Masterpiece

For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!

    How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

    they would outnumber the grains of sand—

    when I awake, I am still with you.

 

-Psalm 139:13-18, NIV

 

Psalm 139 says that I am “fearfully and wonderfully made.” It tells me that God formed me and wove me together in my mother’s womb even before she knew that she was going to have a child. He chose my green eyes and my frustrating eyebrows, which seem to have a mind of their own. He chose my dishwater hair color, my body type, and my height. Yet too often, I carelessly comment about how He formed me.

 

We are quick to criticize the size of our thighs, the length of our noses, and even the shape of our toes. The words fearfully and wonderfully express the gentleness and tenderness with which we were created. Have you ever held an infant before? Better yet, have you ever seen someone who is reluctant to hold a baby? It is generally not because they dislike babies but rather because they fear hurting them. They recognize that something so fragile requires tender care. God showed ultimate tenderness as He formed us. David wonders at God’s care when he says in Psalm 8:3, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place.”

 

Why mention the stars when talking about how God created us? Read it again. The universe is the work of God’s fingers! There is no part of us that was casually or thoughtlessly formed. If He perfectly placed flaming balls of gas and magma into the sky, what does that say about how He created you and me? He declares you to be His poema, His poem, His masterpiece. Not only that, but He continues to think on us even after He creates us! “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!” (Psalm 139:17 NLT) God not only created you as the crown of His creation, but He thinks innumerable precious thoughts about you!

 

Why are we are so eager to criticize His creation? Check out God’s perspective in Isaiah 29:16. “You are confused. You think the clay is equal to the potter. You think that an object can tell the one who made it, ‘You didn’t make me.’ This is like a pot telling its maker, ‘You don’t know anything.’”

 

Often, I stand in front of my mirror and think, I know I’m supposed to like what I see, but God, You don’t really know anything about what it takes to be pretty. We play the role of clay talking back to our “Potter” on a daily basis.

 

Imagine I am an artist and I decide to paint the sunset. I set up my paints and stand out on my balcony to watch a beautiful Arizona sunset. I carefully select my colors and work for days to complete my masterpiece. On the fourth day of painting, I hear a voice. “Orange,” it says. At first, I don’t believe I hear it. I continue with the purple on my brush, but soon I can’t deny the sound. “Orange!” It’s coming from my canvas, complaining that I haven’t included enough orange in my masterpiece.

 

That would be quite a feat! As a writer, I acknowledge that my art does speak to me, but it’s never in the audible sense. The artist, not the art, has the final opinion on the finished product. Yet that’s exactly what we say to God on a regular basis. “I wish I was skinnier. I hate my chin. Why do I have so many stupid freckles? And why do my eyebrows hate me?” Ridiculous but true.

 

God chose you as dearly loved. He did not carelessly make you. He did not fling you from heaven to earth. He gently and wonderfully made you as His beautiful work of art. Step into the masterpiece you were created to be!

 

*Excerpted from Ginger’s new book, Forget the Corsage, available through Westbow Press, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.