For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows knows it very well. (Psalm 139:13-14, NASB)
Psalm 139 was written by King David, and is titled “God’s Omnipresence and Omniscience.” David poured a lot of his soul into this psalm. There’s much to it, including the two verses above.
David starts out by acknowledging that God “formed” him, and “You wove me in my mother’s womb.” We can all make the same statement. God lovingly and carefully crafts each one of us to meet His plan. No one of us is a mistake or is built with fault, because God does not make mistakes.
The psalmist goes on to give God thanks, “for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Think of it: The Creator God has a hand in crafting each one of us in mother’s womb. As in the paragraph above, we can each one of us give thanks to God for the way He lovingly and thoughtfully built us. You were “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as was I. And like everyone we meet has been made in the image of God, so is everyone “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Does the knowledge that everyone you meet is “fearfully and wonderfully made” inform how are you want to treat others? I confess that I don’t always treat others the way God wants me to. In the morning I try to get my mind right by praying “Shema” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Then I personalize it paraphrasing Jesus’ words from Mark 12:29-31 to sound like this: O Lord, You are my God. I will love You, O Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength. I will also love my neighbor as myself.
God wants us to love Him, and to love other people. King David gives us a way to look at ourselves and at others as “fearfully and wonderfully made.” As he says, we should praise God for how we were crafted, but we should also appreciate the same in others.