Self-worth is defined as a sense of one’s own value as a human being. 

Self-worth is not the same thing as self-confidence, although you may have heard them used interchangeably. Self-confidence is a passing feeling of competence in a specific area. For example, if crunching numbers comes naturally to you, you might have high self-confidence in subjects like math or chemistry. On the other hand, if you are not so great at extreme sports, you might have low self-confidence at the top of the black diamond ski slope. 

Self-worth is quite different than all the other self-type words you may have heard recently: self-care, self-respect, self-love. Self-worth is a core feeling or thought about our worthiness as a human being. There are theories of self-worth that place high importance on performance such as winning, status, appearance or abilities. I’d like to challenge those theories. 

There was a study conducted at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research that set out to find the benefits or consequences of basing your self-esteem on external factors. They researched arenas such as appearance, approval from others or academic performance and found that those who base their value on these factors reported more stress, anger, academic problems and relationship conflicts. They even had higher levels of drug and alcohol use and symptoms of eating disorders. 

Our worth as a human is not dependent on our abilities or performance. Our worth is defined in a much more important and deeper way: the truth of Scripture. After all, we are human beings, not human doings. 

Our relationship to God is not based in what we do or don’t do or what we’re good at or not good at. Our relationship to Him is bound up in the Father’s relationship to the Son. Self-worth is found in intimate relationship with God, a relationship that is built on God’s very nature: love. We can know we have worth and value because we can know God and experience a deep and transformative relationship with Him. When we know Him, we can trust Him when He says that we are made in His image. We can believe Him when he says that making humanity (that’s you) is “very good” (Genesis 1:31). 

We can trust that God loves us because He is a God who is not far from our troubles, nor does He disdain our questions. He is the God who lives in the same world we inhabit. We can grow in confidence of this love by getting to know the God who made us. We can find the quiet joy of studying God through prayer, reading His Word and the witness of those around us. God cares about every corner of human affairs. Your thoughts and feelings toward yourself are important to Him. 

We cannot expect to believe a God we do not know. I encourage you to get to know Him through the Bible, through talking to Him and through asking questions with other believers. You wouldn’t expect to know a friend well whom you haven’t spoken to in weeks, would you? We can grow in confidence in His love, grasp His mercy, which will enable us to reproduce his character so that others may recognize the God in us and know who they are as well. 

It’s easy to get caught in the race of chasing status, salary or social standing. We think that in these things (status, salary, social standing) is where we will find our self-worth. We, as humans, have this tendency to expect much out of ourselves and create lofty goals. The problem is, we continually run up against our limitations and ultimately think poorly of ourselves. When we rely on ourselves to accomplish goals for others’ approval and satisfaction, we will always be disappointed. We are made to be reliant on God, not our own abilities. 

If you are someone who checks social media daily, I want to challenge some of those behaviors. When we are viewing other’s highlight reel or best possible parts of their day online in an enriched way (viewing images or first-person videos that include the perfect soundtrack), we are internalizing that content. This content absorption effects our brains and begs us to ask ourselves, “Why aren’t you doing that?” I am inviting you to challenge your social media consumption, behavior and habits. What we view affects our brains which in turn affects our thoughts and feelings. We are searching for self-worth by constantly comparing ourselves to others which is like fighting a losing battle. Their highlight reel will always win in the competition against our reality.  

The world will always tell us to hustle for approval and sell us the lie that our worth and value will come from what we’re good at or our achievements. You can challenge that! You know the truth. You follow the Creator of the world Who says you are very good. You have intrinsic value because you are the pinnacle of creation from a very loving God.

for further study

Read:

• Praying the Names of Jesus by Ann Spangler 
• Classic Christianity by Thomas C. Oden 
• The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to
• Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive by K. Neff. & C. Germer 
• Self-Compassion. Mindfulness in Positive Psychology: The Science of
• Meditation and Wellbeing by K. Neff 
• Self-Esteem Study from University of Michigan (apa.org/monitor/dec02/selfesteem) 
• Positivepsychology.com is an excellent website with many resources for psychology aid. 

Kendall is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She received her master’s degree in marriage and family counseling from Asbury Theological Seminary. Kendall believes in order to change the world, we must begin at home. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Caleb, and their two children, Caroline and Jackson.