You're a big deal

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Years back, there was no Instagram , WhatsApp, Candy crush, Professor Bamba, Netflix or even our lovable 50 bob DVD guy. Kids of today might wonder how we survived back then. Well we did, back then we played marbles, kati, and rounder amongst others.  We had fun and we watched whatever KBC had to offer in terms of entertainment. Being kids we loved cartoons and I know I don’t stand alone when I say I lived to watch  Double Dragon, Samurai Pizza Cats, Beast Wars Transformers and off course, Aladdin.

Aladdin was an all-time favourite for many. Who can forget Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, Carpet and the affable Genie with his funny impressions?!!  Genie may have been a star character in the series and the movie but he was a universal character because of the genie in a lamp/bottle story with the accompanying 3 wishes. I would often imagine what I would say if given the chance to make those 3 wishes. Back then, my first wish would be to have all the hotdogs, kebabs and chips in the world!!! Corny.., I know !!! I was a kid with big dreams and an even bigger appetite!!! How I’m still slim till today, with a love for food spanning decades, is anyone’s guess.

My second wish would be for millions of footballs to play with my friends because I just loved football and still do to today even despite my beloved Manutd’s best efforts to put the manufacturers of sleeping pills out of business.

My third and final wish would be to have more wishes!!!  Duh!!!I must say the first two, were original, the third was after hearing that answer over and over again from many others who said it so that they would never have to live with the regret of having wasted their wishes.

Over-time those wishes have changed and I’m certain that nobody shares my previous childhood desires. I am certain that if there were such a thing as a genie today and millions of people were to rub his lamp and ask for three wishes, each time, despite the multitude of responses, the genie would identify a underlying need in those wishes; the need to feel important.

Is there really a desire bigger than that? To feel valued, of worth, appreciated and big in people’s eyes. Look around and you will see it constantly, people frantically searching for validation from others, longing to be affirmed. It’s a longing which never seems to be filled, or maybe it’s because we strive to fill that need with an assortment of things that we deem as ideal measures of our self-worth.

As we live in a society with an ever-growing inclination to relative truth, it comes as no surprise that we have relativized the measure of a person’s worth. The definitive measure of one’s worth varies greatly with no clear-cut marker in place. Money seems to take the first place in defining the value of a person. Have it in plenty and you’re a VIP, have it in moderation and you’re treated just like everybody else, an ordinary person. Don’t have it all and you’re less of a human being to some.

Others derive their importance from the clothes they wear. Only designer labels will make the cut or something straight outta NFM or FAFA. Wear anything less and they feel they will be treated as a ‘has been’ or worse, ‘a never will be’!

A common school of thought is to define our value in terms of the things we have. Thus, you feel important when you have a top of the range vehicle, a mansion, the latest phone and you feel less important when you lack either of these things or posses these items but in lesser value or size.

Looks also play a part in shaping one’s worth to some. Some people will go at any length to achieve the perfect look ranging from a radical diet plan, a rigorous exercise regime, a botox injection or a visit to the plastic surgeon. The slightest blemish will have them worried. They obsess over their looks and only feel affirmed when complimented.

The other significant measure of our identity and worth is in our behaviour or mannerisms. It may sound outlandish but some people feel important because of the foods they eat, with some taking exception to eating certain foods as they feel those foods are beneath them. They are those who drink choice drinks to show their sophistication and sneer at other beverages as they consider them appropriate for a lesser class of people and not them.

Others feel of value when they are seen with the who’s who, they feel important when they’re going to events or travelling the world. They have taken to social media to document their experiences and solicit likes in a bid to feel validated. While others who don’t have their lives as eventful as theirs look on from a distance in envy and wallow in a sort of quarter-life crisis. Then in a bid to feel relevant or cool, they will try to out-do or at the very least match their ‘vibrant’ friends.

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How we long to be appreciated, to be loved and accepted and we put out all the stops to achieve it.  Not everyone is looking for validation though these ways as they are some who do these things not to be affirmed but because they simply can. Life, education, career, family have enabled them to attain such a status. It maybe also after years of hard work and holding on to their dreams they are receiving their just dues. For a vast majority though, they live a lie because they do these things to feel a sense of worth, not to be left behind by others and at times coming at the cost of hiding their true selves. It’s like living life as a teen yearning for acceptance and doing anything to fit in because of the perceived pressure from the successful elite, whose lives they are dream to emulate.  The song, High school never ends, by Bowling for Soup, perfectly exemplifies it , with the lyrics to the chorus being;

The whole damn world is just as obsessed

With who’s the best dressed and who’s having sex

Who’s got the money, who gets the honeys

Who’s kinda cute and who’s just a mess

And you still don’t have the right look

And you don’t have the right friends

Nothing changes but the faces, the

names, and the trends

High school never ends

GASP!!! What is such a song doing on such a blog!!! Well, I’ll tell you. I l used to adore Rock music even as a Christian. It took me some time before I realized that I had to refrain from listening to some of it. However, not before I drew lessons from the content in that music, especially from this song.

At the time, I related with the song’s lyrics like most of you have. Indeed it was frustrating for some that the never ending high school norms dragged on to adulthood. It is sad that people draw their identity from others who don’t know the real them but are only acquainted with the mask paraded before them. It’s an unevenly balanced scale where you have to work super hard to keep up the pretence that can come crashing down, along with your self-worth at the slightest moment.

Living life this way can be quite exasperating. Having to do these things for identity, love and acceptance can take its toll. It’s futile trying to please everybody because you just can’t and quite frankly you never will. It’s  even more tiresome living to people’s expectations , always needing to put your best foot forward and hide your flaws and issues within, when deep down you long for people to accept you just the way you are.

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Well, here’s the good part, there is someone who actually knows you inside out to the very hairs of your head and the things you do when nobody’s watching. He knows your addictions, your flaws, your imperfections and still sees you as precious.

That person is Jesus and in his word, he makes it plainly evident how  valuable we are to him. It is seen from day 1, whereas he spoke other things to being, man was hand-made and life was breathed into him!!!(Genesis 2:7)

Our worth to him starts from the get-go, he already knows us before birth as Jeremiah 1:5 reads,  “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Our issues of looking for affirmation mostly start from a lack of identity and here is God saying he knows our lives from conception to death even before we were actually born!!!

This in-depth knowledge of us includes knowing our flaws, the ones we desperately try to hide because we fear will be isolated if people find out. Ordinarily, when we mess up big time, people want nothing to do with us but not Jesus. He still chased after us. He still came running for us even when we were pushing him away.

Value in something or someone can be seen either when someone is willing to undergo sacrifice, to bear humiliation, to endure pain or even death  for that person or thing, that Jesus underwent all 4 underlines just how  important we are to him regardless of whether we are poor, rich, beautiful, average-looking, disabled, messed up et.c. That he sacrificed his Godly sovereignty to become a mere man and relate with us at our level shows just how he valued us. That he was able to endure lashes on his body till he became disfigured, or wear a crown of thorns and then die nailed to a cross naked for us is a larger than life affirmation that he cherishes us and see us as dear to him.

It shows us we’re a big deal to him. I can never understand why he loves us so but with a child-like faith, I believe it to be true. We often tell people we love, “You mean the world to me.” To Jesus, the world, you and me, really meant the world to him and he put aside his life for the world.

Quite often, it’s easy to feel worthless. It’s prevalent to feel cast aside, belittled and feel that we just don’t measure up. When you have the media constantly shoving in your face what you lack to become richer, more beautiful, fun, you drift to feeling inadequate. When people chide you for not reaching their expectations or those of the society, you can feel small. In Jesus’ eyes you are a big deal. You are so precious to him that he sacrificed his life to enable you to gain your identity as his child, his friend or his brother, sister if you accept his gift of salvation and follow him.

Romans 8:34-38 tell us that nothing can separate us from his love. Not the guy you killed when you were driving under the influence of alcohol, nor the porn you watched for the umpteenth time, nor the HELB loan you squandered on a night out, nor that regrettable one night stand,nor that research project that was plagiarized. Nothing. Nothing because on that cross, through his death, he paid the full penalty for your mistakes and cancelled all those flaws to make you flawless if you believed in him.

In Luke 15, the prodigal son thought himself as a nobody when he returned back to his father. He thought he was unworthy to be his son but his father welcomed him back, ‘my son’ and gave him the best robe and held a feast for the VVIP because he had returned. You may come back to him, tail in your legs, a dark past, a sullied reputation but he welcomes you back like the VVIP you are, you’re a big deal to him.

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