Day 447: Wonderfully made! - Psalm 139 vs 11-18

11-12 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night”- even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to you. 13-14 For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.

15-16 My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. 17-18 God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is!  If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you. Psalm 139:11-18 Christian Standard Bible

These words of the Psalm writer are so different to what many think in our generation. While he looked back at his birth as evidence of the wisdom and loving kindness of God, a growing number of people now say their birth was a mistake and that they were born 'in the wrong body'. It's not only those who think they were born the wrong sex, it's also those who believe they were born too short, too tall, too plain, or just not the way they would like to have been!

Sometimes it's understandable. Some people, sadly, were born with disfiguring deformities or some other mental or physical health issues. The Psalm writer isn't saying that all births are equally happy! But he is saying that every conception and every birth is a display of the wonder of life that God created. Scientists may be able to use available materials to bring about a conception, but they've not been able to replicate the original creation of life. That’s God's prerogative.

Verses 13-14 express the writer's conviction that he owed his very existence to God, and that his whole body and being were an example of God's wonderful works. Apart from convincing him that God is worthy of his praise, how else did it affect his thinking about God? (vs 11-12 and vs 15-16)

Verse 11-12 speak of a confidence that God is always there no matter how dark the days he might pass through. And vs 15-16 surely show that he didn’t consider his, or any person's birth, to be out of God's control. This should help all of us to realize that any dissatisfaction we feel about ourselves is more of an internal issue than an external one. We may not have the body we would like to have had, but we have the body that God ‘knit together’ in our mother's womb. And, despite what physical or emotional shortcomings we may feel, our bodies are still fearfully and wonderfully made! No man made machine is as marvellous as the human body.

The other affect it had on his life was a sense of awe and wonder that the almighty creator of heaven, earth, and all the galaxies, was intimately involved in his life. Look again at vs 17-18. God's thoughts and plans, which include His thoughts and plans towards us, are beyond number. He doesn't only think of us once in a while, or as an afterthought. He is always thinking of those who love Him.

For Christians there's something more to add to the Psalm writer's thoughts. The Bible tells us that our bodies are the temple in which God's Spirit lives. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth and said: “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Yes, our body which may well be showing all the signs of aging, and may never have been the most noticeable building on the street in the first place, is still the residence where God's Spirit lives. Christians were not only fearfully and wonderfully made, they are people who’ve been fearfully and wonderfully redeemed. And these bodies will be raised and transformed in a moment of time to be even more wonderful than they are now at the Lord’s return. We have good reason to praise the Lord.