you should like me because _____

Have you ever approached someone and started a conversation with: “here are all the reasons why you should like me.” Maybe you have explicitly (I hope not), but we all do this implicitly, whether we like to admit it or not. We constantly are weighing our worth and making sure we portray that in the things we say, the things we wear, the things we post, etc. This is a battle I have fought my whole life. I constantly feel the need to prove to people that I am worth their liking. Realizing this, I have been forced to turn to the core of the issue: rejection. I have struggled through a lot of rejection in my life. Sometimes that took the form of friendships gone sour, sometimes it took the form of trying to get a boyfriend, or sometimes simply through my extracurriculars in choir and theatre. Rejection has always been a close friend of mine. There is nothing wrong with rejection, there is something wrong, however, with how we choose to handle that rejection. We can either let it determine our worth or let it determine our course. Truly, every rejection I have received has directed my course in life slightly one way or another. At times, it was confusing and heartbreaking, but I have continually seen God show me that he truly does not “withhold good from those who love him” (Psalm 84:11). I cannot say that I always took this perspective, though. In all honesty, this has been a recent change over the past few months. I have let rejection so often determine my worth. When I received praise or acceptance, I felt good about myself and less need to seek value in what people thought of me. When I was rejected, I felt a desperation to overcompensate for my feeling small by making myself appear larger than life. I would post more, perfecting every photo, talk about myself instead of asking about others, dress to impress every. single. day. buying more clothes if the ones I had were not trendy enough… does this sound familiar? We all do this to some extent, but we have to recognize when we are beginning to place our worth in the hands of people, making a god out of their approval. I have been reading through a book, Sex and the Single Girl, by Dr. Juli Slattery (A MUST READ), and the book begins with establishing this concept of self-value. Slattery talks about the Hebrew word, yada. This word means to be “intimately known.” With this word change, Psalm 139 took on a whole new life for me.

“O Lord, you have searched me and [intimately know] me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you [intimately know] my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you [intimately know] it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

- Psalm 139:1-6

To know intimately is not only to treasure every bit of another person but to give them immense value and worth. Yahweh regards us with such worth that he knows deeply our thoughts, prayers, and tiniest breaths. I think of that, and I immediately am filled with the warm, fuzzy happiness of being noticed and known. We search for that kind of feeling in social media, boys, friends, etc, yet we already have it. We have captivated the God who gives the earth rotation, the sky its color, the breeze its movement, the sun its beams. That same God thinks we are worth death. That same God thinks we are worth his love. That same God thinks we are worth his covenantal promise. Carry that worth, rest in that value, and thank the Lord every day that we get to experience being known and cherished so deeply.