A couple of weeks ago, a friend sent me a birthday card which contained the verse from Proverbs 31: “She is clothed with strength and dignity” (v.25). I thought, “Well, Lord, I get the clothed with strength part. But dignity?” (Maybe I was remembering yet another spectacular mistake a few days before.) He prompted me, “Do you even know what dignity is?” I had to admit I didn’t. “Why don’t you look it up?”
So I did. It turns out there are several definitions for dignity, but most of them revolve around a person’s inherent worth – in other words, worth because they are worthy, not because they’ve earned the worth and haven’t unearned the worth yet. A person might treat another with dignity when they consider them valuable or worthwhile in themselves. But beyond that, a person can carry themselves with dignity when they put value on themselves as being inherently worthy. This is the kind of dignity I believe the author of Proverbs was speaking about.
Now, I’m well aware that without Jesus, all of our righteousness (and worth) is nothing more than “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). But with Jesus, we’ve been made into new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). Without Christ, we are worthless. In Christ, our worth is very real. After all, Jesus felt it was worth dying for us while we were still sinners and hadn’t promised that we would take Him up on His offer of salvation (Romans 5:8).
Being clothed with dignity starts in our own hearts. We have to believe that we have inherent worth in Jesus (in other words, we believe our worth isn’t based on what we’ve done or haven’t done – we’re worthy beyond our behavior). Second, we get to act like it. We get to carry ourselves, not with pomp or arrogance, but with the belief that we are worthy of respect, love, and good things. Godly dignity doesn’t demand that others treat us with dignity, but it also doesn’t lose sight of our worth, whether people treat us right or not.
One of the best things to me about Godly dignity is that it doesn’t just expect dignifying treatment from others – it treats others with dignity. There’s something about understanding our inherent worth that breaks open the door to allow us to treat others according to their inherent worth. And so, the dignity spreads, because we are clothed with dignity and we clothe others with dignity, as well.
