Wonderful Are Your Works

Psalm 139:13-18

There are things about ourselves we wish were different.

Maybe it is the way you look. Maybe it is your personality, your voice, your height, your abilities, or something else you see every time you look in the mirror.

Sometimes those feelings come from within us. Other times, they come from words spoken over us by other people. Maybe someone at school made you feel like you weren't good enough. Maybe it happened at work. Maybe the words came from someone in your own family.

Then there are the lies the enemy whispers to us.

You're an accident.

You'll never be good enough.

Nobody loves you.

Your life doesn't matter.

Eventually, if we hear those things enough, we can begin to believe them.

But Psalm 139 gives us a radically different picture of who we are.

You Were Made by God

David writes:

“For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.”
Psalm 139:13-14

Think about what David is saying.

God didn't simply know that you were going to exist. He was intimately involved in your creation.

David says God formed his “inward parts.” This goes deeper than our physical appearance. It speaks to the deepest parts of who we are.

Your personality.

Your abilities.

Your strengths.

Your way of thinking.

The characteristics that make you different from the person sitting next to you.

God did not create you so that you could spend your entire life wishing you were somebody else.

He created you to glorify Him as the person He created you to be.

There are things God has given someone else that He didn't give you. There are also things He has given you that He didn't give them.

Instead of spending our lives comparing ourselves to everyone around us, wishing we looked like them, talked like them, possessed their gifts, or lived their lives, maybe we should begin asking a different question:

God, how do You want to use the person You created me to be for Your glory?

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

David's realization of God's involvement in his creation leads him directly to worship.

He says:

“Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.”

When was the last time you praised God for the way He made you?

We can look at a mountain and praise God.

We can watch a sunset and praise God.

We can stare at the stars and marvel at His creation.

We can stand beside an ocean, river, or waterfall and be overwhelmed by the beauty of what He has made.

Yet we can turn around, look in the mirror, and criticize His workmanship.

There is something wrong with that picture.

Of everything God created, mankind was uniquely created in His image.

That means we need to learn to see ourselves through the truth of God's Word rather than through our insecurities, comparisons, the opinions of other people, or the lies of the enemy.

Being fearfully and wonderfully made isn't about looking in the mirror and declaring how amazing we are.

It is about looking at God's workmanship and declaring how amazing He is.

You Have Never Been Unknown to God

David continues:

“My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.”

Before your mother ever held you, God knew you.

Before your father ever laid eyes on you, God saw you.

Before anyone knew what you would look like, God knew every detail.

There has never been a moment of your existence when you were unknown to God.

That becomes even more remarkable when we understand just how completely He knows us.

People can spend decades around us without truly knowing everything about us. They know what we tell them. They know what we allow them to see. They know the version of ourselves that we present to the world.

God knows the rest.

He knows every thought.

He knows every secret.

He knows every failure.

He knows every sin.

He knows the things you regret and the things you're ashamed to tell anyone else.

There has never been anything about you that God had to discover.

And yet you are completely known by Him and completely loved by Him.

So much so that He sent His Son to rescue you.

He Knew Every Day Before You Lived One

David takes this truth even further in verse 16:

“Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

God knew David's days before David lived a single one of them.

Think about what that means for us.

God knew the mistakes.

He knew the failures.

He knew the sin.

He knew every time we would run from Him.

He knew the mess we would make.

And yet He still made us.

This is where Psalm 139 connects beautifully with Paul's words in Ephesians 1:4, where we are told that God chose us in Christ “before the foundation of the world.”

God's plan of redemption existed before we did.

Jesus was not God's Plan B.

The cross was not God scrambling to repair something that had gotten out of control.

Our sin did not surprise Him.

Before the foundation of the world, He knew.

And in spite of knowing exactly who we would become and exactly what we would do, He loved us.

Christ died for sinners like us.

Does Your Soul Know It?

There is a difference between knowing Psalm 139:14 and living like Psalm 139:14 is true.

We can quote:

“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

We can put it on a shirt.

We can drink coffee from a mug with the verse printed across it.

We can hang it on our walls.

But David says something deeper:

“My soul knows it very well.”

Does yours?

Does your soul know that God formed you?

Does your soul know that He sees you?

Does your soul know that He knows everything about you?

Does your soul know that your life has never escaped His attention?

Does your soul know that despite knowing everything about you, God loved you enough to send Jesus Christ for you?

These truths need to become more than words we know. We need to meditate on them until they become truths upon which we stand.

Because when insecurity comes, we need to know.

When comparison comes, we need to know.

When someone else's words tear us down, we need to know.

When the enemy whispers that we are worthless, unwanted, forgotten, or alone, we need to know.

Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.

How Should We Respond?

When we think about the way God formed us, we praise Him.

When we think about how He knitted us together in our mother's womb, we praise Him.

When we realize there has never been a moment when we were unknown to Him, we praise Him.

When we remember that He knew every failure before we ever committed one, yet had already established His plan of redemption through Jesus Christ, we praise Him.

And when we look at the cross where Jesus Christ died for sinners like us, we praise Him.

Not because we are wonderful.

Because His works are wonderful.

Maybe today you need to stop looking at yourself through the eyes of the world.

Stop measuring yourself against somebody else.

Stop allowing another person's opinion to determine your value.

Stop believing the lies that tell you your life was some cosmic accident.

Instead, open Psalm 139.

Read David's words.

Meditate on them.

Believe them.

And then turn your heart toward the One who formed you, knows you, sustains you, and loved you enough to send His Son for you.

“I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.”

Psalm 139:14

Idle Hands Ministries
Faith isn't meant to sit idle.