Psalm 139:13-14, NLT: You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
We all know what it’s like for things to fall way short of our expectations. We look outside ourselves and have job expectations, money expectations and relationship expectations. Then we look inside ourselves and have weight expectations, hair expectations, and skin expectations. The way our expectations get so high is by looking around. We see that person’s hair, that person’s physique and say, “Man, to be like that would be wonderful.” But notice in the verse, David’s positive self-image doesn’t come from looking at others. It comes from looking at God and worshiping Him.
Look at that sentence, "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex." The phrase "thank you" is also translated, “I praise you.” David first considers how wonderful God is, and that gives way to the wonder of being made by God. That phrase "wonderfully complex" has this idea of being made unique from all other creation. Other translations say, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The word "fearful" just means worthy of respect. It’s the sense that David loved and respected God so much he wouldn’t even question what He had made. The verse goes on to say, "Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it." "Marvelous" is the Hebrew word pala, which means to be surpassing or extraordinary. David was so in tune with God he saw his extraordinary workmanship everywhere, including in himself and his very body.
He’s not looking in the mirror saying, “I’m awesome.” It’s not self-esteem, it’s God-esteem. He’s looking to the heavens and saying, “God you are awesome. All your work is awesome; I am part of your work. I know it well. And I praise you.” He wasn’t full of himself; he was full of God.
I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror. I don’t know if you see something awesome, or something not so awesome, but I know this: God sees His surpassing, extraordinary unique workmanship. He sees a masterpiece. And if you don’t see it yet, you might be spending a little too much time looking out, when you should be looking up. Seek God, worship Him, look at all the wonderful things he’s done, and pretty soon, your soul will start to know Him well. You’ll see that you are wonderfully made. You may feel like a mess—but you are God’s masterpiece.
