To Love Someone, You Must Show Them Their Worth
Hey friends - we are doing a hard thing...changing! For almost 20 years
Teresa has written a daily blog post. Ten years ago Scott came onboard -
happy tenth anniversary Scott McBean - and we divvied up the duties. 365
posts is a lot of posts...even divided by two. For 2022 we're going to
switch to a weekly post. Maybe this change will make it easier to commit
to reading them; we certainly hope it will make it a bit easier to
produce them!
To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth, and their
importance.
~ Jean Varnier
For Christmas I bought my grandson, Christian, a Happy Journal. Together
we are taking it one page at a time. The first page was entitled, "All
About Me" and the journal-er was encouraged to circle the attributes
that applied to them. There are a bunch of options all sprinkled over
two pages: Funny. Creative. Sporty. Resilient. Loving. Kind. Go-getter.
You get the picture. He circled them ALL.
Occasionally we paused and defined a term. He asked what resilient meant. I provided a definition. He circled it saying, "Sometimes I try things that do not work; I keep
trying anyway." (I could hear his mother's voice as he repeated this
mantra to himself.) The page had NO troubling or negative attributes - just beautiful
character traits worthy of inspiration.
What I noticed is that Christian, at age five, shows no reluctance to
give himself credit for being a decent human being. For example, one of
the words was "excitable." When I defined and he circled, he also
commentated. "Meme, I get excitable when it is time to leave your
house!" SOME might call this excitability a temper tantrum or freak out.
But not Christian. Christian called it "excitable." I can only pray that
my grandchildren always get "excitable" when faced with the sad news of
having to leave their Meme/Pops.
Remember the story of the rich man who came to Jesus in Mark 10 and
asked him how he could inherit eternal life? We love to judge him,
right? When he sets out his credentials to Jesus saying, "Teacher, I
have kept all these [commandments] since my youth." I could not possibly
be the only human that reacts with an eye roll and a "Yeah, right"
response.
NO ONE believes this guy, do we? We can dress it up and say
that theologically this is impossible, we can quote, "All have sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:23) and feel ok about
our skepticism, right? But the sad truth is, our child-like confidence
often gets worn down, leaving us a bit too cynical and skeptical for our
own good. We may dress up our judgment and call it healthy skepticism,
but let's face it - I/we are judging the guy.
But here's the thing, and it is a really important thing. Through the
eyes of Jesus, the scriptures are crystal clear and we MUST NOT skip
these few words also found in Mark 10 because they hold so much truth.
After the rich young man presents his resume, here is what is recorded
in verse 21: "Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said..." Again, most
of us jump to what Jesus says next. But we will never understand what
Jesus is saying (and apply it appropriately in our own lives) until we
first notice what Jesus sees.
Jesus looks at this young man and he loves him. All the translations say
pretty much the exact same thing. The Amplified Bible 'amplifies' it by
saying, "Jesus felt a love (high regard, compassion) for him." This is
what Jesus sees. This is how he sees you. And me. And even our neighbor
who never rakes his leaves.
Whether or not you are a resolution maker, my prayer for us all is that
we follow Jesus this year by doing two things: 1. Find our childhood
enthusiasm for our inherent worth and 2. Enjoy knowing that Jesus never
lost sight of us, even if we forgot our own value. What could you do to
practice remembering this for 2022? Tattoo? Wall art? Journal about it?
Set a reminder on your phone or organization app? Do whatever it takes
to remember how Jesus SEES so that we an all get better at practicing
what Jesus wants us to DO!
