For close to two months now, I’ve been working out super consistently, at least five times a week and sometimes, twice a day. (I know, crazy! Who is this person?)

I actually do things that the productivity coaches tell us to do. Like, set out my gym clothes the night before, so the first thing I do every morning is to change into them. (Yup, even before I have my first sip of coffee which sounds incredibly unlike me because, every rational person knows, coffee. is. life.)

Don’t worry, I haven’t completely lost all sense of reason. I still wait till caffeine saturates my bloodstream before head out for a 3K walk and get my 5,000 steps in time with my Maverick City worship music on my headphones. As the millennials say, I’m “killing it.” (For a middle-aged woman with zero athletic skills that is.)

With the walk checked off my list, I feel so much better about myself.

I feel a sense of accomplishment. I feel healthier. I feel ready to take on the day with a, “Bring it on!”

Till…screech…something derails my day. An article is rejected by a publisher. My kid is sick. My husband and I exchange a few curt words. I realize I’ve forgotten a deadline. I’m tired and irritable.

Those exercise endorphins start to crash like a toddler after a birthday party with too much sugar. The “I’ll feel better about myself if” mantra starts to become less compelling because it’s so temporary.

Maybe you have some things which you think will make you feel better about yourself.

The script in my head goes something like this:

I’ll feel better about myself if I eat healthy, if I’m patient with my kids, if I pray more for my husband, if I cross off my to-do’s, if I get my article on bignamewebsite.com, if I get more followers on Insta, if I have a productive day, if I ….

Those are definitely good things to set as goals for myself. I’m not advocating that you or I stop incorporating healthy habits in our lives.

But when I strive for a sense of worth by doing, I come up empty and dry and brittle.

It’s not a question of doing so you feel better about yourself.

It’s a matter of believing that you already are a new, redeemed, perfectly loved creation in Christ.

When you see yourself the way God sees you, you don’t have to strive to be a certain size, a certain weight, a certain designation, a certain level of acceptability, a certain level of famous, a certain level of extroverted, a certain…

When you see yourself the way God sees you, you can rest because your significance lies in what Christ has accomplished for you.

And as a consequence, we can do the things He has called us to, without attaching a sense of our worth to them.

 When I huff and puff my way through a Bollywood dance workout, it makes me feel better physically. But I don’t grow in value because I’ve burned 323 extra calories that day. (Incidentally, here’s a valid question: do exercise instructors not have sweat glands?? Do they just “glow” and not pour buckets of sweat like 40-something-year-old bloggers?)

I should exercise and eat healthy because in Christ I am a steward of the gift of my body. But I don’t earn my worth by exercising or eating clean.

I should be patient with my kids because Jesus has given me the sacred responsibility of raising them. But I don’t secure my significance to being a “good” mom.

I should pray more for my husband because God has blessed me with the privilege of coming to His throne of grace. But prayer is not going to win me brownie points with God or make me more lovable in His eyes.

We do those things as a response to what Christ has done for us. We do those things out of the overflow of what God has invested in us.

Our worth and our significance are not on a sliding scale of what we accomplish or don’t or how “good” we are or not.

Our worth and our significance are rooted in Jesus and who He says we are.

So, put on those running shoes, blast that praise music, and go for that walk. But may it be about responding to His approval of you rather than striving to feel better about yourself.

 

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