Do You Believe You Matter?

I believe what drives most individuals in life is trying to fulfill the idea that their life matters. Most people have a desire to make a difference in this world before their earthly existence is over. They want to know that they made a difference while they were here. They want to know that who they were and what they did made a difference. That they mattered.

Many of you have probably watched this Christmas season the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The main character, George Bailey, finds out what other peoples lives would have been like if he had not been born. An angel by the name of Clarence, shows George a world “where he was never born” and George learns that his life matters.

Most of us don’t get this kind of revelation as George did in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Most of us spend our time trying to prove to the world that we matter. We think our education, our job, our income, our home, how successful our children, are all prove that our lives matter.

Some people choose to treat others poorly, basically saying to others you are not like us, you are not deserving to be a part of our “club,” You are not worthy. You do not matter.

The reality of why we often treat others less than ourselves is because we don’t believe we matter and the only way to feel that we matter is to exclude people, judge them. We are insecure about our own worth.

This is the problem. We get so caught up in trying to prove that our life matters and we don’t believe it ourselves. We try to surround ourselves with “the proof” that our life matters.

There are many good reasons to develop a good sense of worth. But spiritually it is essential component to your faith.

Mark 5:25-34 NIV

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in a crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask , ‘Who touched me?‘”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

The woman in this scripture, who is presumed to be Jewish, was dealing with a menstruation problem. Today it might be diagnosed as menorrhagia (Nigerian Biomedical Science Journal www.nbjs.org.ng). She spent all her money on doctors trying to heal her condition and it only got worse. For twelve years. That sounds very discouraging to me.

Her condition made her unclean for Jewish ceremonial practices. Because she was unclean she was not allowed to touch other people or things because then they would all be unclean.

Before there was a Jewish concentration camp, this lady made a camp of one. She inhabited her camp for twelve years. The messages of “You can’t touch me. You’re unclean. You can’t join our Jewish ceremonies. You’re unclean. Get away from me and my things! You’re unclean!” must of haunted her.

I don’t know how often this woman heard “You’re unclean,” but I am sure it was enough to cause someone to go crazy. Twelve years of living in shame and maybe guilt. She may have wondered what she had done to bring this sickness upon herself.

But . . . there was something in her that believed that she deserved to be healed. That thing inside of her that believed that she “mattered” kept her trying over and over again even though she got worse and she had spent all her money. She believed she mattered. Her life mattered. For twelve years she kept believing she mattered.

Then she heard about Jesus, and something must have shifted in her spirit. She knew that if she could only touch the hem of his garment she would be healed. She believed she would be healed! Even after twelve years of probably listening to “your unclean,” and going to doctors and spending all, not some, BUT ALL her money trying to restore her health and her life.

Not only to restore her health but her life.

If she did not believe that her life mattered she wouldn’t have had the faith to be healed. Her sense of self-worth was the foundation for her healing. If after twelve years of treatments, you only got worse after you had spent all of your money, you might just say, “Let me die here now! What does it matter anymore?”

But when she heard about Jesus being there, she did the unthinkable, she came up behind Him in a crowd of people. That was a Jewish “No! No!” Her behavior demonstrates not only a desperate woman but a woman who didn’t care about offending a crowd of people on the way to her healing. She believed in the healing power of Jesus and she believed her life mattered enough that she deserved to be healed.

No one took her by the hand and took her to Jesus to be healed.

But this is life.

The world is full of people who are going to tell you that you don’t matter, either through their words or actions.

The only one who is going to believe that you matter is you.

And the only way to believe that you matter is that you know that you matter to Jesus. Even when the world says you don’t.

Believe that you matter, it is an important component to your faith.

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine