Mattering....

Psalm 8:4: What is man that You are mindful of him? And the son of man that You visit him?" (NKJV) Well, it looks like this is post #52. A year. One down and however many more God has in mind. My prayer is that just one of us would find a closer relationship with our Lord through something He has me say in these blogs. I have been on a journey for a while now, and I intend to be until I leave to be with Him. I can always learn more, be closer. And I am amazed, privileged, and honored to have you with me. It appears we will be working with FEAR for a few weeks. I capitalize because it is such a huge factor in all of our lives. Even though we frequently don't call it what it is, fear follows us everywhere we go. We may label it as concern, interest, love, or just good parenting, but many times it just boils down to plain old fear. And our fear encompasses a ton of areas. In his book, Max Lucado addresses many areas of fear individually. This week we're going to look at "Fear of Not Mattering". I was going to address 3 at a time, but I find this first one to be pretty important. I will try to post more often, so that we still won't be concentrating on fear 3 months from now. We should be all done with fear by then. Yeah, right! I don't think we will EVER be done with fear, do you? I did not realize it, but the fear of not mattering is apparently one of my greatest. For this chapter, Lucado quotes Matthew 10:31: "So don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows". In bible times, sparrows were bought two for a penny. If you bought four, the seller would throw in the fifth one for free. Not worth alot. Lucado talks about a lot of "fifth sparrows" in our world. Chinese children who are weaker, sick, or female are disposable in that society. The government's 'one child' policy encourages families to only keep the healthy males. Children with disabilities, those of us who are different in some way, someone who is not what our society considers good-looking, the poor, the addicted. Disposable, worthless, and invaluable are some of the feelings we have in these situations. We look to matter, to have meaning in any way we can. Our fascination with celebrities, fashion, and sports lets us identify with so-called greatness. If I am a Cardinals fan and they win the series, then I can bask in the glory with them. "WE" won! Our adoration of movie stars and famous models, etc. borders on worship in my opinion. Surveys taken asking people who their most admired person is inevitably come up with Brad Pitt, Heidi Klum, someone famous. Why are they admired? Because they are morally pure? Because they give to others? What is there to be admired? I think it is their wealth, physical beauty, and notariety. All things we desire for ourselves. I understand now this is a huge problem for me. I didn't realize that when I have anxiety over my child not calling me, a friend having a 'tone' that might indicate they were upset, someone speaking irritably to me, that it is speaking to my fear of not mattering. If my child doesn't call as often as I think he/she should, then it must be because I am not loved very much. They could do without me just fine. I don't matter. If a friend speaks in a tone that I intrepret as being negative, then I must have done something to upset them. They may be mad at me. What did I do, what did I do? I must not really matter to them. If someone speaks angrily to me, it really doesn't matter who it is. I'm upset wondering what I have done, what I could have done differently, and how that person's anger is going to affect me. Honestly, I'm a nut about stuff like this. Sometimes I ask my husband if he is 'mad at me' so many times during the day that it absolutely drives him crazy. He finally tells me he is mad at me so I'll shut up. I want to matter. For 31 years, I worked tirelessly. I put in so many hours at work, you would have thought that was my whole life. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to find my worth in career accomplishment. Nothing was ever good enough, I never put in enough hours, I was never done. Anything I did at school was just a step toward doing something bigger and better. It went way beyond doing the best I could for my students. I wanted to matter. The point is, I do matter. Lucado points to Psalm 139, where God tells us we were "fearfully and wonderfully made" (v. 14),"skillfully wrought" (v.15). Why he even called us His "masterpiece" in Ephesians 2:10 from the New Living Translation: "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." And He loves us. He loves us so much. He hurts with us when we are hurt by our imperfections. When we feel worthless, invaluable. He so wants us to know the truth. The truth about who He is, how He feels about us, and what our REAL worth is. Each of us, every one of us is of great value. I urge you to get a topical bible or do a search online to find all the scriptures that tell about how He loves us. There are too many to list here. But the one scripture that really describes the depth of that love is the one that is used many times to show new Christians just how deep and wide that love is. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."(KJV) That explains it all. In my personal terms, He gave His Lori, He gave His Garrett, for me. For you. For the pastor and the pimp. For the doctor and the druggie. The divorcee, the CEO, the homosexual, the missionary. For my kids, my grandkids, my spouse, my sister and her family, my parents......everyone. What manner of love is this? Being loved by the Creator of the Universe inherantly MAKES each of us matter. We matter to Him. Immeasurably. And if we matter to Him, isn't that enough? Shouldn't it be enough? I'm not proposing that we stop caring about how others feel about us. That's an impossible task. Won't happen on this side of heaven. What I am proposing is that we rely on the One that ALWAYS loves us.....that we matter to Him and that's enough. It's sufficient. I can rest in mattering to the only One that matters.

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