What is a Life Worth?
What is someone worth? Not self worth or self esteem but what is a single life worth? Are different people worth more than others? I think what you believe about this question can inform a lot of your choices without you ever realizing it.
If you asked most people, “do you believe any one is worth more than another person” most would say no, everyone is created equal. But what about if we said is the life of an infant worth more than the life of a prisoner on death row? I can hear you “well they made choices and the infant has their entire life ahead of them”. Does the value of the inmate’s life go down? Is the value of life based on how much we perceive there is left to live? Does doing bad things mean that a life’s worth is less? Do you believe that?
I believe in the high worth of life. Be it a baby in their mothers arms or an inmate sentenced to die for murder in the morning. Why? Because I believe that the value of a life is not dependent on the life it lived or that it may live.
If a life has worth and we used a dollar amount you could say it’s worth $1000. Now to be honest you can’t put a dollar amount on a life but for the sake of the metaphor stay with me. Now when I use that money I may buy a lot of things. I may get some great deals. I may make sure that I spend less and get more. I may use it to help hurting people. So at the end of the life or when the money runs out there a lots of good things. Or I could by junk. I could gamble it away. I could spend in on worthless pursuits that made me feel good for a moment. And at the end an outsider would look at the results and say there isn’t any value there. Both lives are worth the same though. The results look different but the life itself was worth $1000. Too often we judge a life by the results we see and use that to determine worth. But a life has worth simple because it exists.
This is important to realize. If a life is only worth what it could be (an infant) or the results (an adult), then we devalue others or ourselves. But you have worth and it hasn’t gone down or up because of anything you’ve done or had done to you.
One of the clearest pictures of this from Jesus is in Luke 15:11-32. This is The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Again internet so pause, go read it and come back. The Old Testament full of refences to worthless actions and how worthless the wicked are. The son was one of those people. The results said he was worthless. But the father saw him and didn’t give him a pep talk about how he could turn his life around. He didn’t condemn his actions or judge him for his horrible choices. He threw a party. He rejoiced. He embraced him. Why? Because no matter how worthless the choices he made were THE SON STILL HAD WORTH.
A side note that this doesn’t mean consequences go away. When we read about the other son a lot of churches focus on his bad behavior. But we don’t notice the truth that Jesus drops in there.
31 And he said to him<this is the father talking to the son who has been faithful>, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
The son that had left wasn’t going to get any more inheritance. You are going to have to live with the consequences of what you’ve done. But those consequences aren’t there because you are worth any less. You have worth. No matter what you’ve done, what mess you’ve made, how other people have treated you, the junk people have tried to put on you. Never forget. You have worth.
When life looks grim and you think you can’t go on. You have worth. When you feel the walls close in and you think it’s over. You have worth. When the people you trusted turn on you and you feel alone. You have worth. When someone screams at you for the pain you caused them. You have worth. This life is hard. It will smash your face in. But as ugly as you feel it doesn’t change the fact that you have worth.
