Unique, Unspecial, & Highly Valued
You are unique
There is no one else exactly like you in all the universe and in any time period. Even if there were an exact biological duplicate, they would not have your life experiences or made all the decisions that led you to where you are today. They would not have overcome all the hardships you have overcome in exactly the same way. They could not have persevered in the same way that you have. In fact, no one but you can be you. No one else can choose to grow from this point in your life, and no one else can make the choices that you will moving forward from this moment. So be the best you that you can be, the best version of you.
There are circumstances in life beyond our power to change. Our past remains our past. Some aspects of our lives are controlled by other people, but no one can take our integrity, making us choose the wrong thing or the wrong path. They can take our lives or our ability to choose. They can even deceive us to pick the worst path, but no one can make us willing choose to go the wrong way. We are, each of us, uniquely empowered to choose good or evil at any given moment.
Unspecial
All that said, you are Unspecial, which technically isn’t a word, but either way you remain not special. No matter how rich or poor, brilliant or dull, lovely or plain… you are not special. Everyone has unique attributes, but we all have a beginning and an end. There are billions of people living on this planet, each of whom shall one day perish. Some people have it easier than others, but that doesn’t make them special. Each of us has the tendency to compare ourselves to others, and we’ll either feel the illusion of pride or the devastation of shame. Yet in the end, our life as we know it today will come to an end. Our wealth does not define us, nor our talents. Our attractiveness to others is not a measure of our worth. The prophet Isaiah said of Jesus, the coming Messiah:
“He grew up in his presence like a young tree, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that would make us look at him. He had nothing in his appearance that would make us desire him.”
Isaiah 53:2, God’s Word Version
Isaiah also noted that we all have gone astray, each choosing our own way. In other words, we have each rejected God and His ways, never fully embraced His ways, but have chosen a different path. All of mankind has made the choice at one time or another to go our own way, everyone but Jesus, Who stayed faithful to Father all the way to His death on a cross.
You are Highly Valued
Why would God have the One Special Man be stripped naked, beaten and nailed on wooden post reserved for the worst criminals? Humiliated and broken for all to see, Jesus cried out in pain: “My God, my God! Why have You abandoned me???” He Who was without sin was sacrificed for all us Unspecial, selfish creatures who did not remain faithful to the One Who has always been faithful to us. We can look at how others have treated us and used that as an excuse for choosing to part ways with God, choosing something… anything that would lessen the pain of our own hurts, the betrayal of others, the feeling of being unloved or unappreciated. So Unspecial beings turn away, treating the Faithful One as the perpetrator… or exacting revenge upon those who have hurt us without respect for how God wants us to treat them… or taking what we can take, rationalizing that this is what everyone else does.
Why would God allow His only begotten Son to be crucified? How could a Perfect God turn His eyes away from Justice? How could He purify the Unspecial ones that He never ceased loving so that they could enter into His Kingdom, not because they were worthy, but because Jesus made them worthy. The Special One became the purchase price for Justice and the embodiment of Love.
Someone needed to pay for our betrayal, our infidelity. Yet it could not be any of us Unspecial ones because there was already a price on our heads for our disobedience. No matter how minor the transgression in our eyes, we fall short of God’s worthiness, His perfection, but each of us, no matter how much we’ve offended the Father, no matter how intentionally or unintentionally we’ve rejected Him, each of us is highly valued, made in His image.
Even as Jesus gasped for breath, His body pierced, He understood that wounded people wound people. He interceded to the Father, saying: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing!” He could have cried out for Justice, but instead He became our Justice, our path to restoration, a visible image of God’s love for a people who cared so little for Him.
Why would God love us so much? From the very beginning we were made in His Image. No person is so far from God that God forgets who we were made to be: His image bearers. We are Unspecial in our transgressions, yet always highly valued in our essence. Like a battered piece of gold slathered in dung, God wants to wash us clean and restore us to who He always wanted us to be. All we have to do is join God in the work He is doing in each of us. In His Presence we are purified, transformed, and remade. We are always His image bearers, highly valued with the potential to reflect His goodness better each day.
“So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.”
Genesis 1:27, God’s Word Version
copyright ©2022 Mitchell Malloy (http://mitchellmalloyblogspot.com/)
