Proverbs 19:8, 20-21, 23
The Best Source for Self-Worth

To get wisdom is to love oneself;
     to keep understanding is to prosper.

Listen to advice and accept instruction,
     that you may gain wisdom for the future.
The human mind may devise many plans,
     but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established.

The fear of the LORD is life indeed;
     filled with it one rests secure
     and suffers no harm.

New Revised Standard Version

Don't get me wrong on this: there are those who suffer from debilitating depression and anxiety brought on by physical or chemical disorders, and I long for researchers to better understand the physiology of such disorders so these people can be treated for these serious illnesses.

With that said, there are many more of us who regularly suffer from doubts, anxieties, and fears founded in our responses to external circumstances, whether related to relationship struggles, employment insecurities, illnesses, or whatever else in life threatens our security. Almost without fail, the things that frighten us and create anxieties in us erode our self-worth. That lowered self-worth, in turn, diminishes our effectiveness at responding positively to struggles in relationships, health, employment, and anything else, which perpetuates the cycle.

Educators have long recognized that a critical success factor in the quality of a child's education is a sense of appropriate self-worth and confidence in the child. A child who feels he cannot excel at a subject usually will not, even though testing shows he has the aptitude and background to master it. For one example, there has been extensive research on the effect of others' gender expectations in diminishing girls' confidence to excel in math. The issue is not that girls can't do math, but that girls' self-image is distorted to expect they will do poorly at math -- therefore they do. (If you are interested, see this article by Jennifer Gutbezahl, which summarizes many research sources on this topic.)

Given that self-confidence and self-worth are important to a balanced and successful life, how do we provide this self-worth to our children? How do we gain this self-worth for ourselves?

Solomon in this passage from Proverbs provides us a simple answer: "get wisdom". We probably recoil from this easy answer for many reasons. Education programs require self-worth to function, so how could self-worth ever result from education? What would King Solomon, the greatest king Israel ever had, know about self-worth for "commoners" like us? Why would advice from the B.C. era be relevant in our Information Age?

Yet, once we finish reacting to Solomon's simple pronouncement that to get wisdom is to love ourselves, we are reminded that knowledge is not the same as wisdom. A few verses down, we find that wisdom comes from an openness and willingness to learn, and that the Teacher is the One whose ways are eternal and perfect. All the accoutrements of modern education are not needed in learning from God, and God's instruction is always one-on-one, even when we are in the largest crowds. Our part is to listen and accept what God teaches us.

Just a few verses further and we receive more insight into how we are to listen and accept. Our attitude towards God is to "fear" God, which in the Hebrew uses a word, yirah, that can also be translated as awe or reverence. We are not to be terrified of God, for how could we "rest secure" as the verse says, if we are filled with terror? The appropriate fear / awe / reverence recognizes with all our being that God is our Maker and Sustainer, and is to be our Lord and Master if we are to live in a right relationship with God.

It's ironic to our modern way of thinking, that the foundation of self-worth comes from humbling ourselves. It has always been this way, and when we look at stories of the heroes of the faith like Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and David, we recognize in them the struggles they had resisting reliance on God, fighting against what God would say and choosing what they wanted, and falling into problems and despair when their ways would fail them. God, the ever-present, ever-patient Teacher, would coach them and bring them back into reverent obedience to God's Way. In that Way would come fulfilment and, for these heroes, greatness told for thousands of years through the Bible.

Our society has tried to manufacture self-worth, and failed. Our employers have tried to communicate how important their employees are to them, but still lay off thousands when profits become losses. Our closest relationships with friends, lovers, and family can bring great joy or devastating attacks on our self-worth. When we think of how everything else around us has the potential to pull us into despair, we are more inclined to seek after God who will never let us down and whose love for us is ever present.

Each of us is a precious and valuable person, because God made us that way and God sees us that way. We each deserve to see ourselves as God sees us, but to do that, we first have to accept God as God is, and open ourselves in humility to God to learn how to love and live.