Your Worth and Mine - What is it?

Have you every thought about the word "worth"?

How would you define it?

How about when it comes to an individual's worth?  And what about your worth?

My bet is you may have come up with a profound and insightful answer.  It's not too hard right?  Or is it?  Honestly, how can "worth" be defined?  And where does "worth " come from?  These things have been on my mind quite a bit lately.  Believe it or not, the worth of things and people play a huge role in my life and yours.

To questions like these I have found that knowing or even coming up with an answer may be hard.  To some it may be easy.   We might include, "A person's worth is infinite."  Some of us might recognize this one: "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God."  An online definition defines "worth" as, "the value equivalent to that of someone or something under consideration; the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated."  There are many possible definitions!

I have settled on this one: "The worth of a person or object is what is given or given up to obtain it or on behalf of it."  Think about it.  How much are our phones worth to us - not the value, but their worth?  We might give a dollar amount because that's what we paid.  Take it a step further.  What would we be willing to give and give up to keep it?  That's how much it is actually worth to us.  How about our clothes, car, or house?  How about education?  Spirituality?  Health?  "Worth," in my opinion, comes down to a relationship between the object/person of worth and the entity to which it has worth.  Food to you and me may be worth a lot more to someone in Africa.  A snow shovel will not have as much worth to someone in Florida right now than someone in the northeast.  They will all be willing to give and give up different amounts.

Now I'm going to get a little personal so bear with me.  The reason I've been thinking about this so much is I have realized how easy it is myself to "pull" or get worth from many different things.  Over the years it has been grades, work performance, food, being "better" at something than someone else, and many others including watching and following sports.  That last one was a big one because I love sports, but I realized I was "getting" something out of my team winning.  It was as if someone else's success equated my success.  That is a little ridiculous though since I never attended practice or stepped foot on the court or field!  (Don't get me wrong I'll still be watching and following occasionally.)

What I'm getting at is I have realized that sometimes I can pull worth from external things.  The truth is no matter how high my grades are, how well I do at work, what food I eat, how much "better" I am than someone else, or how well the Utah Jazz or BYU does in sports my worth is not more or less.  That's a good thing as Jazz fan by the way, especially if you know how well they've done the past 10 years.  And if you follow BYU sports then you'd understand that would mean my worth would depend on the week and even the day.

Seriously though, it is the truth.  Of course, accomplishing goals and progressing brings a sense of fulfillment.  It does not increase or decrease worth though.  My worth and yours is infinite regardless of what we do.  There are some who want to say that it does, but that simply is not the case.

Based on the definition earlier we can think of it this way:

How much has been given and given up for us or on our behalf?

What have our parents or extended relatives given and given up for us or on our behalf?  Time is an obvious one.  9 months of our mothers' life.  Money.  Means.  Sleep.  A part of themselves.  And a lot more.

How about other family members?  Or teachers?  Or friends?  A lot has been given and given up for us and on our behalf!  With all of that, even more has been given and given up.  

The most important is what, I believe, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have given, give, and given up.  I believe Christ taught us how much we and His Father were "worth" to Him when He lived a perfect life, served, healed, taught truth, obeyed, suffered for us, and then, ultimately, gave His life.  And he still keeps on giving.

And what about Heavenly Father?  He is the one who sent His Son to do those things because He loves us and knows our worth.  He gave up His Son.  Because of that we can be sure of the infinite individual worth we have.  Think of it.  If he has been and is willing to do all that and still continues giving imagine how he must see us and what He sees in us.  Lasting worth cannot come from those external things or what the world has to tell us because it simply is not based on that.  This does not mean what we do is not important either.  As worth is understood more and more progress and works can be seen as products, not determinants of worth.  As we believe we have infinite and divine worth, I believe we will want to do the right thing and avoid other things based on what we know and what we are worth.

So during the times we might question or find our worth questioned by others we can think about all that is given and given up for you and me and on our behalf by many people.  You and I are worth it.