02 Unworthy?

We live in a society and time that significantly emphasizes our outward appearance. As a young lad, my feelings were often overlooked in favor of how I presented myself.

“If you don’t smile, your face will freeze like that!”

This was a reference to my perpetual frowning, which was not well received back then. The other phrase I often heard when I was in trouble was, “Wipe that smile off your face!” Counterintuitive, don’t you think? Make up your mind, for crying out loud. No one had the presence of mind to ask, “Hey, Mark, why are you frowning? Do you not feel well?” I’m not saying they didn’t care about my feelings. It just didn’t occur to them to probe any deeper. After all, I was a kid and would eventually grow out of it, a standard response from the pediatrician.

“Doctor Smith, my son’s back seems to have some curvature.” “Oh, he will grow out of it.” I did not.

“Doctor, he doesn’t like being around other kids, he seems reclusive, he likes to read books incessantly, he won’t eat his peas, he argues with his brother…” “Oh, he will grow out of it.” Nope.

“Mark has allergic reactions and asthma.” “Oh, he will grow out of it.” Actually, I did… at the age of 40!

I was allergic to almost everything: bananas, milk, anything with milk, rye, dust, pollen, flour, tomatoes, animal dander, bird feathers, cats and dogs, and cigarette smoke. In those days, everyone smoked something: cigarettes, cigars, pipes. Marijuana and meth were not in vogue. Someone would pull out a pack of cigarettes and pass it around with a lighter. It was a rite of passage. In our home, no one stopped smoking as directed by the doctor, and we always had a dog - but no cats. In 1996, around December, my allergies completely stopped. I’m not sure why… my body changed, and I got tired of it; God healed me (this is my go-to answer)… but I don’t know. Today, we have two German Shepherd dogs and a cat that likes to climb up and perch on my lap to cuddle. While I take some precautions by not touching her and rubbing my face or eyes, it doesn’t seem to bother me. Back in the day, I could not be in the same house as a cat without sneezing, coughing, and the swelling of my eyes.

For a good part of my life, I grappled with feelings of unworthiness. It took me a while to come to terms with it and pretend to be 'normal,’ whatever that may mean. As I’ve mentioned, everyone seems to have advice on how to feel better, be better, or overcome something.

I love to read, and as a child and teen, I spent a lot of time with books, not people. Reading was where I could get lost in another life as a cowboy or star captain. In my mid-to-late teens, I began to study psychology, various religions, what makes the human experience human, and how to be happy. None of it really made a dent in my own unhappiness, and for all my reading, I had some inner, unknown, subconscious idea that if I could find the right person to be with, then I would be satisfied, if not happy. To put it bluntly, I thought someone else could make me happy, which, as you probably know, is impossible. It took a ten-year marriage, fourteen years of divorce, and another twenty-plus-year marriage to discover that my foundational idea of how to be happy was not a little but completely flawed. I’m a slow learner, and it is extremely difficult to unlearn patterns and habits ingrained from a young age.

Today, a simple Internet search on 'How do I feel worthy?' will yield you a wealth of information and advice. It’s all good advice, more or less, but I believe there's a different, perhaps even better, way.

The best way to feel worthy is to realize that you are not.

This seems counterproductive. Many people feel unworthy in different ways, and some of us spend a lot of time learning how to feel better about ourselves or our situations. Some even spend many dollars and effort on various forms of counseling. What if it were so much easier than we could imagine?

It is interesting to see how, as recorded in the Bible, Jesus turns much of what we think and believe on its head, giving a different perspective. For instance, many people are very concerned with their outward appearance, and many billions of dollars are spent annually to help make us somewhat presentable on the outside. But Jesus said, "Don't be concerned with the outward things. Instead, pay attention to the inward thoughts and intentions of the heart and mind." A very paradoxical perspective in a society where we say, put your best face forward, which intimates that we hide whatever might be inappropriate to the crowd.

Speaking of feeling unworthy, there is an often-overlooked story about the unworthy servant.

“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready, and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that, you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” ' Luke 17:7-10 h5ps:// my.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.17.7-10

Many people practice following Christ and spend their days trying to do the things outlined in the Bible. In doing at least some of these things, they feel better about themselves and may feel they have somewhat secured their place in heaven and their favor with God. However, Jesus has a different point of view, which gets us into the basic precepts of Christianity. I reserve an in-depth explanation until later.

