Article December 8, 1980 Issue

How much are you worth?

CHARLES HOLLIS GREEN

A lot? A little? Many people view themselves and life in general as practically worthless. Yet almost everyone desires a sense of worth. Where does true value lie—in material attributes, possessions or positions, wealth or prestige? Hardly so, when any of these desiderata may be swept away overnight. To find our true and lasting value, we must look to God, infinite Spirit, the creator of all that really exists. Man is His spiritually formed idea, that which expresses Him; and as such, he is infinitely valuable to his Maker.

When we identify ourselves as this perfect man of Spirit's creating, it brings to us a new and heartening sense of our own individual worth. We begin to see the significance of Mary Baker Eddy's definition of man in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes: "Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind."^{Science and Health, p. 591;} How essential man is to God as His "full representation" and, therefore, how precious!

One summer, when I was swimming in a Canadian lake, my foot hit a sharp, jagged object underwater, and I emerged with two profusely bleeding wounds. Friends bound up the foot with a towel. Together we insisted on the truth of God's present perfection, fully manifest in all His spiritual formations. We saw that as His own beloved idea, I could never be touched by anything harmful or destructive.

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