use & value

My friend the electrician is a great storyteller. He’s been on the planet for quite a few years and has stored up some life lessons. He tells me he used to be someone completely different; he was angry, alcoholic, difficult to be around, a traumatized Vietnam veteran. Then, in a crisis, he tested God to see if he was real. Found out he was not only real, but capable of plugging power into a dead life, setting him free from addictions, teaching him to love a good woman and care for his family. Now he gives his time and talent to serve others. He is humble and kind and enjoys talking about the Lord he loves.

We got to talking the other day about how people overlook the value in others.  In particular, we were talking about the people we love who have special needs and how very frustrating those needs can be, and how easy it is to miss out on the gold buried beneath the difficulties. He said, “You know. I’ll never forget when it was that I learned to really see people underneath their disabilities.”

As we talked, he had been digging a trench to run a wire underground. He stopped digging and leaned reflectively on his shovel. “I was doing a job in a hospital,” he continued. “We were there about 8 weeks. There was some kind of outpatient day program in that part of the hospital and every day I saw this same kid.”

He went on to describe him as a skinny boy in his early teens with a head of bright red hair. He would sit in his wheelchair in the hallway, able only to make grunting sounds. His hands were curled inward and he could only move his arms with clumsy jerking movements. He had a pleasant smile and would make noises toward the people walking past him, but didn’t seem to have any meaningful contact with anyone.

My friend stopped talking, the tears choking his words. “All these years later I still can’t believe this was my thinking.” He swallowed hard and continued. “But, I remember thinking to myself that that boy would be better off dead. I could see absolutely no value to his life.”

“Day after day, week after week, he sat in that hallway, contributing nothing to society, of no use to anyone. Then one day I got on the elevator and he was on there. He smiled at me and made noises. I smiled back but didn’t say anything. He had a big box on the back of his chair, and I looked at it, wondering what it was. The boy lifted his arm with big jerky movements. He had one finger out and he was trying to touch something on the arm of his chair. All of the sudden, his finger landed where he wanted, and an electronic voice spoke out of the box, ‘Good morning, Mr. Electrician.’”

By the this point, the tears were flowing down my cheeks too. My friend couldn’t speak for a moment, then quietly said, “At that moment, I realized there was a real human inside that boy. Everything changed for me.”

The boy who had no use suddenly had value. His value was in his very humanity; it became clear the moment he was able to connect with another human being. The image of God was stamped on his soul, regardless of the disfigurement and confinement of his disabilities.

Our world has dreadfully tangled up the meanings of value and use. We frantically scramble like so many ants, rushing, striving, working…desperate to be found valuable because of our great usefulness to others. We are certain that if we can win the approval of others, then…THEN…we will have value. We want to be worthy. We even work desperately to live in a way that God would find us worthy. Because, ultimately, we want to be useful to the Most Important One in the universe, right?

But stop, busy one. Take a breath. I know this race well. It is desperate and soul-crushing and it is really quite ridiculous, after all. It takes some of us almost a lifetime to peel our eyes off our own desperate striving and learn what that skinny, red-haired boy in the hospital already knew.

Who can really, truly be useful to God? What could I possibly give him that he doesn’t already have?

Am I good at loving others? God is love.
Am I a creative engineer? He carved the Grand Canyon and molded the Alps.
Am I an artist? He designed our atmosphere and the rotation of the earth around the sun so it would paint a different mural for us across the sky every morning and evening.
Am I good at writing or speaking or teaching? He is THE WORD who was transformed into flesh.
Am I a scientist worthy of a Nobel prize? He designed every intricacy of DNA and molecules and already knows the things people spend lifetimes discovering.
Am I capable of healing bodies and curing diseases? He made the blind ones see, the deaf ones hear, and brought the dead ones back to life.

Here’s the thing….I have nothing…NOTHING…to offer him that He doesn’t already have.

My value has nothing to do with my use. I am valuable to him simply because I am his. I love the call of Isaiah, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (55:1). God flips our value system on its head. Nowhere in our world can we buy without money and have our insatiable thirst satisfied.

Come to him.

Rest in him.

Stop trying to be useful.

Believe what he says about your value.

Soak up the impossible nonsense of His amazing love.