What If Your Worth Comes From Whose Name Is on You?

By Pastor John Erickson

My children love the Toy Story movies, and there is a scene in the first one that has stayed with me.

Buzz Lightyear is having something of an identity crisis. For most of the movie, he thinks he's a real space ranger. Then he discovers he is a toy. Just a toy. And for Buzz, that is devastating.

Woody reminds him of something he has forgotten. There's a little boy named Andy who loves him. Buzz looks at the bottom of his foot and sees Andy's name written there.

He isn't who he thought he was. But his value isn't based on being a space ranger. His value comes from who he belongs to.

I think there are a lot of us who need to hear that.

Maybe life didn't turn out the way you thought. You aren't doing the job you expected, or you aren't the parent, spouse, or friend you imagined you would be. Maybe your picture of yourself has changed so much you hardly recognize it.

Here's a question: What if your value was never supposed to come from any of those things?

A Blessing We Hear but Don't Always Hear

In Numbers 6:22-27, God tells Moses how Aaron and his sons are to bless the people of Israel. It's a beautiful passage. You might have heard it at the end of a church service:

"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."

I have spoken these words over people many times. But there's a little line at the end that is easy to miss. God says, "So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them."

Wait a minute. Put God's name on them?

The blessing is not just a nice way to end a gathering. It is a declaration about whose people they are. This blessing was first given to Israel within God's covenant with them. As Christians reading it, we do not need to erase that setting. We receive its picture of God's gracious care alongside the New Testament's invitation to belong to him through Jesus.

And notice who does the blessing. It's not Aaron. Aaron is the one speaking, but God is the one acting. A priest isn't some spiritual magician who produces blessing. He's more like a hose that carries water from one end of the yard to the other. The hose matters, but the water doesn't originate in the hose.

God is the source.

Blessing Is Not a Blank Check

When we hear "The Lord bless you," we can start picturing all the things we'd like God to give us.

A better job would be nice. A new car. A little more money in the bank. And if the Lord really wanted to bless me, I could come up with a fairly impressive list.

But God's blessing is not an unlimited shopping spree.

The Hebrew language here carries the sense of God bringing his good into the life of his people. The next line asks him to keep them-to watch over them, guard them, and care for them.

Think about who first received this blessing. Israel was not about to walk into an easy, comfortable life. They would face wilderness, uncertainty, and some very painful lessons along the way.

Yet God could bless and keep them in the middle of it.

That should change the way we pray. God's care is not proved by the absence of difficulty. We can be kept by him even in seasons when life is hard.

The Face of God

The blessing continues by asking God to make his face shine on his people and turn his face toward them.

That might sound like a strange request until you think about the difference between somebody who is looking at you and somebody who isn't.

If you've ever tried to get a distracted person's attention, you know what I mean. You're talking, but they're looking at a screen. They nod every few seconds, and you know they haven't heard a thing.

When our youngest, Joel, was little, he had a direct way of getting my attention. He would grab my face and turn it toward him until we were looking at each other. He was not leaving much room for uncertainty.

In a busy family, it is easy for the youngest voice to feel as though it needs to get louder. Joel had found a more hands-on solution.

Sometimes prayer can feel like that. We imagine we need to turn God's face toward our situation and make him notice. But the blessing gives us a different picture.

God is not distracted.

In Exodus 33, Moses asks to see God's glory. God's holiness is so overwhelming that Moses cannot simply see all of his glory face to face. And yet here, in Numbers 6, God's people are invited to receive his gracious attention.

What a picture. We don't have to grab God's face and force him to look at us. The blessing speaks of a God who turns toward his people.

And the last gift named is shalom-peace. Not merely quiet, or everybody getting along for five minutes, but wholeness and restoration in relationship with God.

Paul connects that peace to Jesus in Romans 5:1. Through faith in Christ, we have peace with God.

You Belong Before You Perform

We spend an enormous amount of energy trying to prove our worth.

We work harder. We compare ourselves to somebody who looks more successful. We tell ourselves that when we accomplish the next thing, finally we'll feel like enough.

But the blessing begins somewhere else. God puts his name on his people.

That does not mean our choices don't matter. Following Jesus changes how we live. But our standing before God does not come from constructing the perfect identity for ourselves.

It begins with his grace.

Go back to Buzz Lightyear for a moment. Nothing about his circumstances changed when he saw the writing on his foot. He was still a toy. He still had to figure out what to do next.

But he was reminded that he belonged to someone who loved him.

Maybe you aren't who you thought you would be. Maybe some things in your life have changed in ways you never wanted.

You can bring all of that to the Lord. And you can remember that your worth is not found in the title you earned, the success you achieved, or the version of yourself you hoped to become.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

You belong to him.