Feeling discouraged?
"I have done so much but yet I am not recognised!"
"It is unfair why I get the same treatment as him/her when I put in so much more!"
Or
"I am not worthy."
Sounds familiar? I felt a deep sense of sadness as I read "The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard" (Matthew 20) by Jesus himself. In life, many people are struggling between whether they are worthy or whether they are not worthy. It is this thought that this world instills. Everything that you do, you consider its worth, whether is it worthy for you to put in your effort into it. A very direct example, your employment. You will ask yourself these questions:
"Is the pay given to me worthy of my education level?"
"Is the working hours tally to the pay given?"
"Is my job scope worth getting this pay?"
And the list goes on...
While some is fully worthy of themselves, there are also people of the contrary. People living in the opposite side of the world, darkness. In everything that they do, they lack self-worth. They keep questioning their abilities in everything that they do.
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early int he morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay whatever is right.' So they went.
He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?'
'Because no one has hired us,' they answered.
He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.'
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.'
So who do you think will be paid more? Surely the people who started working the earliest! No. This was what happened.
"The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.'
What is there to ask whether is it fair or not?
What is there to ask whether are you worthy or not?
Under the eyes of God, everything is given to you out of grace. (Refer to Job's example of Grace) The things that you have is not yours, and never will it be. It is given since even before you were born. So what is there to complain about what is fair or not? Is not pride that is making you blind!
So what if you looked ugly?
So what if you have defects?
So what if you are poor?
So what if you do not meet the standards of the world?
So what if people diminish you worth?
So what?
What is there to ask whether are you worthy or not since regardless whether you took the job first or last, you still get the same treatment from God. It is not what you have that determines who you are. It is not what you look like that determines who you are. Remember that you are incomplete, it is God that chose you and made you complete. It does not matter how people look at you, how they say about you. How can a flawful judge a flawful? God who is perfect says it all, "You are worthy in Christ."
