What is it worth?

Last night I hung out all night with the junior high youth at the all nighter we had. I enjoyed it. They have endless amounts of energy and honestly keep going right up until about 6am when most are so tired they just want to sit or sleep, but somehow some of them are still going.
There were a group of the senior high students out helping us out as well, and by about 4am they were a tired bunch as well. A couple of them started using the phrase that pulling an all night is simply 'self inflicted torture'. Another one of the leaders changed the perspective on it. Rather than self inflicted torture, it is an opportunity to build relationships with the junior highs doing something that they think is an amazing privilege to do. I think that is why we do it, why we push ourselves so far, because if we can connect with those who are important to us, it has made all the difference. There is something more that can be communicated when we offer all that we have and who we are.

It reminds me of a story that I heard before. Two men were out one day and they came across a man afflicted with demons. It was pretty clear what he was struggling with and so they pray with him. But despite the prayer for the man to be freed of demons in Jesus name, the man was not free of the demons. While they were walking away the one man asked the other why they were unable to free the man. Without thinking the man replied,  "I am not willing to die for that man."

What is it worth? What are the people that we encounter worth? Our they worth our perceived amount of dignity? Our time? Our energy? Our night of sleep in our own beds? Our social life?

I think at the core it comes down to a worship issue. What are we going to put at the center of our life as worth the most of who we are? If God is at the center then we will spend our time and our energy doing the things that God would have us do, but if our dignity is at the center then our time and energy is spent doing things that would bolster our dignity.

Maybe an all nighter can be viewed as an act of 'self-inflicted torture', but if it will let me show God's love to you, that is what I'll do.