I think badly of myself most days, and by now it is automatic. How do I start seeing myself the way God does?

“Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.”

Isaiah spoke these words to Judah in exile, a conquered people scattered across a foreign empire, whose whole national story now said they had been discarded. Into that, God states a valuation of them that their circumstances flatly contradicted. Worth here is declared by God rather than earned by performance or measured by outcomes. If your sense of yourself is built from evidence, this is a different kind of evidence.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

Jesus is teaching a crowd so large that people were treading on one another, and he reaches for the cheapest item in the market, sparrows sold five for two small coins. His argument moves from the small to the large: if God keeps track of something the world prices at almost nothing, the attention he gives you is not in question. The care described is detailed, not general.