This week in my short conversations with my husband, Steve (only 5 minutes a day when he’s in fire camp), one subject kept coming up.  He’s working with a lot of ex-firefighters, battalion chiefs etc. who have retired from the fire service and are now working part time with vendors that support the fire services.  Many of these men used to hold positions of authority and really miss the action and the honor they had in their former professons.   So they spend a lot of time remembering the good old days and telling each other what they did, with whom and when.  He said it can be really funny to sit at dinner and hear 3 or 4 men trying to impress one another with their stories yet nobody’s really listening to what the other man is saying, they are trying to get respect and be noticed by men that are trying to get respect and be noticed by them.  It’s kind of funny, a little silly… and it’s a lot sad.

Why do I bring this up?  Of course, because there’s a lesson in it for all of us.  These men, when reduced to the core of who they are, are probably very insecure.  They found their value through their jobs and now the job doesn’t exist for them any more, so who are they and what makes them special?   The important and valuable work they did once defined who they were and now that they no longer do it, many of them are somewhat lost and left purposeless. 

Men tend to naturally draw their value from their work, women tend to draw their sense of value from their relationships.  Is what you do what defines who you are?   Is it your relationship with your husband or your children that gives you value?  If your value is based on something that is as changeable as a job or a relationship, your life can be unpended in a moment.  If your value is based on something deeper and more lasting, you can weather any storm.

As an artist, I’ve been blessed that a few people have seemed to really enjoy my work.  I deeply delight in that, but fortunately it no longer defines who I am and creates my sense of value.  I will confess that when I began my career, it did.  I was very insecure and looking for acceptance, approval, appreciation and even the delightful "pats on the back" that being an artist can bring.  If I still depended upon that though, what would happen to me if I lost my eyesight, or got Parkinson’s like my Grandma Flint did and my hand shook too much to paint?  What if the market changed so much that no one liked my style of art anymore?  Would I still have anything of value to share with others?  Would I still feel secure in who I am and would my sense of purpose for my life change?  It’s important for all of us to ask these kinds of questions because change can happen to any of us in an instant…

So my question for you to ponder is this… where do you derive your value?  Is it from something you do well?  Is it from your cooking skills?   Is it from your figure or your beauty?  Is it from your crafting and the gifts you give to others hoping they’ll notice the time, energy and skill that went into it?  Is it from your wealth?  (okay… I heard the laughter at that one!)  If it is, any and all of these things can be lost very quickly, there is no guarantee that they will last throughout your lifetime. 

A sense of value that is permanent, solid and unshakable is one that is founded upon who you are becoming as a person, the character and wisdom that is being built into you.  I understand that many of my readers are not religious or Christian and their sense of value will be derived in many different ways, but I am going to simply share from where I have come to derive my sense of purpose and value.  For me, much of it is in becoming as much like Jesus as possible.  The word "Christian" actually means "little Christ’s" not that I am aiming to become him, but that I want to become his student and be an imitator of what I see him do.  When I become like him, my sense of value and purpose remains constant and won’t change with my life circumstances.  I can be like Christ if I am confined to a wheelchair or become the President of a Corporation.  I can be like him working in a Mc Donald’s or if I am an Academy-Award-winning actress.  The emphasis becomes on who I am as I am doing a job or having a relationship or doing good works, not on the job or relationship or good works themselves.

My value comes from how highly God values me.  He loved me enough to die in my place.  He loved me enough to create this beaufiful world for me to inhabit!  Have you ever stopped to think about this… the God that created the universe in all it’s infinite size, beauty and complexity… with nothing but the power of His spoken words also created you and knows exactly how many hairs there are on your head both before and after you brush you hair!  He attended to the tiniest details of creation, and before the world was created, he planned out every single one of your days AND designed good works for you to fulfill.  Does that boggle your mind like it does mine?  This same God loves you and adopted you as His child, has given you a place by His side at His throne and declared that He will never leave you or forsake you!  

When we come to fully realize the awesomeness of this love and the security of His care for us, it can produce a deep security in our hearts that helps us to realize that nothing in life can shake it.  The man or woman who lives with this sense of security at their core can look at the world and realize "It’s not all about me, it’s all about how the God who loves me can use me to touch a hurting world."

A career can come to an end.  A marriage can fail or you can lose your spouse.  Fortunes can change on the whims of the stock market or the real estate market, but a person who’s life value is found in the Lord will never ever lose his or her significance.

THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:  Eph 2:4-10  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  NIV