There is something within the human psyche that has an innate need to perform, do, achieve, and keep improving. We see everything from a performance point of view. Where did you go to school, where do you live, what is your employment, and more? Christianity does not work that way. When Jesus began his ministry as a human being in what we now refer to as the Middle East, he began to tell stories that systematically turned everything we thought we knew on its head. This makes sense because if God is real, he will process information and reality differently than we do.

As we learn in other parts of the Bible, there is nothing that we can do to gain God's favor. That ship sailed away a long time ago with Adam and Eve. Now, we find ourselves stranded in a strange land where we are captivated by the rules and norms of the society around us. Suddenly, a stranger appears and tells us of a far-away place where all things are made right, and there is no more sorrow or pain. How can we get to this wonderful life? Where is it located? How can we go? This strange traveler tells us we can't find it, and then he speaks of how we can. We cannot relate. It just doesn't make any sense to our mortal minds. What can we do? What will we do? Search the almighty Google for answers to our innermost desires to be worthy?

It is so difficult to accept that there is nothing we can do or are unworthy from the get-go. After all, there must be some good in me, right? I’ve done good things in my life now and then, haven’t I? It can’t all be bad, can it? This highlights the problem I have. I am thinking from a performance point of view. God is not evaluating us on our performance. He is not evaluating us based on our faith, belief, or anything like that. He is not evaluating us as we think of evaluation.

If you want to give your child or friend a gift, do you evaluate their worth and purchase something according to that measure? Maybe you do but wouldn’t do that for someone you deeply love and respect. You would do everything possible to give them the best, most thoughtful, and most meaningful gift.

One Christmas morning, I remember sitting in front of our fireplace with my daughter and family. I was generally poor and had clearly informed my daughter that I couldn’t afford expensive gifts that year. Along with all the other things, I had recently totaled my car in an accident. Until then, I could barely afford gas to drive to work, much less replace my fifteen-year-old vehicle with another one. Fortunately, my brother had an old yellow clunker sitting in his backyard, which did run, and he let me use it. This little yellow car burned about a quart of oil daily and was somewhat embarrassing to drive because it produced a cloud of black smoke when I pressed the accelerator pedal. In traffic, I would gently coax it along to minimize the fumes. There was more than one time someone would gesture at me and command me to “get it fixed!” I couldn’t. I felt like yelling back, “Hey, donate a little cash, if you don’t mind!”

That year, my daughter really wanted this particular game, but it was more than I could afford, so she knew not even to expect it. After everyone had opened our gifts from each other, I said, “Oh, I think there is one more thing.” As she tentatively removed the wrapping paper, I’ll never forget the look on her face that morning in front of the fireplace. I can see it like it was yesterday. Shock! Awe! Some tears. She leaped, wrapping her arms around me. “Oh, Dad, how did you do this? I can’t believe it; oh my goodness, thank you so much!” I did extra work, sold some of my stuff, and did what I could to surprise her. It didn’t matter if she was good, bad, or in between. I didn’t get this gift to reward her or not get it to punish her. I desperately love her and wanted to do something extraordinary and unexpected. I think that’s what God did, does, and will continue to do for us.

We think of God as a universal traffic cop and judge, seated at his court desk, waving his gavel around and occasionally smacking us when we get out of line. But we make up that in our imagination, and Jesus took time to dispel the notion.

Do you not know and have you not heard that your heavenly father cares so much for you that each hair on your head is numbered? If you care about your own children and know how to give them good gifts, how much more capable is your heavenly father who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and created each star in the sky?

Regarding how we think about God and our worth, we generally accept the generous terms and conditions upfront and have joy in the moment but quickly forget. What are those terms and conditions? It is a gift we cannot earn or expect. However, slipping back into old habits and practices is easy, given time. There may be an understanding that we cannot do anything to make ourselves worthy of this gift, but it doesn't stop us from trying to win the favor we seemingly already have. Therefore, we have a reminder in the form of the unworthy servant who, after doing everything he should have done in the best possible way with the best possible attitude, ends up saying, "I am still unworthy; I have only done everything I could and nothing beyond."

