by erika haveman
For the past few weeks I’ve tried to get us thinking critically about beauty and value. I’ll be honest, most of my blogs are a result of two things: what God is teaching me and “social research”. While the former is easily understood the latter may need some explanation. Social research are conversations I’ve intentionally had in order to gauge people’s opinions on different subjects. Usually those subjects surround the topics most often found on my blog, of course. Some people may discount this approach, but I’ve often stumbled upon some of the wisest people with greater brilliance than I while I’ve invested myself in my social research.
When I brought up the topic of beauty vs value to a friend she had some interesting insight, something I hadn’t thought of. She suggested that if one isn’t getting their value from beauty they are probably getting it from what they do. It was a comment that shocked me only because I had never thought of it. This is why the social research is so important. You should all try it. Real, compelling conversation. I think sometimes we shy away from it because it feels vulnerable (which it can be) and we’re also afraid we won’t have time to finish the conversation (which is silly because we can just continue it later).
Anyways. Since her suggestion I started to observe that we may even find more value in ourselves by what we do over how beautiful we find ourselves.
I talked last blog about slowing down, and we can do that by dropping our fear of missing out and our people pleasing. Similarly I think we can feel our value can come from being seen (on social media) and by making ourselves indispensable to others.
When I think back a few years to when I was in youth ministry my week consisted of 36 hours of waitressing and well over 40 hours of youth ministry prep/discipleship/youth group I was easily working over 70 hours a week. Stepping into Bible school and needing to study 60+ hours a week felt like a break. However it was in the season of studying the Bible that I had lived my years in youth ministry seeking some sort of “well done” from Jesus. I thought the “well done” would only come if I proved myself valuable in some way to Him by doing all of the church and youth related things.
It’s also true of our culture that we praise those who work extra hours and commend people when their answer to “How are you?” is “busy!” Those people that are busy they must be doing something right because…well, they’re busy! And busy, according to the unspoken expectation of our culture, is to be applauded.
A friend of mine the other day posted on Instagram about how she was taking a break during her work day. Her point was simply that we need to take more moments of rest because culture is constantly telling us to GO.
I’ve done a lot of lecturing on different books of the Bible recently and clear theme I’ve seen in all of the books is that God calls those who follow Him to live opposite of their broken culture. Therefore if my culture is telling me to speed up and do more I really should be embracing Godly rest. This doesn’t equate to being lazy, but even Jesus took time away from the crowds to recharge. He did this because He knew His value didn’t come from the number of miracles He did but His value came from knowing the Father.
Like Jesus, our value also comes simply from knowing the Father, and we can know the Father through Christ. Eternal life, which isn’t some far off place but it is now, is knowing the Father (John 17:3). If for all of eternity (again, eternity being now, also) the only thing that matters is knowing Jesus than our value comes IN Him and THROUGH Him because we are His image and are supposed to do all we can in our humanness to reflect HIS nature.
Nothing about our lives should look like us; our lives should look like the Father.
Our value is Jesus. Jesus is our value. That’s it. That’s the end game, the secret answer.
The struggle comes in believing this is it and responding in kind.
Let me give you an example from my life.
Recently I was asked to be a part of some incredible things. These things included offering my ideas and dreams to a group of people who could legitimately put my vision into action or spending a weekend at a resort in Laguna Beach, CA for some business related purposes. However, there’s a lot on my plate right now. Essentially the rest of 2018 is already booked with responsibilities related to my job. It’s a good balance, though, and I wouldn’t say I’m busy. However, if I was to have said yes to these incredible opportunities – that certainly played into my skill set – I would have been not only prone to find my value in these work related things but also I would have removed my opportunities to rest. It is so much easier to make my life look like the world around me than it is to look like a kingdom we are still waiting to be brought fully into existence.
So what is it that you find your value in? How will you say no? How will you cut back? How will you rediscover your value in Jesus alone? There is a way. You won’t let people down, you’ll challenge them to evaluate their lives, too.
the rambling missionary 
