You matter.

You who are your own worst enemy. You who’s chattering brain will keep you small.

You matter.

“Mattering is the belief and conviction that you matter, that your life has cosmic significance regardless of external circumstances.

“Mattering is a form of enchantment, a conviction that, in some mystical way, the cosmos sees you and honors your pain and struggles. Your emotional and mental well-being rests upon this bit of magic. Because the conviction that you matter is nonsense when considered from a purely factual point of view. The physical universe, all those supernovas and black holes out there, cares nothing about your suffering or your heroic efforts to love and care for the people in your life. The belief that you matter is a residual bit of magic, similar to the soul, smuggled in from our enchanted past, the conviction that God sees and cares for you.” —Hunting Magic Eels, Richard Beck, p. 56

Is your soul feeling this?

Some more Richard Beck from his next book:

“Mattering means your life matters, no matter what. Importantly, mattering isn’t earned. Mattering is given. Mattering is an existential fact of your existence, a value that cannot be lost or eclipsed. This unconditional value stabilizes the ego, extracting it from the successes and failures of our hero game. With mattering, you don’t have to exhaust yourself at the bike pump of self-esteem, laboring to inflate your life with value and significance. You are already worthy.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 86

As I have said here numerous times, worthiness is your birthright. You are already worthy.

In summary, your life has cosmic significance regardless of external circumstances or what you say about yourself.

Mattering isn’t earned. Mattering is given. You are already worthy.  Something outside of you validates you as worthy.

Where does mattering come from? Science says transcendence.

If you count yourself as a Christian, you know where this transcendence comes from. It is obvious. But skeptics have a problem with the invisibility of transcendence so they look for everything but Jesus. A favorite right now is the universe. But the universe is impersonal and doesn’t care about you at all. Does the universe know your name?

Mattering is beyond your self-talk. You don’t have to exhaust yourself inflating your life.

Mattering is beyond your self-made moral code. Something outside of you creates a moral code. Sometimes it is your community which you have chosen. Sometimes it is just being in the Judeo-Christian ethic culture.

Your moral code comes from something larger, something outside of you. Your mental health depends on these truths. There are some things that are wrong, so wrong that your body has a negative reaction. This comes from outside of yourself.

“Mattering is an objective truth discovered outside of the cave of your mind. Your value is a fact that exists beyond your self-assessment.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 108

Breathe here for a moment.

Let’s review this definition of humility my church and I came up with:

Humility is knowing your strengths and limitations. So you enter your world from your enoughness. Which means we see others and make generous assumptions about them because the others can’t take away our identity.Humility requires a healthy sense of self that springs from security and enoughness so you can be other-focused.The confidence of knowing that you are a person of inherent worth and value frees you up from the relentless and futile pursuit of external validation that drives so much arrogant and narcissistic behavior.Do you notice how this sense of enoughness comes from outside of you?

I’ve quoted Richard Beck’s book, The Shape of Joy a lot. You should read the whole thing. This is his breakdown of how we find joy.

“Joy starts with an ego that is quiet, where the chatter of the inner voice is turned down.”

We are not our own worst enemy. We grow to love the enemy we make of ourselves from all that self-talk. We lead our brains.

“When our ego volume is low, we become able to forget ourselves. This allows us to become focused outwardly toward others. We’re able to be present. We can do this because our identities are stable and grounded.”

This is about humility. Do you see it?

“Having turned away from our superego complex our egos are no longer reactive and triggered by our successes or failures.”

We stop trying to prove our worth.

“This serenity of soul is grounded in the conviction that our lives matter, that we are worthy of love and belonging. Our self-worth is secure because our value is unconditional, a durable truth about our lives, rather than something variable and contingent.” –Richard Beck, The Shape of Joy, p. 87

Our value is unconditional when it comes from outside of ourselves.Your mattering, you being worthy of love and belonging, comes from outside of you.

Your value isn’t defined by what you produce or how the world views you—it flows from who God says you are. Not from within yourself.

Whew. Stop exhausting yourself. Stop making an enemy of yourself. Forgive yourself too.

Then consider trusting God. He is personal towards you. He knows your name. He created you. You already have this Creator to Created connection. This ache in your soul is drawing you back to your personal Creator.

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