I woke up in the middle of the night with one word in my head: VALUABLE.

That’s just how I saw it in my mind, in big capital letters. The letters were also a bluish-turquoise color so I guess it looked more like this:

VALUABLE

Huh. Hmmm. It’s 4am. What is that supposed to mean? Sleep is valuable. My bed is valuable. My home is valuable. But that’s not it… what is this word supposed to mean to me today?

VALUABLE

And then the sleepy fog lifted and it became clear. Tell them they’re valuable.

That’s it! It’s so simple, and yet, I wonder how many of us have forgotten? Do we get so busy that this beautiful truth slips our mind for days, weeks or even months at a time?

You are valuable. I am valuable. The person you’ll see today at your job who annoys the pants off you is valuable. The guy standing in the freezing cold begging for money while cars anxiously wait for the light to change is valuable. The woman serving me coffee who looks different than me and thinks different than me and doesn’t understand my belief in Jesus is valuable.

What would today look like if each one of us remembered that we are all precious and priceless and truly valuable?

Let’s not give ourselves the job of trying to figure out who is worthy of our kindness. That’s just way too much pressure and takes too much brain power. We weren’t engineered for that. How about we go back to the basics? Just for today let’s try to love God and love others, remembering that we are all valuable to our Creator. And then tonight, we’ll all get a good night’s sleep.