Psalm 139:14 “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” This episode explains what it means to be fearfully and wonderfully made. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You Are Fearfully & Wonderfully Made
Psalm 139:14 “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
What first stood out to me in this verse was the I praise you part. Praise is one of my favorite things to talk about. I love praising the Lord. Also, I have read a lot of books and so many of them point out that praising the Lord is a great way to increase your faith, get more answers to your prayers, have more strength when in a difficult situation, and have more joy in your life. I was all set to begin with talking about praise when something, I think the Holy Spirit, told me to pause and read the whole sentence. So I did. “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” I did not see anything jump out at me. So I decided to see what exactly that means.
I was thinking maybe I wasn’t being moved by the sentence because I didn’t understand what was being said. I was right! That is a very powerful statement if you know what those two words mean. Let’s take the first word, fearfully, first. Fearfully, when translated from Hebrew means with great reverence, heart-felt interest and with respect. I understand why we would have great reverence for God. He is our father and He created us. It makes total sense that we would have great reverence for Him. However, this is talking about us. This sentence is praising God for making us with great reverence, heart-felt interest, and respect. Did you know that’s how you were made? Did you know God put all those things into making you? Do you feel a little bit better about yourself now?
Let's take the next word, wonderfully. I bet we are all thinking that we know what that word means. We may also be thinking that although it is a pretty word it is used so often that when we hear it we don’t necessarily feel wonderful. The word wonderful when translated from Hebrew means unique and set apart. I am sure that it has occurred to everyone before that we are all different from each other. But I wonder if it occurred to you that that means you are unique? You are one of a kind. So the next time you are trying to judge or compare yourself to someone else, remember that you are unique. There is no one like you on this entire earth. There are people that are going through the same things you as you, there are people that have similar struggles as you, but there is no one exactly like you. You are not alone in your struggle but you are one of a kind in how you were made. You are also set apart. I like the sound of that. Instead of being lumped in with everyone else we are set apart. God set us apart from others.
Does knowing this change the way you think about yourself? Does is help you fight off that voice inside of you that tells you that you are not enough, or that you are not loved? Think about how amazing God must think you are to have made you with great reverence, heart-felt interest and respect. Did you know that God had reverence for you? Did you know that He respected you? Maybe this is not news to you, maybe you knew this all along. This is the first time that I slowed down long enough with this passage to ask myself what does that even mean.
This is one of the things that I am loving about doing this podcast. I am not reading whole chunks of the Bible at a time. I am reading a verse or two. When you break it down into bite size pieces like this you get to examine those pieces more carefully. I have also discovered that I am not the only person that did not know what those two words meant. I think sometimes we don’t ask questions because we assume that we are the only one that doesn’t know the answer. Then we start to tell ourselves that if everyone else knows it then there must be something wrong with us because we don’t, and then we don’t ask because we don’t want to feel stupid. Come on, you know you have done this before. I can’t be the only person this has happened to. Anyway, it turns out that the language in the Bible is confusing for lots of people. In the course of writing the episodes for this podcast I have searched for many answers, and I have always found them.
If I was the only person that was confused then someone else wouldn’t have taken time to research my same question and put the answer on the internet. The internet, that is also an amazing thing. I am not sure how many of you use it to answer your questions, but I highly recommend it. First, you can ask it anything. You don’t have to remember where in the Bible to find something because you can type it into the search bar and the internet finds it for you. You can type part of a verse into the search bar and the internet tells you where in the Bible you can find it. What I do is type my question exactly how I would ask it to a person and I always come up with great answers. I don’t just put a word or two, I put the whole sentence in the search bar. Second, you don’t have to feel silly asking a question that you’re sure you are the only person that doesn’t know the answer to, because no-one knows you are asking the question. You are asking the computer and it is not going to tell anyone. It doesn’t talk, so it won’t make you feel silly.
When reading through the Bible, asking questions is great. It was written a very long time ago in a different language and to a people living in a different time and a different culture. There are things in it that are not going make sense to us. However, if we ask the questions when we have them we realize that even though it was written so long ago to a very different people, it is still just as relevant today. It is still talking to us, today, When we just read through it and gloss over the parts, or pass over the parts we don’t understand we are missing an opportunity to know what God is trying to tell us. This verse above is well written and has beautiful language, but if I hadn’t asked the question “What does fearfully and wonderfully made mean?”, then I wouldn’t have learned that this verse is so much deeper than it seemed. Ask your questions! You deserve to know the answers.
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are so gracious and we love you. Lord, we ask that you help us to understand the Bible when we read it. We ask that you give us the courage to ask questions when we don’t know what something means. Lord, we ask that you help us take in the meaning of the words fearfully and wonderfully made. We ask that you let those words sink into our heart and help us to know how special we are. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen