Psalm 119:73 Reprogrammed

Your hands made me and formed me;
give me understanding to learn your commands.

Psalm 119:73 

People who have learned to think of themselves as worthless need more than a pep talk. They need to be reprogrammed.

Jan's mother didn't just treat her like she was worthless. She said so, in no uncertain terms.

If only you were prettier, you'd be able to get a better boyfriend. It's too bad you inherited your father's bad hair and not mine.

When Jan tried to use makeup and a new hairstyle to look more beautiful, her mother ramped up her insults, using words like slut and whore.

When she began acting out her desperate need to prove her self worth, she fell into patterns of behavior that degraded her even more. We met her in prison. For women especially, there's often a direct line connecting a life of constant debasement and a life behind bars.

There's a temptation for groups who lead chapel services in the prison to focus on one of two things. They want the women to know, without a doubt, that they are sinners in desperate need of salvation. Or they want the women to get all excited: singing, jumping, shouting, and high on Jesus. Both of those are based in scriptural principles, but they don't fully address what these ladies need.

Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day,
or like vinegar poured on a wound,
is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
Proverbs 25:20

People who have been trained to believe they're worthless need to be retrained to understand their true identity in the eyes of God. They don't need pep talks. They need to be educated, taught to understand the height and depth and breadth of God's plans and expectations for them.

Jan enjoyed the exciting worship and it was good for her to be aware that her chief failure lay in falling short of the glory of God. But what she grew to desire most was to know the heart of God. Only by knowing the Word would she know what God intended her life to look like.

For you created my inmost being;
 you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
 your works are wonderful,
 I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
 when I was made in the secret place,
 when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
 all the days ordained for me were written in your book
 before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
 How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
 they would outnumber the grains of sand—
 when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:13-18