Immeasurable Worth

In this world, the worth of a person is measured in many ways. A couple of ways include a person’s accomplishments, which often can lead to comparing a person to others, and relatedly, the opinions of people. If you achieve and succeed in this life, you have worth. If others think highly of you, you have worth. Certainly, worth is measured in other ways too, but these two pervade oftentimes, and, even if not explicitly stated, these two tend to occupy our thoughts more than they should. However, living by measuring our worth in these ways will always prove futile. 

Let’s consider measuring worth by accomplishments first. Success is always fleeting, many times in the short-term, but guaranteed in the long-term. As an example, consider the professional golfer Jordan Spieth. In 2015, he burst onto the scene with two major championship wins and made a very legitimate run at the grand slam (winning all four major championships) that year. The next year, at the Master’s (the first major championship of each year), Jordan Spieth was playing great golf yet again and it looked as if he was going to add even further to his ever-expanding list of accomplishments. Unfortunately, he had a major collapse that started by hitting two balls into the water on the twelfth hole. This collapse led to him not winning the tournament and to this quote two years later as he reflected back, “Even though it was still a tremendous week and still was a really good year in 2016, that kind of haunted me and all the questioning and everything. I let it tear me down a little bit. I kind of lost a little bit of my own freedom, thoughts on who I am as a person and as a golfer.” When success was replaced with failure, some of Spieth’s worth unfortunately went with it. This shows just how fleeting success can be in the short-term and also how detrimental it can be to us as people to find our worth in our accomplishments (or lack of accomplishments).

Suppose though that Spieth had won the 2016 Master’s and then fast forward to Jordan Spieth at the age of 70. Certainly, he would be able to hang his hat on one more accomplishment, but by now, Spieth’s elite golfing talent will have surly deteriorated greatly. So, at this point, how does he define his worth? The easy answer is to measure by his myriad past accomplishments. There seems to be a measure of emptiness to this though because assessing worth by past success seems to suggest that Jordan Spieth at age 70 is worth slightly less. A tragic thought indeed. While often fleeting in the short-term, success will surely escape all in the long-run. Since we know that success will eventually leave us, we must not define our worth with success or else our worth will sadly leave, or at the very least deteriorate, too.

Next, let’s consider the related idea of getting our worth through comparison to others. So often, when people do succeed, especially on an elite level, they are faced with the added burden of being compared to others. The basketball player LeBron James is a model case. He is one of the best basketball players ever and he has achieved great heights of success on the basketball court. Unfortunately, instead of enjoying his accomplishments for their own merit, the media almost always compares James and his accomplishments to Michael Jordan. This isn’t just an issue for those more famous than most though. We all struggle with comparing ourselves to others in our own minds, and since we can’t all be the best at everything, our worth will take a hit if we use comparing as our measuring device.

A further facet to this bundle of measuring our worth through success is assigning our worth by the opinions of others. While success is fleeting, the opinions of people shift even faster. Take Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles as an example. Last February he was held in high regard by many as he had led his team to the ultimate accomplishment. Only months later though, as he struggled in the preseason, many were quick to forget his accomplishments and wondered when Carson Wentz would be back from injury and be able to replace Foles as starting quarterback. If Foles was measuring his worth by opinion (and success for that matter), his worth would have dropped a tremendous amount in a span of only months. If we measure our worth by what others think, we will almost always be on a rollercoaster, and we will surely be robbed of our peace as we think and worry about what others think of us.

We are left now to wonder how worth is truly measured. We have seen how measuring worth by success, comparison, and the opinions of others, which are all ways of assigning worth from the outside, come up terribly short. Ultimately, any way of assigning worth that is not intrinsic and transcendent will be unsatisfactory. Such worth can only be found in the God of the Bible because he not only created us but also bought us at a price. 

First, consider that fact that the God of the universe created us. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). The fact that he created us is awesome, but what really stands out is that he made us in “his own image”. While there have been debates over the years as to what exactly this means; that is, is he referring to how we look or to the fact that we have attributes like being able to love and forgive or perhaps both. I don’t think it really matters. Either way, this is a very profound statement because, not only did he create us, he also made us in a way that bears his image. A verse that I find speaks even further to the care and intricacy with which God made all of us comes in Psalm 139:13, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.” He cared deeply about the details as he created us. We all have intrinsic worth from the beginning of our lives because we were all created with care in the image of the God that loves us. 

This fact that God loves us speaks even more to just how much we are worth. Right from the beginning, we turned away from him to sin as Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden, and to this day, we all struggle with sin. Even though we turned away from him, God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and died on the cross for our sins. We were slaves to sin and he paid the ultimate price to buy us back. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). While this fact that he paid for our sins corporately is awesome, it’s great to remember too that he cares about each of us individually.

Just how much God cares for us individually is shown clearly in Luke 15:3-6. “Then Jesus told them this parable: ‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.’” This is a picture of God coming after us. He wants to seek us out individually. He wants to have a personal relationship with us. He loves us that deeply.   These facts further ascribe to us a worth that is truly amazing and truly transcendent. It’s a worth that comes from the God that loves us doing anything to find us.

Ultimately, if we gain our worth through what we achieve, in the short-term, we will be on a rollercoaster at best, or in a state of feeling that we are not worth much at worst. Even more depressing though is the fact that whatever talents we may possess will surely deteriorate in the long-run. This leaves a person in a perpetual state of hanging their hat on the past as they move into their latter years – implying less worth in the present – or feeling that worth has escaped completely with no hope of coming back. The great news though is that success and what people think of us is not where our worth lies. It is in the fact that we have intrinsic worth by being created in the image of God and transcendent worth that comes from Jesus dying on the cross for us and opening the door to being with him forever. That is immeasurable worth.