God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:5

What could have been one of my most terrifying childhood memories has become one of my most treasured moments because someone decided I was worth it.

At ten years old I was already comfortable swimming in the deep end of the pool. In fact, I loved it! One of my favorite games with a friend was to push ourselves from the surface to the bottom of the pool and then back up. We had spent summer mornings at swimming lessons for the past several years. I knew my way around the water and had a great time splashing, swimming, and playing water games.

My dad has always wanted to see as much of the world as he can. When you have a family, traveling can be cost-prohibitive, but Dad found that renting a camper for our summer vacations gave us the opportunity to go further on a smaller budget. One of his favorite activities was planning our itinerary and determining which new places we would visit.

My ten-year-old summer we took our first trip to the Midwest to visit with some college friends of Mom and Dad. They had a really cool house with a gas fireplace that opened into the rooms on either side of it. For someone who had never seen a gas fireplace before it was awesome! The house was situated in a community that had a pool and tennis courts and other recreational activities.

One afternoon we all went to the rec center, Mom and Dad, their friends, their friends' kids, my siblings, and me. We kids had no complaints about playing in the pool while the adults watched tennis in an adjoining area. The adults were within easy distance of the kids but didn't feel the need to be watching us every moment. We were all old enough and comfortable enough in the water.

This pool had something that made it especially enticing: A water slide! Our family had a pool, but not a slide. Every one of us got in line for turn after turn, sliding and splashing into the water. We relished the excitement of whishing down the slippery slide, hanging in the humid air, and then plunging into the cool, chlorinated wet.

I had been down the slide a number of times without incident. But this time when I hit the water, I became disoriented and couldn't find which way was up. The taste of chlorine filled my mouth. I was flailing my arms trying to find my floating balance and heard myself making unintelligible noises. "Help!" I realized it was my voice calling out.

Through my panicked splashing, I saw my Dad turn and start running toward me. Before anyone had time to think, he dove into the water, fully dressed — glasses, watch, sneakers, and all — and pulled me to the side of the pool. We both got out dripping, and out of breath.

“I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

100 percent!!! Did you ever get a 100 on a test? What a good feeling that is! Right?! I remember a time in the fourth grade when I was the only person in our class that got a 100 on a Spanish quiz. And the teacher made sure to tell everyone, too! I remember how special I felt. It was like I had proved that I was worth paying attention to. I felt like I had achieved something. So much more than a test grade. I felt like I had proved that I had a right to exist.

That moment became a motivating factor for my future life. It unconsciously became my goal to always get good grades after that. I don’t think grades really mattered to me until that moment. But why did it become so important? I think that God created me with a desire toward excellence, but that moment felt like I was set apart and valued in a way that I hadn’t been before. I wanted to prove my worth, so I wanted good grades. I wanted to feel valued all the time. Don’t you?

I think we all crave affirmation in some way. We want someone to say, “Good job!” It makes us feel appreciated and like our efforts were worthwhile. But there is a trap in affirmation. We can become addicted to approval and work hard for the purpose of receiving it. We want to feel that we are good enough, approved, valued.

Is that what God wants for you and me? Does He want us to work hard for Him so that we can be valued and approved by Him and others? What really matters?