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Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of GodD&C 18:10

The Worth Of A Soul

« 2018-06-30

You are wonderfully unique. Consider the unlikely probability that you would come to exist as you do, reading this now. Your parents had to exist in their distinct forms, meet and have you precisely when they did. Their parents had to meet. So on and so forth all the way back to abiogenesis, or creation, or creation by means of abiogenesis; whether you trace this back with creationism or evolution the numbers still paint you as a miracle.

Then consider that every thought you've had shaped you. Every experience. The food you eat. The air you've breathed. The places you live and the people you interact with. Everything you do. Everything you say. Everything you've suffered. Everything you've enjoyed. Loved. Hated. Everything.

In short, every event you experience and the context in which you experience that event changes you. This may seem overdramatic but consider that every memory you have has altered the neurons in your mind. Even recalling memory in a sense changes you. You are rare. Your existence, as it stands, is the result of an unfathomable number of material & processes over time. A number so large it makes winning the lottery look laughably small.

I think we get a sense of this at times in the form of deep loneliness. Words have their limitations. The fidelity of our message is compromised as we try to capture and express our experience in words. The accuracy of that message is further lost when it's heard and interpreted by the listener. That isn't the listener's fault, they are doing their best to imagine and comprehend what that experience for you must be like but they too are unique and empathy is bounded by the amount of overlap you each have. I think our messages and stories to ourselves are often inaccurate as we try to interpret them. Even more so after we've tried transferring that experience to another. I think Saint Paul expressed this beautifully in Romans 8:26:

"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

We all have that deep inner selves. The thoughts, feelings & experiences we don't quite know how to put words to. The brokenness. The fears & doubts. The hopes & dreams. It can be a horrifying thought to consider how helplessly isolated that self is. Indeed one can feel deeply alone & misunderstood when surrounded by their best friends.

Hopefully I've been able to capture some small measure of the idea of your uniqueness. I love how C.S. Lewis says it:

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."

I think it is, at least in part, your uniqueness that makes the worth of your soul great in the sight of God. Christ won a perfect empathy through a perfect atonement. Consider that you, particularly that you you, that inner self, is something that is only understood by Him. That understanding is something that He bought by "suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind" and by taking on your "infirmities" so "that he may know according to the flesh how to succor" you according to your "infirmities".

And here is a thought that fills my heart with gratitude. When God heals you, you will be able to love God in a way that only you and He truly understand. In that way, you can love a part of God that no one else can. If you don't, no one else will. That is a relationship and a love that He can only experience with you precisely because there is no one like you. No one uniquely broken just the way that you are and therefore, no one to be healed and loved just the way that you are. No one to love Him in the way that only you can. No one that He can share that experience, your experience, with. A loss that can't be replaced.

When I thought about this a dark thought came over me. "So you're unique. That doesn't mean you are good. It doesn't mean your worth is great." It is true that being unique is not the same as being good, or loveable. However, it is not true that our worth isn't great. Indeed, Jesus shattered that fear by paying the price for us in advance. If our worth wasn't great or was only great conditioned upon our obedience then He would have paid it upon those conditions. But He didn't, He already paid it. He put His blood where His words are when He says, "Your worth is great to me. I love you. See? I've already paid the price." And if He know's the future or all possible variations of the future, then He must also know that your suffering and His suffering will be worth it. (I say "if" not as a limitation to His power but rather as a question of possibility.) In that sense, He has already declared your worth. He has already said "I love you. That you that only you are." and it beckons out to us, to love Him back. As iconically stated by John,

"19 We love him, because he first loved us."