Don’t Underestimate Your Value

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Too often, instead of listening to God tell us who we are, we believe what our parents, teachers, and other significant people have said about us. “You’ll never amount to anything!” may have been meant as a challenge to encourage us to strive for our full potential, but the child in us absorbed it literally. The words destroyed our self-image, our personal value. Intellectually, we may have disagreed with the assessments of others, but deep inside, where the child blindly trusts those in authority, the child’s interpretation of the words has taken root.

These falsehoods need to be erased by the power of God, and replaced with His words. If you were to make two lists, one naming your faults and the other naming your good points, the fault category would be longer, wouldn’t it? This is the way most people view themselves after a lifetime of being defined by others. However, this is not the way God sees you; if it were, He would never call you to ministry. Ministries are not built on faults. Yes, God uses our weaknesses, but not as the foundation of the mission to which He calls us. If He did, our ministries would collapse when times got shaky, like a house on a fault-line during an earthquake. Rather, God bases our ministries on all that is good in us. How much time have you spent examining what is good in you — and believing it? Let God teach you about how much He values you!

God Esteems You Highly!

God knows us exactly and intimately. We don’t. Rather than assume we are so bad, so ugly, or so unlikely to be extraordinary servants of God, we need to take time to listen to Him describe who we really are. We need to ask Him to remove the blinders of low self-esteem. Low self-esteem says that we are far from being who we’re supposed to be. It also says that we will never get there. God, though, esteems us highly, as it is written in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His love for us this way: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Yes, we have sinned. Yes, we are far from perfect. But the moment we chose to believe in the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus, God esteemed us so highly that He called us saints!

Do you think of yourself as a saint? St. Paul said that all who are loved by God are saints (Romans 1:7). Both the Old and New Testaments refer to the people of God as saints. Accept the fact that this is how God sees you. Begin to see yourself that way! To continue to live with low self-esteem is like telling God, “You’re wrong about me.” How dare we contradict God? He says, “As for the saints on earth, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3).

This WordByte is also available as part of the e-book Knowing God’s Will and Doing it Well, published by Catholic Digital Resources.