Self Worth (June Hunt Hope for the Heart)
Read Self Worth (June Hunt Hope for the Heart) Online
Authors: June Hunt
SELF-WORTH
Discover Your God-Given Worth
June Hunt
- Gives practical advice and Biblical wisdom from June Hunt, a biblical counselor whose award-winning radio program
Hope For The Heart
is heard on more than 900 radio outlets around the world. For more than 25 years, she has counseled people, offering them hope for today’s problems. - Teaches you how to apply the healing balm of truth to the wound in your soul in order that your mind will be transformed and your life changed.
- Empowers you to leave behind feelings of worthlessness, and experience your true worth—the worth you have in the eyes of your heavenly Father.
What Is an Inferiority Complex?
What Is the Self-Worth Controversy?
Characteristics of Low Self-Worth
What Does Low Self-Worth Look Like?
What Are Substitutes for Healthy Self-Worth?
What Are Sabotages of True Spiritual Growth?
What Is the Impact of Having Rejecting Parents?
How Can Rejection from Others Rule You?
Why Is Comparing Yourself to Others Costly?
Why Is Wrong Thinking So Wrong?
What Is the Root Cause of Low Self-Worth?
Don’t Be a Prisoner of Poor Parenting
How to Have a Heart of Forgiveness
Accept Seven Steps to Self-Acceptance
How to Answer Seven Self-Defeating Statements
How to Improve Your “Sense of Self”
How to Capture a Vision for Your Ministry
Dear friend,
Do you know what it’s like to struggle with feelings of
low self-worth
? If so, I understand. In your heart of hearts, you believe you have little value—especially when compared to others. Regardless of how good you may look, you feel insignificant. For years, that was exactly how I felt.
As I look back on my childhood, I can see how my father shaped my reality—my view that I had little value. I
never
remember sitting on my father’s lap,
never
heard, “
I love you,” never
heard, “
You did well
.” In fact, he never talked
with
me. He simply wasn’t interested.
At dinnertime, Dad enforced the old adage: “Children are to be seen—not heard.” He announced that we couldn’t speak unless we had something of interest to say to everyone at the table. Of course, he wasn’t interested in anything we had to say, so we rarely spoke.
His continual verbal and emotional abuse toward my mother wounded my spirit. The “put-downs” and painful accusations pierced my heart because my mother was the dearest person in my life.
Then one day, after coming home from high school, I realized,
I’m not really showing interest in him. I’m just focusing on his faults and on my pain. So instead of being bitter, I’m going to focus attention on him.
(Although he had never asked about
my
day, I decided I would ask about
his
day.)
Dad always drove home at 5:45 p.m. and expected to have dinner at 6:00 sharp. So when I heard him walk into the side entrance of the house, I was ready—I had primed my pump for my positive greeting.
Inside the narrow hallway, I confidently approached him with a smile and said, “
Hi Dad, how was your day?
”
He exploded and yelled, “
Don’t ever ask me that question! That’s a stupid question! Never ask me that again!
”
Blown away, I felt humiliated and hurt. He had just used a stun gun on my heart. Even today, I can still feel the heat of his volcanic reaction on my cheeks.
Please understand—I am well aware that this encounter is so minor, especially in light of the major abuse that many experience. Yet encounters like this can be almost as
emotionally
paralyzing as physical and sexual abuse. I still recall his harshness—his yelling, his scowling—as though it were yesterday. How vividly I remember its demoralizing impact on my sense of significance! And never again did I ask him about his day.
It’s painful to feel like a nonperson—to feel invisible, to feel insignificant.
But realize, God knows when you have a skewed view of yourself—and He cares. The Bible says,
“The L
ORD
is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”
(Psalm 34:18).
It’s a great help just to know that the Lord holds you close when your heart has been hurt. But it’s also vital that you know
what God says about you is true
.
According to the Word of God:
- God chose to create you, and as the old saying goes, “
God don’t make no junk!
”“God created man in his own image.”
