The Value of Your Life
What is the value of your life? Are you the sum of your parts or only worth what you can contribute or is your value up to some arbitrarily contrived standards?
Your Body
Our bodies are the mechanism by which we interact with the world. It is sufficient for most people to get along in their environment. Some may have more difficulty than others, maybe hearing or vision deficits, or perhaps, damage from past trauma has caused mobility problems, but for the most part, we are able to interact with the world by way of our incredibly complex bodies.
We are so complicated that it takes multiple college courses, just to explain it in basic terms. Anatomy and physiology I & II are the beginning. I’m not going deep in this short blogpost. Suffice to say that we have five senses. Eyesight, hearing, taste, our sense of smell and touch are the physical senses that our body uses to help us in life. We can use them to ground ourselves during stressful times or they can alert us to stress. It works both ways.
The value of your life can’t be calculated based on the value of our bodies, though. We come in varying shapes and sizes with diverse abilities and disabilities. Some of us can run and jump. Some can’t. Some of us can see well. Others cannot and need glasses just to get along. Some have acute hearing. Others rely on hearing aids and or sign language.
Our bodies cannot determine the value of life, because they are invaluable. Your body is infinity valuable to you, because without it, you cannot live here on earth. We live in a culture that is as diverse as can be here, in the USA. Some people take really good care of their bodies, abstaining from harmful substances and eating healthy whole foods, grooming and hygiene is important to them. Others, tend toward self destruction by choice or by upbringing. They have no concept of the real value of their bodies and the need for care.
Your Soul
Our mind, will, and emotions operate in our bodies. We have a mind to be able to decide to do things, like take care of our body. We have a will, sometimes called ambition or dreams, hopes, desires, purpose, or calling. It is what we feel or believe to be compelling to do. It is part of who we are. And our emotions are both determined by our bodies and can influence our bodies. It’s not a simple concept, but they work in both directions.
When we think of positive things using our minds, we can create good neurotransmitters and good hormones in our body. When our body is in a state of stress or pain, it creates negative chemicals causing negative emotions. If we use our will and some pretty simple techniques of our minds, we can change both our emotional state and our physical state. It’s not easy, but it is simple.
Some call it grounding. Our soul’s interaction with our body is referred to as our state or status. Our status is momentary. So, we cannot determine the value of your life according to your status. That will change, maybe in a second. Even our character can change. We can easily see that in the people around us. Some people are upstanding citizens, donating to good causes and very successful in the estimation of the whole world, but quickly fall from grace, as it were. So, that cannot be the determination of how we value life.
Neither is it up to another person to decide what the value of your life is. Some people believe in some arbitrarily contrived criteria of acceptability. Others believe they have the ability to decide who should live and who should die. This is the essence of abortion and euthanasia. Abortion takes a life before anyone can even know if the person would meet any criteria and euthanasia makes a determination based on various subjective terms.
You Are Spirit
The value of your life is really eternal. You and I are created beings, eternal and triune. We are spirits. We have a soul: our mind will, and emotions. And we live in bodies. Our spirits were created to live forever in love. Sometime after the creation, Lucifer, the arch angel in charge of worship, decided that he wanted the worship for himself. “I will be like the Most High,” he declared. When he failed, he was thrown down out of heaven. Then, he tricked Eve, the mother of all living, and Adam into desiring the same thing. Lucifer projected his desire onto mankind.
When Adam and Eve partook of that desire, they entered what is called a state of sin or sinfulness. It wasn’t the natural state of mankind, nor was it God’s original design. Because it was never intended to be that way, God made a plan to provide a way back to a state of perfection for our spirits. Our spirits become new when we accept the plan, but our bodies and souls still have some work to do, so to speak.
A person who has accepted the plan of God is called “born again” because their spirit is born again. Obviously our bodies are not, and can still carry all of the pain and difficulty that the trauma of this world has inflicted. Most times, if we continue to learn and grow in the things of God, our bodies are renewed as well. This is a whole library’s worth of teaching.
The point is that the value of your life is so immense, that God sent His only begotten Son to earth, to minister for 33 years and then, to die in your place so that you can be renewed to life eternal.
The Value of Your Life
The value of your life cannot be understated. This moment, this hour, this day is a gift given to you at great cost. If you are suffering and depressed, take your next breath. As you breath in, feel the life that is yours. It is yours for a reason. You are the ONLY ONE who can live it out.
You determine the value of your life and no one else can. Neither can you or I or anyone else determine the value of another human being. We are human beings, after all and not “human doings.”
If everything in your life is wonderful, be aware, winter will come. Don’t be discouraged. Prepare yourself to get through the hard times, because we all have them.
You have a special purpose here on earth and as long as you are breathing there is hope for a better future.