February 2022
What is your value?
B. Keith Chapman, President & CEO
Have you ever felt like you were not adding value to a relationship, organization, or situation? When this occurs, it can produce an unpleasant or insecure feeling about your capabilities and individual worth. The world around us is very focused on performance and accomplishments. While performance measures, goals and recognition can be motivational, they can also be discouraging in times when we question our ability and overall impact. Learning to keep an accurate perspective on our individual value is important to our overall mental and physical well-being.
I was recently reflecting about a time in which I felt like I could add no value. It was dealing with families during a time of crisis. I learned a valuable lesson from one of our fire department chaplains. Our chaplains would respond to major scenes and would stay with the families while everyone else returned to service. Chaplains were supporting the families in ways I could never imagine, and the positive feedback was overwhelming. One day, I asked one of the chaplains, “How do you approach those situations? What do you say?” He responded by saying, “I just tell them who I am and explain that I will be there with them to help with anything they need. Then I just wait.” He went on to say, “Sometimes I wait for fifteen minutes and other times a couple of hours. Eventually, they let me know how I can help. Sometimes it’s prayer, sometimes it is calling family members, maybe just getting them a drink of water. But at some point, they provide me an opportunity to serve.”
I was taken back by the simplistic, but powerful approach to adding value and supporting people during the most stressful times of their lives. The chaplain understood that from an outside perspective he was doing nothing but hanging around. However, he was adding significant value that would be recognized by those who mattered the most. Perception is often not true and can often lead to a distorted reality. If we are not careful, we can make decisions and foster emotions based on inaccurate or false information. If left unchecked, this can lead to an unhealthy feeling of decreased value.
The truth is, we all have value even if we don’t feel it. Our value is not determined by what others think of us or what we accomplish. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. once said, “It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement.” The value that Mr. Coffin was referring to is the one that is given to each of us by our Creator. 1 Peter 1:18 (NLT) says, “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold and silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.” Value is often determined by how much someone is willing to pay for something. This passage clearly explains that God did not attempt to pay a ransom for us with gold and silver. Rather, He chose to pay the ultimate price with the death of His son. This sacrifice was a demonstration of God’s love for us. This created a value for each of us that cannot be measured or removed by anything we feel or experience.
I am not suggesting that we can all add value to every situation by standing around waiting for someone to ask us to do something. In fact, most of the time it is the opposite. We all have God given gifts and talents that we should be using daily. However, we must be mindful that our value as an individual comes from our Creator and not other people’s perception or our feelings in the moment.
Challenge: Never forget that we all have value regardless of how we feel at any given moment. The ultimate price was paid for each of us. God’s love and our value is greater than any amount of silver or gold. This is a value that cannot be decreased or eliminated by other peoples’ opinions, perceptions, or actions.
Published: February 1, 2022