(Genesis 1:27) - God has a plan for your life, and
He took His time to plan it.“‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the L
ORD
, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
(Jeremiah 29:11) - God loves you, and He will never stop loving you.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
(Jeremiah 31:3)
Knowing just these three truths has helped me immeasurably. Even if we periodically have difficulty
feeling
God’s love—because our emotions can get stuck—
we can know He loves us
. Even if we sometimes struggle with
feeling
insignificant,
we can know we have worth
. You are so significant that Jesus chose to die for you. Think about it:
You don’t die for something that has no worth!
A major key to overcoming my struggle with self-worth has been
changing my focus
from the rejection of my earthly father to the love of my heavenly Father,
changing my focus
from my painful family life to the reality that I’m in the family of God,
changing my focus
from demoralizing personal failures to the fact that Jesus is my personal Redeemer.
If you can’t see your
God-given value
, if you wonder about your
God-given worth
, you’ve come to the right place. Within these pages you’ll learn what is true about you. As you read, I pray that His love will transform every false view you have until you are able to see yourself as God sees you: His precious child of infinite worth.
Yours in the Lord’s hope,
SELF-WORTH
Discover Your God-Given Worth
What happens when you long to receive a gift, but only your sister is given a gift? What happens when you long to be held on your mother’s lap, but only your sister is allowed on her lap? What happens when you long for your mother’s love, but only your sister is given her love?
Ask Dorie Van Stone.
1
Dorie would tell you that repeated rejection is the breeding ground for low self-worth. Her own mother never even wanted her. Her own mother always called her “ugly.”
Dorie never received the love and affection her heart so deeply craved. However, what a comfort for Dorie (and for all the Dories in the world, both male and female) to come to know this truth:
“The L
ORD
does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the L
ORD
looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
Why
should
Dorie feel any sense of worth? Even before she and her sister were discarded at an orphanage, life with their mother was filled with rejection. Her mother would leave Dorie in charge of her little sister for hours—a six-year-old responsible for the total care of a five-year-old! Each time, she longed desperately for her mother to return, saying to herself, “I hope she’ll be glad to see me.” But each time her mother returned, she brushed right past Dorie to gather Marie into her arms and give her a great big hug, sometimes bringing a gift, always showering attention—attention never shown to Dorie. No wonder Dorie was left reeling with low self-worth.
2
As the psalmist said ...
“Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.” (Psalm 69:20)
Self-Worth?
As a child, Dorie didn’t have any concept of “self-worth.” How could she? As a continually rejected child, how could she feel any sense of significance, of value, of worth? Even more basic than that, how do you determine the worth of something or someone? How do you know your own worth? Do you look to yourself or others in order to grasp your value? If you look anywhere other than to God—the God who created you with a purpose and a plan—your view of your own value is in grave danger of being distorted. Before you were ever born, God established your real worth by knowing you, by choosing you, and ultimately by dying for you! The Bible says ...
“He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Ephesians 1:4)
- Worth
signifies the value, merit, or significance of a person or thing.
3 - Self-worth
is the belief that your life has value and significance.
4 - “
Worth
” is a translation of the Greek word
axios
, which means “of weight and worth.”
5
In biblical times, gold and other precious metals were placed on a balancing scale where their worth was determined by their weight, leading to the expression,
“worth their weight in gold”
(Lamentations 4:2).
Q
UESTION: “How can someone’s worth be determined?”
A
NSWER:
At an auction, the worth of an item is determined clearly and simply by one thing: the highest price paid. Each item goes to the highest bidder. You were bought from the auction block of sin over 2,000 years ago when the heavenly Father paid the highest price possible—the life of His Son, Jesus Christ. By that one act, your worth was forever established by God.
Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for you—willingly dying on the cross—paying the penalty for your sins. He loves you that much! Your true worth is not based on anything
you
have done or will do, but on what
Jesus
has
already done
. Without a doubt, He established your worth. You were worth His life. You were worth dying for.