. Not because of my goodness. Not because I am special or better than anyone else on this planet, but because He loves me, just as He loves the whole world. He sent His Son to reconcile my broken relationship with Him. He sent someone to tell me about the awesome good news, that I did not have to fear of whether or not I measured up to His standard- I don’t- but that He would take on all my missing the mark, and make payment. He loved me enough to take on my sentence and allow justice to be served. I am free of trying to pay for it myself or worrying whether I have done enough good, or whether the good outweighs the bad.

I trust Him, not myself. I am His. I am now a daughter of the King. And although my world is full of changes that make me anxious, I can relax and know He has this. All of this. He has a plan for this world that is still being worked out, that in the end will set all things straight. He is an unchanging God who knows it will all work according to His plan. -God Bless You – Nancy