How do we define "worth" when there is no actual God figure in the story?

@livgiordano I have to admit that this question has crossed my mind more than once.

So the truth is our true worth is found in relation to God alone, because He came down and sacrificed Himself on our behalf. Christ’s death is the source of our worth.

If you never mention God, you could take this whole redemption idea and put it into the life of some people. Maybe Person A struggles with a lot of self-worth issues, but then Person B does this amazing, almost irrational self-sacrifice for them, which gets Person A to thinking about what they are really worth.

There is also the fact that every human being has worth simply because they are God’s creation. So if you wrote about a person who eventually finds worth in that they are human, and maybe allude to some sort of creation in whatever your “world” is… Personally I’m not sure about this idea, as it is easily worldly in that it fits in with a lot of the theology of modern people today. But that’s up to you.

Hope this helps!

BTW welcome to the Forum! And the YWW (free version called Young Writer now) was also the startpoint for my writing growth in the past year. Hope you have a great time here!

@livgiordano Well, I may be wrong, but I don’t know if you can do it completely. You probably don’t have to mention God very much to make that type of message, <span style=”background-color: #ffd9de;”>but I think you’d have to just at least some. </span>

<span style=”background-color: #ffd9de;”>The question I want to ask is why God can’t be mentioned in your story? It’s not that I think He has to be (The book of Esther doesn’t mention God), but if this is the message you want to make, is there any problem with mentioning Him in the story?</span>

Another option is to tone down your message some. Like, instead of a question of worth, maybe it could be a question of what makes a man/woman or what brings true happiness or something like that.

@livgiordano I second what some other people said that I don’t think you can fully do this without mentioning Christ. That being said, I don’t think you need to fully explore a theme or provide a full message within a short story. As long as you explore several true aspects of the theme & message and are pointing readers in the right direction, I think that can be fine because of the brevity of the short story form.

@livgordiano I’m so happy this is being addressed.  I’ve wondered, too! Also, I’ve got nothing. Maybe.
The more I thought about it the more I began to let it go. But for me it was more about right/wrong than worth. Because I can make a character do good, but without God, s/he is nothing. I know this is a little differant and has a much simpler answer, but heres what I came to:
Our worth is in God, yes. But it doesn’t exactly end there. Because our worth is in God, we are more. We are servants, we are loving, we are unafraid, etc. Not that being a servant is our worth, but we are servants because He is our worth and he calls us to live like it. And for me, even though I never mention God it doesn’t change wrong from right. so I kinda assume some people are Christians and some are not, only I don’t mention Christ. (that might be a horrible idea, though *shrugs*)
I kinda feel like that didn’t make much sense, but it’s at least food for thought.

@livgiordano Yay! Im so happy you know what to do now! *throws confetti*