Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

I've been reflecting a little bit on a line that I remember from a movie some time ago, A Knight's Tale, in which, a person who is high born, someone who is account, says to someone that he does not value, you have been measured, you have been weighed, and you have been found wanting. Maybe in another order and it doesn't really matter. I have spent some time with a lot of people, including myself, that at various points in their lives have felt like they didn't quite measure up, that they weren't quite good enough, That for some reason or another, they needed to do more in order to be worthy of anything at all. And, you know, in some ways, I think it's a societal, cultural kind of message that we receive. There's always more to get, more to do, and that if we, you know, don't fit in whatever the picture of success is for, a group of people, than we are indeed wanting.

At least that's what the message is that we receive. And, you know, ever since I began this podcast and actually since I began doing, work with a variety of people in my capacity as in ministry. I have always wanted to peep people to experience knowing how valuable they were. Not that they were more valuable than someone else. They were differently valuable than someone else, and that every one of us brings a gift, to the table.

It may not be the gift everyone else values, but we all bring a gift. And, you know, one of the biggest struggles is coming to a place where we recognize that what matters most is that we value the gifts we bring to the table, that we value them enough to bring them to the table. Because here's what what what happens when we feel like we've been weighed and measured and found wanting is we don't feel like we even have a gift to bring to the table. We don't have something uniquely us that we can bring to the table. Some unique, piece of our personality, some unique way of seeing, perceiving the reality in which we live, some unique way of delivering the services that many people may deliver but look a little different when we deliver them because we're the one delivering them.

When we undervalue that, we don't we don't reflect all that we could in coming to the table. We don't reflect all that is written in us at the deepest level of our being. I come back to this regularly, but the very first chapter of, of the Hebrew bible in Genesis chapter one, the story that is told there is of an orderly creation after almost every single one of the six days of creation. However you envision creation happening, over time, through evolution, in one in in not twenty four hour segments because the word yom in in Hebrew actually just means the lighted, illuminated portion of the day. But at the end of five of those six days, God looks at what has been made, what is in the process of being created and shaped, and says it's good.

In fact, on the last day, on the sixth day, says very good. Not perfect. Good. Good. And you see, each one of us being made in the image of God, Genesis one twenty six, being made in the image of God means that we bear an aspect of the eternal that is irrepeatable, that each one of us can bring to the table, can bring to the world, can bring to the community in which we live, can bring to the relationships that we have with others, and no one else can bring that.

No one else can bring that. You bring things to the table I can't bring. You share a gift I don't have, at least not that looks the same. So when you bring yourself, your fullest self, to the table, when you give, yourself away, so to speak, give that gift of yourself away, you add to our ability to see the image of God. Because as one aspect, no matter how infinitesimally small you may feel your aspect is, One of the one of the infinite aspects of God if you hide it, so to speak, if you don't remember who you are and let that be seen among others.

The challenge, of course, is overcoming the inner voices that say something different. I remember once someone said, I don't know where the quote is from, so I, and I'm not gonna spend time looking for it, but the, I think it was Julia Roberts in the movie. The bad stuff is easier to believe. When people tell us bad stuff about ourselves, when we tell ourselves bad things about who we are, it is easiest to believe that. It is quickest for us to hold on to.

And part of that is the neuroscience of our brain. The neuroscience of our brain grasps almost immediately onto the negative, and it takes somewhere between ten and twenty seconds for our brain to grasp onto the positive. So can you see how much easier it is for you to jump on the bad than it is to hold on to the good? Because you have to hold it long enough till you actually feel it, absorb it, experience it, know it to be true. No matter how many times in this podcast that I say to you, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the the gift you are.

Until you believe it, my words may feel absolutely empty to you. There are moments in my own life when they feel empty to me, when I don't value the gift I bring, when I question if I'm enough, when I weigh myself, measure myself, and feel I come up wanting, In my desire to fit in with everyone else's image of me, not God's, everyone else's image of me, or what I think everyone else's images of me are, I'm more likely to give in to following those images rather than the truest, deepest, most real image I was made in. It's, it's a challenging world to world to live in, and it's a natural thing to wanna protect ourselves. And particularly, if if we have heard these negative, images of of us of us being wanted, wanting, you know, found wanting in our measuring up. If we've internalized those message, it's very hard to be courageous enough to let those out.

And the world is the worst for it. No matter what anyone tells you, the world is worse for it. So it is worth the work of identifying where inside of you do the negative messages come from. You have been measured. You have been weighed, and you are found wanting.

Where does that message come from? Perhaps for you, it was maybe your parents or teachers or your peer group or an employer or someone else altogether, a stranger who said something in just the most vulnerable moment in your life, and that was enough to make you question whether you ever ought to do something again. Whether what's the point of trying? Because you've been found wanting. But I'm here to tell you today, and it's worth the work of using your journals to discover where is that message coming from, why and and and to be observant in your own life.

When does the message arise? What is it that you're doing when it arises? Your cooking is bad? So when you go in the kitchen and start to cook, you feel badly about yourself. Did someone tell you that the way you walked was weird?

And now every time you walk in a place other than your own house, maybe even there, you feel judged for the way you walk or the way you talk or the way you see the world or your wide eyed dreameriness or your overly, realistic pragmatism. Whatever it may be, someone has told you, that's not enough. Maybe you told yourself when you weren't accepted for the person you were. I'm here to say, get to the bottom of it. Please, please, please use your journal, talk to a therapist, talk to someone who cares about you, that you trust, who can listen to you and hear these concerns of yours and perhaps echo back to you what they see in you and help you get to the bottom of this shadow that lives within you, that robs you of your value, that you keep judging.

The world is always gonna judge you. But when we judge ourselves, we're with ourselves twenty four hours a day, and so that that self talk, that internal talk robs us of the value we bring to the world. Let me reiterate it. You are a gift. What you bring to the table, to the world, to your community, to the universe is valuable.

It's a gift. You're infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Not that you'll become, although you'll be a gift for that too, but you're a gift for who you already are. Go out and live into that world. Dig deep.

And as painful and as, challenging as it may be, dig enough to find out where that message is coming from so that you can stop giving it to yourself and instead show up at the table as yourself. Because that's what we need. That's what we need from you. So until the next time we meet, remember the words you're infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. And until the very next time.