The Bible clarifies that there is not even a glimmer of any good thing in us. No matter how much we seem to do on the positive side or how much we avoid on the negative side, it has no bearing on God because God does not evaluate us as we evaluate ourselves. In fact, God does not evaluate us at all. Despite all the apparent evaluations in the Bible, Jesus uses the laws of the Old Testament as a reference to prove that we have lost the battle before we even had a chance to begin. The rules were determined long ago, in the past, and we were not consulted as to whether we liked them or not. Thus, the analogy of the ship we imagine may transport us to a new land of happiness and joy, but unfortunately, it does not exist.

Yet, all is not lost. We can one day live in that land of joy and happiness, no pain or sorrow, but its parameters don't make much sense to our society trained brain. The gift is free; you can do nothing to earn it, but it will cost you everything. Well, that doesn't sound very free, does it? No, not really. It isn't based on your behavior or performance, but your behavior and performance are everything in living it out. Wait a minute, is it performance-based, or is it not? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be "Yes." Some people can go, and some people will not. Being outside of time and reality as we understand reality, God already knows who will and will not be included in the fortunate few.

Our society-based mind raises objections, "But that's not fair. We should get to have a choice in the matter. After all, who would turn down such an offer?" Everyone would turn down such an offer. According to the Bible, not only do we not bother to listen to it, but we couldn't hear it even if we wanted to, which we do not. Have you ever tried to tell someone something they did not want to hear? Here is a story to illustrate it.

Joe was married to a wonderful person and had four children of varying ages. One day, Joe seemed to make an arbitrary decision: he would rather not have the burden of a wonderful life with his family but would instead like to try something new with a co-worker he met a few months earlier. Joe and I had known each other for many years and were good friends, but this was very counter to Joe's personality and behavior. He somehow thought I would bless his decision to "Be Happy" and was discomfited when I did not. We had many long conversations, which always came back to Joe’s statements about how his lack of satisfaction in life was everyone else’s fault… except his.

(Joe is not the real name and represents probably at least ten people I know who did the same thing.)

I learned over time that when you make a statement to someone, and they initially agree, but after several sentences, they go back to their original complaints, they are not really listening or hearing what you are saying. In fact, at that point in time, they are quite incapable of hearing what you are saying because they don't want to listen to it or change what they want to do. Nothing you can do or say will make them want to change it. That is my experience with it, anyway.

Although this is a somewhat inadequate illustration, you have probably experienced something like it yourself where you have a conversation and can't seem to get your point across. I have to admit that I have been on both sides of the spectrum, sometimes talking and sometimes not hearing. I'm sad to say there is probably more ‘not hearing’ than talking on my part. Sometimes, we seem unable to break out of the embrace of our own thought patterns and cannot really understand what the other person is trying to communicate.

Jesus seems to understand this. He makes statements like, "Those who have ears to hear, let them hear," and, "Your ears are stopped up so that you cannot hear or understand." At one point, after Jesus told some analogical stories, his disciples asked him, “Why don’t you just say what you mean instead of speaking in riddles?” His response is taunting.

“You are permitted to understand the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but others are not. More understanding will be given to those who listen to my teaching, and they will have abundant knowledge. But for those who are not listening, even their little understanding will be taken away from them. That is why I use these parables. For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand. This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says,

‘When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes — so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. I tell you the truth: Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you saw, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear but didn’t hear it.”

I suppose the moral of the story is that if you really want to understand, you have to listen.

In conclusion, I really want you to feel worthy. Not by making yourself believe that you are but by realizing that you are not and that being worthy is a gift, not a performance. So much more could be said, but I leave it at this for now.

More About This

• There is a lot of information on the Internet about feeling worthy.

• Feeling worthy is a gift, not based on our performance. Accepting the gift changes our perspective, thinking, and demeanor, making it easier to live and love.

• Human beings are performance-based. We live and judge according to what we say and do. God does not judge our outward appearance but rather the hidden aspects of our minds and emotions.

• Our expectation of God tends to be judgmental and doling out punishment or reward based on behavior. There is evidence of that in parts of the Bible.

• Jesus does go to some length to explain God’s personality if we care to believe it.

Additional Reading

• How to cultivate a sense of unconditional self-worth

• How to Find Self-Worth: 18 Ways to See Yourself as You Are

• What is Self-Worth & How Do We Build it?

• What does the Bible say about self-worth?

• 16 Amazing Bible Verses on Self-Worth & Self-Respect