You Matter to God
A few years ago I visited Ghana, where I was invited to speak to about one hundred ministers on the subject of leadership. The auditorium had windows and fans but no air conditioning. The temperature was 90 degrees with 90% humidity. I was scheduled to speak for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. A long day, but these folks are used to four hour worship services.
Some, but not all, spoke English, so I had an interpreter. Mindful of the heat, I drank one water bottle after the other. During lunch, I took a cold shower, put my damp clothes back on and continued in the afternoon.
The men were gracious and attentive, and they asked good questions. It was a great day. When it was over, several wanted to meet privately to talk about their specific leadership concerns. Then I retreated back to my room for another cold shower, this time putting on fresh clothes.
The local preacher wanted to show me the community in his truck. I climbed in, only to discover that the windows would not open and his air conditioner, blowing as hard as it could, had zero freon, and the truck had a weird smell, like fish had died in it.
He did not seem to notice the heat or the smell. I, on the other hand, being dehydrated from the day and nauseated from the fish smell, cannot remember ONE THING he showed me.
I am ashamed to admit that I am spoiled rotten. I am used to rooms being “refrigerator cold”—so cold that I have to wear sweaters to work in July. Meanwhile, in other countries, they use air conditioning just to take the edge off of the heat.
It blows me away that men will travel for miles to sit in a hot auditorium all day and listen to a woman talk through an interpreter about leadership. As an American, if I knew that
the auditorium would be stifling hot, that alone would be my reason for staying home. But these men were hungry to learn, and I was impressed.
The next week, I was invited to speak to the women. It is important for speakers to know something about their audience in order to make their speech relevant. So for several days prior to my speech, I asked some women in the community what they felt they needed to hear.
Here is how they answered: "The women are in despair; they think they have no value without a man. He is the head of the house, and the wife can do nothing, not even leave the house, without his permission. This is our culture.”
“Oh boy,” I thought. “I have no desire to insult their culture. Dear God, please reign in my tongue. How do I teach them about their value in a culturally appropriate way?”
I decided to approach this from three angles:
Loving God as He loves me
Loving Myself as He loves me
Loving Others as He loves me
This time, I did a few things differently than when I spoke to the men. First, I had frozen the water bottles (nevertheless, they melted fast). Second, I had frozen a washcloth to dab on my face (I cared not how it looked, only that I not pass out). And then, I preached.
I knew preaching would be unacceptable with the men; I was told they saw me as a teacher and nothing else. So I spoke about leadership in generic terms and answered questions about their specific situations. But these women needed to know their value without question, to know they were created for a purpose and to understand the all-consuming, unconditional love that God has for each of them. To do that, we needed to be in the Word.
My goal during the two-hour session with over three hundred women and high school girls was that they might understand that their value—their true identity—is not found in a man, or in their roles, titles, jobs, beauty, intelligence, accomplishments, or children.
Their true identity is found in Jesus Christ. Period.
True identity is an intimate relationship between you and God and begs the following questions:
Why was I created?
Why did God feel that the world needed me in this place and time?
What is God calling me to do?
How has God gifted me to live into this calling?
How can I use those gifts to glorify Him and bless others?
As I took questions at the end of the day, a woman with tears streaming down her face said through an interpreter, "Thank you for this. Thank you for telling us that we have value.”
Although she said it to me, it was meant for God. Thank you God. Thank you for telling us that we have value. We matter to you, and that is the best value of all.
