What If You're Already Important?

It wasn’t until I became chronically ill that I realised that I had placed my worth and value in my ability to do things. I felt valuable when I was achieving something and I felt like a failure when I wasn’t. In the many years I spent bedbound, where I struggled to do anything more than lay on the sofa staring up at the ceiling for hours, days and weeks on end, I came to learn that I was valuable, just as I was.

As leaders, we can fall into the trap of finding our value in our leadership. When things are ‘going well’ our achievements can plaster over the deep wounds that we all carry; the wounds that make us question our worth and our ‘enough-ness’. So often, it is only when things are stripped away that we realise what we truly believe. When circumstances like chronic illness, loss of a job, damage to reputation, a failed project and failed relationships come, they bring to surface the deep rooted beliefs we have of ourselves.

Why not take a moment to reflect. What do you believe makes you valuable; to God, to yourself and to others?

Is it the things that you do and achieve? Is it the titles you hold? The teams you lead? The ways you serve? The knowledge you have? The gifts you carry? The applause you receive?

The truth is, leadership does not determine your worth. It is not what makes you important or valuable. Many, including myself, have fallen for the lie that leadership will fill a void of self worth and significance, but no amount of influence or leadership will ever satisfy the lack within us. Our worth and value are found elsewhere.

How might you lead if you were already convinced that you are important?

As we honestly answer this question with grace, we might find exposed the ways that we seek approval and self-worth in our leadership.

If we were truly convinced of our worth and value, imagine the leaders we might be? Maybe we wouldn’t be so caught up in accolades and titles, maybe we wouldn’t fight so hard for recognition, maybe we’d take more risks, maybe we’d care less about what others thought of us, maybe we’d find it easier to create space for others, maybe we’d be more honest, maybe we’d be able to use our efforts more towards the purpose of our leadership so that we could better serve, champion and equip others the way we really want to.

As encouraging as it might be for us to pursue this healing so that we can become better leaders, I also want to gently remind us that our value is not in becoming better leaders. We are worthy of learning our worth because we are loved outrageously by a God who calls us valuable. Being loved and valued by God alone is where our significance is found. Becoming better leaders just so happens to be a by-product of the grace of truly understanding this.

Father God, we thank you for your extraordinary love that calls each of us inherently valuable before any titles we hold or achievements we make. We remind ourselves of your complete delight in Jesus before He started His ministry (Matt 3:17) and we thank you that this delight extends to us too. We ask that you would help us to understand the unchanging value that you have of us, because you love us, and so that we could be disciples who lead like you, serve like you and love like you to a world who needs to know that you value them before their merits, too. Amen.