"He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works." (Psalm 33:15 NASB1995)
I’ve spent the week muddling through Brant Hanson’s The Truth About Us. The premise of the book is pretty simple: we’re all terrible and God loves us despite our terribleness. As humans, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince ourselves that we aren’t terrible. Turns out, psychologist have identified fifty-five different kinds of biases that we are prone to! That’s a lot of bias and most of them, we are blissfully unaware of.
One such bias is the Endowment Effect. It’s an emotional bias that causes individuals to an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value. There’s a strange study about coffee mugs that backs it up, you can google it if you like. Childhood baseball card and Beanie Baby collections prove this theory; valuable to the owner, rubbish to the general public.
The Endowment Effect is magnified if the owner has personally invested: monetarily, physically or mentally. Their effort increases their estimation of said object considerably. We see this in home renovations, art projects and baked goods. “I made this!” simply means more to us.
Here’s a great example. My folks absolutley believed their house was worth a half a million dollars or more. They fostered this belief through a decade or more of dreaming and saving, followed by a several year process of making plans, doing dirt work, erecting a basement and eventually, a home. Mom spent countless hours painting each room with her unique and eclectic flair. They had invested finances, but their hopes and dreams far more heavily. Unfortunately, neither parent was much for maintenance. Though their home was priceless to them, it was in need of repair. When they passed away, the estate was lucky to sell it for $159,000. There wasn’t a lot left after the final mortgage note was paid. At the end of the day, half a million dollar dream home wound up being an $80,000 nest egg.
When I was reading about this Endowment Effect, I thought about God and His relationship with humanity. Truthfully, we aren’t that special. Brant Hanson’s right, we’re all kinds of terrible. But the other half of his thesis is true, too. God loves us deeply! And in His gracious endowment to us – the great lengths He has taken to love us – have actually increased our worth. The fact that we belong to Him make our lives mean something. We are prized because we are dear children. Thank God!
""And I will be a Father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to Me." Says the Lord Almighty."" (1 Corinthians 6:18 NASB 1995)
Lord, we are so glad that You value us far beyond our original worth. We are precious because we are Yours. May we revel again in our belonging and learn to live for Your glory alone. Amen.