Determining Your Value

For a long time being in a room with people that seemed more powerful than me would produce a reaction inside me that I didn't like.  I would feel really small, like I didn't belong in that room.  I would typically be very quiet and only speak when spoken to.  Usually I would try to avoid eye contact with people and would be very glad when the meeting was over.  I'm not exactly sure when this changed for me, but I find myself in a different place now.  I don't feel intimidated in this circumstance anymore because I'm finally beginning to discover who I am.  Instead of acting out of who I thought I should be, I started just focusing on being myself.  Maybe Stuart Smalley (of Saturday Night Live fame) was right "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and gosh darn it people like me!"  Seriously, it's amazing how much the value we place on ourselves is determined by the value people have for us.  This is so backwards.  Your value is found in you.   I see so many people that are so concerned about who they are to others that they never really discover who they really are.  Even when they are so gifted and talented they don't see it.  On my way to church last night I felt the presence of the Lord so strongly in my car.  I heard him say "You are the pearl of great price, I sold everything to buy you!  Your worth isn't determined by the people around you; it's determined by the price it cost to buy you back!"  I was absolutely floored!  I have have always looked at the story of the pearl of great price in Matthew 13 as our responsibility in the Kingdom.  If we want to have the Kingdom we have to sell all that we have to get this most precious pearl.  I've never looked at it from God's perspective.  He literally bankrupted Heaven by giving us Jesus, so that he could purchase our freedom.  This story is about what the Kingdom looks like.  He really wants us to know how valuable we are.  So many of us determine our value by our failures.  By who we aren't instead of by who we are.  God looks at us and says even in your most rebellious state I choose you!  You are so precious that I would give everything to get you back.  That should change the way we see ourselves.  You may need to remind yourself of this a few times.  You are the pearl of great price because God saw your potential and it was worth it to give His son for you!

That's the View from Here...