Thought for the Day – Staying Sane in a Mad World #4

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvellous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
Psalm 139 vs. 13 – 17

How much are you worth? Maybe a few pounds for all the chemicals in your body – but of course those chemicals are woven together in a remarkably complex way.

Graham Kendrick sung on his 1974’s classic album Paid on the Nail.

Well, how much do you think you are worth, boy?
Will anyone stand up and say?
Would you say that a man is worth nothing
Until someone is willing to pay?

So how much is a person worth.

It’s interesting that in this COVID-19 crisis – all the social distancing, all the isolating is to protect and preserve the vulnerable, the elderly, the physically weak which is a wonderful thing to do. 

Just as the baby in the womb is precious to God, so the old person in a care home who can do very little but smile and say ‘Thank you’ is of great value to God. Their life should be valued and preserved and they should be loved and honoured as people made in God’s image.

Maybe we are a bit like the items on Antiques Road Show – we are worth what someone is prepared to pay for us. Which brings us to the cross and a recent song by the Getty’s

“My worth is not in what I own
Not in the strength of flesh and bone
But in the costly wounds of love
At the cross
My worth is not in skill or name
In win or lose, in pride or shame
But in the blood of Christ that flowed
At the cross’

‘Standing before the cross we see simultaneously our worth and unworthiness, since we perceive both the greatness of his love in dying, and the greatness of our sin in causing him to die.’

John Stott

Graham Kendrick explains in the link below the story behind the song …

https://store.gettymusic.com/us/song/my-worth-is-not-in-what-i-own-feat-fernando-ortega/