Redefined With Arden BevereSýnishorn

Awaken to Your Worth

We’ve all experienced the feeling of helplessness that comes from regret. It follows that decision you made that you wish you hadn’t or the decision you didn’t make that you wish you had. 

Most of us know that we shouldn’t let regret steal our joy. Yet I wonder how many of us know that the danger isn’t actually within regret itself. The real issue arises when a shoulda, coulda, woulda mentality festers in our minds and leaves us more frustrated than we were before we messed up. 

King David is a great example to follow. He understood that his relationship with God was based on grace and mercy and not on his actions. That is the message of the cross as well. We don’t draw near to God on our own merit but through faith in Jesus. 

To respond properly to regret, we must know that our worth goes beyond behavior and, instead, is rooted in our relationship to God. If we tie worth to performance, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Maybe not at first, because we can usually live for a while without making any major mistakes. But sooner or later, we are going to fail. And if our sense of worth is dependent on our behavior, the shame of failure will bring us down. 

Our worth is based on two facts. First, we are made in God’s image. And second, we can identify ourselves with Jesus and receive new life in Him. That means that even when we are less than perfect, His perfection is still ours. Even when we show our flaws, His identity is still what counts. This does not give us license to fail or an excuse to sin. But it does give us reason to rise again when we inevitably do both. 

Whenever I haven’t behaved in agreement with God’s Word, I’m often tempted to allow my mistakes to strip me of my worth or force me to try to prove my value. But I keep choosing not to go there. It’s not easy, but in those moments, I turn my focus to the grace that I’ve received through Jesus instead of the shame of my own actions. 

God’s grace redefines my shame. The hidden benefit of regret is that it reminds us of our deficiencies and insufficiencies, and that propels us to find our value in Jesus alone.