Most of us don’t feel significant at least some of the time. Much of life undermines our confidence in being important. From the way people treat us to our standards for perfection, we are challenged to feel that we are much more than a small cog in a huge machine.
I have concocted many ways to avoid feeling insignificant. As a college student I studied engineering to gain significance. I didn’t study it because I liked it or thought I would do a good job – But to gain prestige and with it a feeling of significance.
As a middle-aged man I sought promotion in my career to feel significant. I also sought church leadership to feel good about myself, as well as to do some good to those I sought to minister to.
But life doesn’t always make us feel significant. In my case, I often didn’t get the promotions I sought or when I did the problems that came with them made me feel insignificant. I also found church leadership often made me feel over-my-head and insignificant.
I have spent my entire life running away from insignificance. I have spent enormous energy running away from low self-esteem that was developed in my childhood.
So, what are your reasons that you struggle with feeling insignificant?
Why We Feel Insignificant
One reason we struggle with feeling insignificant is that we assume that if people don’t respect us that much, then we are not respectable. We allow others to define our worth. Most of us don’t have a healthy awareness of how much God respects us to counter the mixed messages that we get from how we are treated by others, including church people.
Another reason we feel insignificant is that we often pursue idols to feel important. These would be things like impressing others, our standards for achievement, and being strong. But these things never will make us feel significant in the long run. Attaining these things will never enable us to escape our feelings of insignificance. They are broken cisterns as described in Jeremiah 2:13.
A third reason for our feelings of insignificance is that it makes sense to think of ourselves as insignificant. “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (Psalm 8:4, NLT). How could we possibly believe that we were significant just using our human reasoning and the facts?
How We Can Feel Significant
So, how do we embrace the reality that we are significant when so many forces are screaming that we aren’t?
First, to escape our feelings of insignificance we need to know that we are significant, right now. We are far more precious to God than we are to anyone else in the world (Isaiah 43:4). Only by stubbornly clinging to this truth can we overcome the avalanche of conflicting massages that bombard us each day.
We also need to drop our bad habit of trying to escape feelings of worthlessness by comparing ourselves to others. We will either develop pride or jealousy as “we measure ourselves by ourselves and are without understanding” (2 Corinthians 10:12, Paraphrased).
A final thought that may help us escape our feelings of insignificance is to ponder the fact that we have been made like God (Genesis 1:27). He has made us to have a love relationship with him. He longs to be intimate with us and to walk with us through life.
Pondering this, I feel more significant already!
Journey into Lightl 