"How much is your life worth?"

Please don't take this as an impertinent question about the state of your bank account, or your income, or the value of your house, but as a personal question that is at the root of much of our decision making and social interaction.
In a recent article in "The Times", a Harvard professor was analysing what makes important tense conversations difficult. He said that in every discussion there was the question of the facts, the emotions, and the individual's identity. It was this last ingredient that set off this article. We may be used to understanding the facts behind a controversy, and may have become skilled at managing the emotions, but how aware are we of the sense of self value that underlies so much of our social life?

How much is each of us worth?
Some years ago the journalist Monica Furlong wrote that pride was not a matter of thinking too highly of ourselves, but of thinking too little of ourselves. How right she was. There are many incidents in life which wound our self worth - divorce and redundancy being the hardest to deal with. Inevitably as we get older, we lose our partners or retire, and we have to face the same difficulty. We can tell when our self esteem is low, because we love to talk about ourselves, remind everyone of our achievements, or our children's, or our last great round of golf etc. It is salutary to observe how frequently we turn conversation back to ourselves, as if we were the centre of the universe. The Bible encourages us to think of ourselves with sober judgement, not too highly, but also not too lowly. Is there any sure method to value our worth?

Ultimately our lives, our worth are what someone will pay for them. However much we give to charity, our gift values lives that are far away from us, pretty cheaply. We simply cannot give enough to value them truly. Those who are close family are counted infinitely valuable, as at our best we would be prepared to give up everything for them. The Bible tells us that is just how much we are worth to God. First we are made in His image, and so we are told that we are loved and chosen to be His children. As the season of Lent progresses our thoughts turn to our sad rejection of that love, the consequent wounds to our self-value, and the infinite cost that God is prepared to pay to win our love back. He values each of us as
beyond price, at the full value He as God can pay, all that He has, and He gives His own life for ours. Thus Christ's cross is the place of our deepest healing - the discovery of our true value, and the releasing freedom of no longer needing to persuade others of our value or virtue.

Best wishes, Moray

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John Moore's thought for the month

"Truth has no special time of its own; its hour is now - always"

(Albert Schweitzer)