SELF-WORTH

We all frequently compare ourselves favorably with someone else. We all think of someone we consider to be less mature, less competent, or less able than we are. That person is a great comfort to us because he or she enables us to keep our self-image intact by saying, “Well, at least I’m not like so-and-so.” The only problem with determining our self-worth by comparing ourselves with others is that we are using the wrong measuring stick.

A little boy came up to his mother one day and said to her, “Mother, guess what! I’m eight feet, four inches tall!” His mother, greatly surprised, inquired into the matter and found he was using a six-inch ruler to measure a “foot.” The boy was actually only a few inches over four feet.

This is exactly what we do, we measure ourselves by one another, an imperfect prototype, rather than by the standard of the Word of God.1209

In his autobiography, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky tells about a time he was soloist at a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini: “The maestro paced the dressing room in which I practiced, repeating, ‘You are no good; I am no good.’ ‘Please, Maestro,’ I begged, ‘I will be a complete wreck.’ Then, as we walked on stage, he said, ‘We are no good, but the others are worse. Come on, caro, let’s go.’ ”

To Toscanini, it did not matter what he said about himself and the cellist. So long as he could compare himself and the soloist with “the others” and say that the others were less, he felt that they themselves could walk forward with great confidence, feeling full of self-worth. But there is great danger here. For what happens when one looks out and finds the others better? To use comparison with others as a measure for self-worth and confidence is to use a false standard. It puts us at the mercy of the external situation and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our sufficiency must be in Christ alone. And our relationship with him should be the sole determinant for our feelings of self-worth and confidence.1210