Gold and Dust

A few posts back, I wrote You matter more than you deserve or more than you SHOULD and I'll get back to that - so I'm getting back to that. :)

What am I worth?

I doubt that ethics can answer that. Nor can science. Science tells me what substances I'm made of, how my body works, how I'm put together and how I came to be, biologically. That is amazing! :) - the insight science gives us is incredible....but it doesn't sufficiently answer the question that penetrates us maybe all our lives: Who am I?

Some people - especially believers - tend to go for the quick, easy (and thus highly aggravating) answers. Empty words that don't really make an identity, more like already provide a whole check-list of things you're obliged to do now that you know who you are. It isn't an easy question. But I think it's important to look at in in depth. Because the question itself comes from our depths. We don't need it answered to physically survive, but we thirst for an answer to somehow make our life inside. And everyone answers this question - even when saying I don't really know. You've got a concept in your head of who you are.

I am a coincidence.

I am precious.

I am a miracle.

I am a mistake.

I am here because nature put me together.

I am here for a reason....

Some answers may seem more attractive, some more putting off than others. But there is an answer that everyone finds for themselves. Even when it's not really satisfying.... 

Let us love him, because he has loved us first. 1st John 4,19

I am convinced (and science even supports this) to have a stable identity or an identity at all, a human being needs to know that they're loved. The problem is that there is no actual love on earth. Friends, family, wherever you turn - love breaks. All the time.. among people of all beliefs, of the most exemplary behaviour.... Somehow love, the way we wish it was, doesn't get to us. And what's worse, as a natural result, so many feel unloved. They don't see any real love coming their way. At least not the way or the AMOUNT they feel they need... I know that feeling to be honest....relationships can be SO unsatisfying. Judging only by what we see and experience in life, I guess it's true that we all are very unloved. Not objectively. Sure, we have friends and yeah, people care about us. But it's not enough. And it's not selfish or demanding to say I don't get enough love...actually....of course you don't. Only a tiny part of what you are able to receive is ever touched

- and we all feel that.

To be confident, to know who you are, you need to be SURE that you are loved with a love BIGGER than the emptiness inside you.

The question who am I? has many answers, but it can also be answered in few words with the greatest impact.

You are God's creation.

You are not an accident, nor a coincidence. Whether your parents wanted you or not, whether you have a handicap or not, whether you wanted yourself or not.... That doesn't change who you are. Because YOU my friend do not define who you are. :) And neither does any other person in your life. We LET others define us. And then we degrade ourselves down to mere nature.... I am nothing but nature.

That is actually where our acquaintance Satan comes in. God invents and shapes the heavens and the earth, the universe and every living and non-living thing in it....including us humans. We are the most precious part of creation - that's what God himself says. According to GOD, you aren't replaceable. But before you even hear that truth that makes up your identity and the foundation for everything you're gonna do and feel in life, you soak up the disgusting, permeating lies. Since Satan finds many ways and happens to be pretty smart, he makes us believe that it's actually our PRIDE that made us come up with the theory that we have WORTH, that we have DIGNITY, that we are here for a reason and have a HOPE for restoration. Yes, these statements DO fit our ego well :) but what doesn't fit is the core of this - which is often left out. That we are not precious because of who we are. You are not precious because of yourself. In yourself. You are a pile of dirt, breathing in a few years and out a few, and then going back to being dirt. The Bible doesn't deny it - As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. (Psalm 103, 15-16)
Amazing identity.
At the same time - and that is the striking counterpart - you are precious for the one who made you. AND what might sort of burst our thinking is that what gives us worth in God's eyes, what makes us loveable in God's eyes is not found in US. (yeah, highly confusing but that is important!) Your worth is only ever in HIM......The result is: without him, I cannot see my worth. But with him, my inside begins to heal, begins to understand that I am as much as HE tells me I am... The thing is, it has NOTHING to do with YOU, you can neither be proud of it, nor could you - by anything you do - change it...

I think that is AWESOME.. :))

Who I am is locked up and defined in someone else....in someone who never changes. In someone who is eternally perfect. It's as if the truth was that your  weight has nothing to do with how much you weigh, it is forever solely defined by the weight of Mount Everest, which weighs 162 trillion kilos. ...It is the mystery of the bond between God and the humans he created in his image - we not only depend on him to give us meaning and LIFE, we depend on him to even BE something.... Another point: about being precious, it does NOT only apply to you once you are in contact with God. No, that is something God gave to you the moment he thought of you. You have a treasure :) that no one can ever conquer or bring down, because it's safe. Your worth is everlasting and safe. God is the only true source of confidence. We have been loved, even before we drew our first breath...... You haven't existed ONE moment in which you were not loved beyond comprehension. That makes you precious. The LOVE poured out on you. Whether you open your arms to receive it, or not......it is poured out.

HOW this love is possible, I never understood... no, I don't know why God loves me so much. In our world things need a corresponding countervalue to actually HAVE worth....but YOU don't have that countervalue. It is in God and God alone, he stands above our financial rules and ways of thinking. :) You don't NEED a countervalue... If God speaks just one word, it is spoken, unchangeable TRUTH - because of who the speaker is. If he declares
I have loved you with an everlasting love Jeremiah 31, 3
no force in heaven or earth can shake it.
I always wanted to know what God loved about me.. I couldn't ACCEPT his love because I couldn't grasp his motives. That was because I was looking for the reasons inside me.... And I couldn't find it. But I've realized :) that everything loveable about me is HIM....That's the part of the Bible people have big trouble handling. The entire Bible. The single message of God screaming I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!.....but our hearts don't want to hear it cuz we look at ourselves and see dirt......and it does.not.make.sense.