I struggle with self worth. Apparently it’s a HUGE issue for me. I’m not sure why. I don’t know where it came from or what may have caused it, but I put a lot of weight into what other people think of me. I also require constant validation. So when things are not good with someone, when a person is upset with me, short with me or when I know I’ve let them down and disappointed them, it eats away at me. All I want to do is make it right, to fix it, so that all is right again in my world.

The unfortunate thing is that this creates a great deal of stress for me. It causes me to be a people pleaser. Sometimes it evens causes me to sacrifice more than I should, just to make or keep someone happy with me. The thing is, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it does to a certain extent, I should try to be a decent person, treat others fairly and such. The problem is, I’m human and so are they. We’re always going to disappoint people and guess what, people are always going to disappoint us. That’s how life works when human, fallible, messed up people are in relationship.

Lately I’ve become aware that this self worth issue has affected my relationship with God. That I’ve ascribed the same limitations on God that I have on my human relationships. Believing that I have to earn God’s approval or that if things in my life are not going according to plan that I’ve somehow let God down and he’s punishing me or absent. This is pretty crappy theology. God doesn’t change, God doesn’t ebb and flow like the tide. He doesn’t have up and down days like we do. He doesn’t get stressed out and take it out on the people around Him. God doesn’t punish us when we mess up.

I think a lot of this has to do with my conservative upbringing. I remember times when the pastor would talk about God punishing us or bad things happening for a reason. I grew up knowing a very jealous, angry and vengeful God. A God just waiting for you to screw up so He could let you have it. Just waiting with his giant leather belt in the sky to lay one across your backside.

What I’ve come to realize is that this doesn’t reconcile with the God who loves so much that He gives us second chance after second chance. A God who realized the original plans of salvation weren’t working so He rewrote the book and created a new way…yet again. A God who came to earth and walked among us in the form of Jesus, who spent time with the least of us, treating them with compassion and love. The author of Psalm 139:14 even goes so far as to say that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

God loves me…unconditionally. There is nothing in my present or my past that makes me unworthy of his love. God never changes, it’s just my self perception and ascribing human characteristics to God that creates this.

If you’re reading his please know that you are enough. Please know that you are loved just the way you are. But…because God loves us so much He doesn’t want to leave us the way He finds us. He wants so much more for us. More than we could even want for ourselves.