What Value

This quarantine has offered an extended period of self-reflection for me.  As such, I have found myself thinking a lot about my thought process and motivations.  During the course of this quarantine process, I have been confronted with the amount of value I glean from work and "doing."  I have struggled to sit still, relax, and be present in the moment.  I find myself anxiously thinking about what I could be doing and have had to work to intentionally push these thoughts out of my head and focus on enjoying and being present in the moment.  If I'm honest, I have a tendency to equate the amount of things I get done with the amount of value I have as an individual.  Thanks to my wife, my church family, and God I am learning this is not the case.  Nevertheless, it remains one of my continual struggles.

As I have been contemplating my struggle between work and value, I found myself thinking about all the ways in which we as human beings garner value.  Work, resources, friends, popularity, and knowledge are just a few of the ways that we as people assign value to ourselves and to others.  While there is nothing wrong with being proud of our accomplishments, taking joy in our relationships, enjoying popularity, and pursuing knowledge, when these areas become the bedrock on which our self-esteem and value are built we set ourselves up for a rude awakening.

Our children, especially children entering into adolescence, are just stepping into the life-long battle for self-esteem and self-value.  Our materialistic, consumer-driven culture makes cultivating a healthy self-esteem and self-value a dauting task.  As a parent, you can help shape your child's understanding of value in two ways: your praise and pointing them to God.  

As parents, we shape our children with every action we take and every word we say, self-esteem and self-value are no exception.  Every parent praises his/her children when they succeed, when they score the winning basket, when they make the honor role, or when they make the final cut.  However, these cannot be the only times our children hear that we love them and are proud of them.  We should strive to not inadvertently communicate that our love for them and pride in them is only aroused through achievement.  Additionally, we should always reassure our children of our love and pride whenever discipline is applied.  Our children should come to understand that we value them, not for what they do, but for who they are.

We are worth more to God than we can possibly comprehend.  As parents, we should point our children to the one who loves them most.  Romans 5:1-11 expresses that Christ came to die for our sins when we were His enemies.  I find this reality inconceivable.  When willingly dies for an enemy??  Here's the kicker.  Christ died with no guarantee that you or I would choose to follow Him.  It would seem that such a high price would require some assurance of relationship acceptance on our part.  Yet Christ loves us so much that He was willing to go to the cross so that the possibility of a relationship might exist between Him and us.  That is how much He values you and me.  As parents, we must point our children towards this love.  It is on the incomprehensible love of God that we should build our understanding of value and our self-esteem, as well as that of our children.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 22, 2020 at 3:33 PM

    Very well thought out and well communicated Daniel. As a parent I found myself correcting my children more often than praising them. I am glad my wife pointed this out to me before it was too late.

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