Perceived Value

What determines the worth of an object? Is it the price tag? Or the illusion of a bargain? Is it the status that is gained by owning the object?

Isn't value determined by how much a person is willing to pay? Take the housing market, for instance. A house that might have sold in a few days for $300,000 a year ago sits on the market for months, not because it has decreased in quality or size, but because a buyer is unwilling to shell out the money for the house. Thus, its value has decreased though no physical factors have changed.

Or take the iPhone. In June, people were sitting in line for the privilege of shelling out $600 for the new phone. Were they paying for the technology, the status or bragging rights as the first users of this newest trend? If the latter, they got their money's worth. If the former, then I understand their gripe when Apple upped the gigs and cut the price by $200, offering a superior product for less cash.

What is the worth of a person?

There's a corny Polynesian movie about a man named Johnny Lingo who offered an outlandishly large bride price for a woman no one else wanted. "Six cows! Why would you pay six cows for her?" his friends asked. "She's shy and ugly. You could have got her for 1 cow, or maybe a goat." But Johnny insisted on paying 6 cows, though even the girl's father tried to talk down the price. Johnny went away and returned later for his new bride. She met him, beaming and beautiful, transformed by the fact that she had worth to him beyond the value anyone else had ever placed on her.

"Johnny made a good bargain," the people decided. "He was right to offer so much for such a beauty." But her beauty grew out of her perceived value, not the other way around.

I want to look at people like they're worth more than the world may think. I want to learn to look beyond a person's quirks or size or tone of voice and see them as God sees them.