You, my friend, are valuable. I know you want to argue that statement and tell me if only I knew you better, I’d think differently. You want to tell me all the reasons you are not. If you could, you might share those dark secrets that no one knows about that proves you’re anything but valuable. Maybe you make choices because you believe your life has little real value to anyone-so you drink more than you should; you smoke; you binge eat; you’ve developed addictions you wish you could stop; maybe you stand and look at yourself in the mirror and are disgusted by the reflection.
I know.
But, right now, right where you are, YOU ARE VALUABLE.
Your value isn’t dependent on your parents who hurt you when you were young. Your value isn’t tied to your net worth or the size of your house or the car you drive. Your value isn’t how your spouse makes you feel or doesn’t. It isn’t connected to your ability to have kids or find a significant other in life. Your value isn’t related to the choices you made in college and now try to hide. Your value is SO much more.
How do I know you’re valuable? I know because Jesus came to die for YOU. I know that you are walking amid your own storm, and you have been lied to that it’s because Jesus has forgotten and abandoned you. I know that in this storm you believe it must be God punishing you because you deserve it. I know that in this storm you feel forgotten, unseen, and alone. I know that you believe the lies that if you mattered, truly mattered, then shouldn’t things be different? Shouldn’t things be better?
Sweet friend, if I could, I’d meet you for coffee and listen to you as you recount EVERY wrong choice made, EVERY fact about your life that PROVES you are not valuable, and then, I’d give you a hug and a squeeze of the hand and share with you, Jesus.
Jesus came for YOU. He sought YOU. He loves YOU; not the perfect you or the filtered you, but He loves the real you-the one no one else knows. He sees and hears your cries. He desperately wants you to SEE and KNOW just how valuable and special you are.
Little by little, the enemy has whispered his lies to you; maybe they started when you were young and assumed those thoughts must be the truth. But you hear them now louder than ever. Lies that blame and discourage your heart. Lies that try to demonstrate misplaced value on the wrong things or encourage you to numb the hurt through choices that will ultimately bring you death. It’s been easy for you to do because why would you want to choose differently if your life isn’t worth anything. The enemy has helped you build wall after wall to separate you from the people who care most about you and told you they’re only here to remind you that you’re not ‘good enough’.
My sweet friend, my heart breaks for you and with you. While I’d love to share reason after reason WHY you’re valuable to God, can I share just one, probably unusual, story?
Mark 4:35-Mark 5:20 tells a story about Jesus driving out an army of demons from a man. The man had been possessed by the demons for a very long time. When Jesus decides to cross the lake ‘to the other side to the region of the Gerasenes’ where the demon possessed man was living among the tombs, a fierce storm developed. Mark 4:37 says:
“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.”
I wonder just how many furious squalls you’re facing? How many waves are breaking over your boat so that you fear it will go under? This storm, and yours too, are not storms meant to punish you. They’re storms meant to keep Jesus away from you. Knowing that the storms in this passage arose to prevent Jesus from reaching this demon possessed man, we read in Mark 4: 39:
“He {Jesus} got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.”
There is no one who lives near this demon possessed man that believes he is of any value. There is no one who cares about him. This man is unseen and forgotten and lives among the dead.
Mark 5:5: “Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.”
Yet, Jesus from a distance, across a large lake, stops ministering and preaching to the throngs of people with him for THIS unworthy man. In Mark 5, Jesus drives out the ‘legion’ of spirits who had been torturing this man for years.
Sweet friend, you too have spirits torturing you. No, they’re not quite like this story, but you have allowed the enemy to whisper lies for so long that you believe them and assume they are true. The enemy has tortured you for so long, that you, too, are living a life among dead things.
Can I ask you something? Do you think the enemy would go to this much trouble to send a ‘furious squall’ meant to capsize the boat Jesus is in and send a ‘legion’ of demons to torture this man if he wasn’t valuable to God? If this man didn’t have the capacity to impact countless lives for God, then WHY would the enemy go to this great length to hurt him?
If your life doesn’t have the capacity to impact countless lives for God and His kingdom, why would the enemy spend SO MUCH time and effort to keep you believing these lies? Why would he send storm after storm to try and keep you from Jesus? Tell me, do YOU try and protect things that aren’t VALUABLE?
Can I encourage you to do something? Pray. Ask God to rebuke all of the lies you’ve mistakenly believed so that you can begin to see yourself the way He does. Then read:
- Psalm 139:13-16
- Ephesians 2:4-9
- Jeremiah 29:11
- Luke 12:6-7
- Romans 5:8
- John 3:16
You ARE VALUABLE, and God has MIGHTY plans for your life! This story concludes with:
“…the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis[b] how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”
How will YOUR story end?