“No … I can promise you none of these things [in heaven]. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere for inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.”
- C. S. Lewis in ‘The Great Divorce’
Grace: “Are you afraid of anything?”
Tom: “Of growing old… not being of much use.”
- ‘The Horse Whisperer’
Much of the world perceives love and worth according to the following formula:
Need (usefulness) determines Worth. Worth determines Love.
How much a person or thing is loved is determined by how much they are worth. How much they are worth is determined by how much we need them or find them useful. In short, much of the message of worth and love we project on the world is: “I love you because I need you”. On the flip side, we have received this message so often that we have come to determine our worth by our usefulness, or how much others need us. Perhaps one of the greatest fears we have (especially those who are aging and/or weakening), is that we will not be of much use anymore. But with this kind of a distorted view of self-worth, we are more likely to fear heaven than find it a place of comfort.
Every once in a while I leaf through the old ‘Creeds of the Faith’, those statements of essential Christian doctrine that were hammered out by councils and clergy, after much struggle to understand God. I occasionally leaf through my old church ‘liturgy’ and the liturgies of a few affiliated churches as well. Recently a term I found used in these creeds and liturgies, struck me in a new light: self-sufficient. God, as the creeds and liturgies referred to, is self-sufficient. God is complete in and of Himself. He has no need of anything whatsoever in this world, or in the unseen world. God, then, cannot create anything because He ‘needs’ it.
We humans are not missing pieces of jigsaw puzzle that must be present to complete the picture. We are not needed by God. We are not needed in heaven. Examine this for a minute in the light of the common perception of worth. Need determines worth. We are not needed by God or in heaven; therefore we have no worth to God or to heaven? How would you like to spend eternity being ‘worthless’?
Something’s wrong with this picture you say? Thankfully, there is; because, God seems to go by the formula:
Love determines Worth. Worth determines Need.
God’s love for us determines our worth to Him. Our worth to Him determines His need for us. In short, while the message that we project onto the world is “I love you because I need you”, God is desperately trying to tell us “I need you BECAUSE I love you”. I suspect God feels very much like parents who have sent their kids of to college. Home doesn’t feel like home without the kids around, and it’s not because the ‘house’ is in any way ‘incomplete’, or because the parents ‘need’ the kids for their own living. Could it be that to God ‘heaven’ doesn’t feel like ‘heaven’ without us His children around?
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” Hopefully, we can see this now in a differently light. We make our sacrifices based on how much we determine the sacrifice is worth. We even shop for things based on whether an item is worth its price to us or not. God paid an infinite price for us; He made an infinite sacrifice for us. Could it just be that the price he paid is a reflection of how much we are worth to Him in His eyes? Could it just be that we are of infinite value to Him?
We can therefore look forward to a heaven where we are infinitely valued, and for eternity. God needs us there because He loves us. But while we wait for our eternal home, it is for us to consider what formula we will use to determine worth and love. What formula will be at work the next time we encounter and another human being? And what about the next time we consider our own worth?
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