Value can be a strange thing. You can state any value for any given object, but the catch is that if nobody is willing to pay the stated price, then the value is a lie. What, then, determines our own value? Are we all equal, or are some people more valuable than others? Or is anyone really valuable at all?

Modern science teaches us that we are nothing but a random and meaningless punctuation at the end of an accidental evolutionary chain. Nothing more than a blip of a cruel joke, destined to have no more effect in the universe than a gnat could hope to have on the Sahara Desert. We accidentally sprang from nothing, and will invariably return to nothing. We have no value, because in the end, life is short, and ultimately meaningless.

Religion teaches us that our value is dependent solely on our actions. Life is naught but a contest to see how many boxes we can check, and how successfully we can dot our I's and cross our T's. Fail, and your value is forfeit. Our lives are nothing more than a struggle amidst a wave of conflicting morals and values, trying to find the best path among a void of absolutes, and our very value hangs delicately in the balance.

Humanity teaches us a confusing and inconsistent sense of value. You are proclaimed to be special and valuable because of who you are, and yet warped views of tolerance and political correctness seek to rob us of that individuality. To disagree with popular belief is to incur wrath, hatred, and scorn. Variety is something to be celebrated, but only certain narrow views of acceptable variety to be determined by those in power, or those who can scream the loudest about intolerance. In the end, you are only valuable if you fit into the same mold as everyone else. However, even this is not quite the complete truth. Your value is further contingent upon your ability to make someone else happy or content. Your value is so fragile, so meaningless, that many would even be willing to pay to ensure your existence never comes to fruition if they suspect it would not suit their own pursuit of pleasure. Maybe you are nothing more than a mistake to discard. Maybe you're lucky enough to be wanted. Regardless, your value is inconsistent and beyond your control. Further, your unavoidable death ensures that any value you once had is long erased by the ceaseless march of time.

The Bible teaches us something curiously different about our value. Our individuality is important. Each of us were fearfully and wonderfully made; meticulously designed long before birth. There is a purpose behind our existence, because we were designed with this purpose in mind. But simply having a purpose doesn't grant value. That brings us back to the catch of value: value is utterly dependent on what one is willing to pay. That's where the second curious fact comes into play. We are taught that the same God who creates us owns the cattle on a thousand hills. That the seemingly endless heavens were spoken into existence and maintained by Him. As the creator of every wonder in the universe, every method of payment is at His disposal. So how much are we worth? A thousand head of cattle? Perhaps a star? Maybe even a galaxy? Apparently all such methods of payment fall short in expressing our value to us. Only one thing would adequately express our value: God would give His very life on a cross. Could anything be more valuable than the very source of all life in the universe, the source of all existence itself? The weight of such value is staggering. Insurmountable. Indescribable. Humbling.

I know my value, and I refuse to let humanity, religion, or our warped view of science tell me otherwise. Yet my value is not something to boast over, because I was incapable of coercing my Creator into valuing me. It was a choice made in spite of me. A decision to value me, even knowing that I was incapable of earning that kind of value on my own. The same decision made for each and every individual. This is the epitome of love, and my everlasting source of boundless joy.