Our worth does not come from what we do, it does not come from our past, it does not come from what other people tell us, it does not come from what other people do – our worth is only found and firmly rooted in God.
What other people do to us can affect our opinion of ourselves, what other people say to us or about us can greatly diminish how we view ourselves. Other people’s actions and words toward us plant a seed, whether good or bad. We can find ourselves starting to identify with what has been said to us or about us and what has been done to us.
We may start seeing ourselves as not good enough, or not valuable enough when that is all we hear and see from others.
When all we see from others is demeaning actions, hear criticizing tearing-down gossipy words, then that bad seed gets planted in our hearts. The bad seeds planted then start manifesting as low esteem, hopelessness, low sense of worth and value. When we feel rejected, at times we may develop pride and arrogance and people-pleasing to cover that inward insecurity. With people-pleasing, we think that we always have to say yes to other people, we start seeking validation and acceptance from others.
When people abuse us, mistreat us, criticize us, gossip and slander us, avoid us, walk away from our lives, laugh at us, treat us as outcasts, use negative degrading language towards us or when talking about us, tear us down with words or actions – when people do such things, a bad seed takes root in our hearts, a seed of a sense of low value and low esteem. We internalize what is said and done to us and with time start manifesting that bad seed.
We may even start talking low about ourselves, start treating ourselves as if we do not deserve anything good in life, start doing and saying things other people are telling us to just because we think that maybe other people are better than us and that maybe they know better than us, we may start isolating ourselves, we may end up developing defense mechanisms to try and protect ourselves from other people’s attacks.
When all people see and say is bad about us and towards us, intially we may put on the mask of people-pleasing, at times even without knowing it, then eventually we may form defenses around us, some of which may be very destructive. Pride, arrogance, anger, isolation, showing off, false humility, rudeness, egotistical attitude, trying to control other people, using people to feel good about ourselves, unhealthy dependence on others, an outer show of confidence to cover up insecurity, jealousy, envy, hatred, low esteem, and rejection – and so much more are some of the defenses people put up.
When we rely on other people and on things of this world as our source of worth and value, then our sense of worth and value will always fluctuate according to other people’s words and actions and according to the external circumstances.
Relying on fleeting things of this world ends up making our lives unstable, because the world is unstable. That is why we are to rely on the Lord, our solid Rock, immovable, unchanging, our fortress. God is our Creator. He created us in His own image and likeness.
And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. Genesis 1:26-27.
God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. Mortal people who never created us have no power at all to define our worth. God is our Creator, and in Him is our worth found and firmly rooted. He loves us with an everlasting love, and nothing can separate us from the love of God.
In the Lord, we are accepted and beloved.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerers through Him who loves us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39.
Blessings.
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