Summer Meditations: We Are Wonderful!

13 For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

At the center of this magnificent Psalm we find, what I believe, is the core premise of the message: God created me, and God’s creation is wonderful; therefore, I am wonderful!

Regardless of what I might think of myself. Regardless of how lowly I consider myself. Regardless of how much of a failure I am convinced that I am…all that feeling of inadequacy comes only from one place: the enemy.

Everything the enemy plots has the general goal of separating us from God. What better way to interfere in our relationship with our Lord, than to make us think that we are not worthy of being in a relationship with Him. The enemy makes us feel ashamed of who we are. He fills us with guilt, so we would put distance. We hide from Christ.

Last school year, around January, I got a bit distracted with work so I stopped paying close attention to Grant’s grades. I didn’t check his progress as often as I had been doing until then. I don’t know where the weeks went…so, by the time I checked…he was failing math!!!!

I flipped! I yelled! I threatened! I made him feel ashamed…

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having problems in Math????? We could have helped you!!!!!!”

I got no answer…of course.

Sigh…

As he began to have issues with the subject at school, he started to feel ashamed. The more in trouble he got, the more ashamed he became. And the less inclined to asking for help from us he was…because he knows that I am a harsh judge…because he didn’t want to have to deal with my reaction…because he didn’t think I would be proud of his mediocre performance.

Double sigh…

We are the people our sons can turn to when they are in trouble in this world. I mean…the line of people who truly care about them starts and ends with us! They know that. But they walk away from us when they are ashamed even if it means that they will be alone, sinking in the pit of their problems because they are not able to help themselves…but they rather do that, than confront their guilt and shame.

I do the same. The Lord is my refuge and my strength…my ever-present help in times of trouble…(Psalm 46), but when I am in the type of trouble that makes me ashamed of myself…I walk away from the One who is able to help me get out of that shame-inducing trouble…

The thing is that we judge God with the same measure that we judge people. Grant knows me. He knows how I react to things like him not getting satisfactory grades. As it happens, parents are usually the barometer we use to attempt to gage God’s nature and behavior. We attribute our Heavenly Father the earthly characteristics of our biological parents. And, I don’t know about you and your parents, but in my case, neither me, nor my parents have been the best models of godly parenthood.

What to do, then?

Well, we go to the truth. Rather than trying to apply human traits to God, let’s go to His Word! What does Scripture say about the nature and logic of God?

Well, let’s take just one example: God created me, and God’s creation is wonderful; therefore, I am wonderful! Where’s the shame on that?

He created our “inmost being.” He “knitted us together in our Mother’s womb.” He knows every…single…detail about us because He made every…single…detail about us. And, even though He did…He still loves us and thinks we are wonderful. And we are wonderful not because of what we do, or performance or our behavior. We are wonderful because He FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE US! It is because of who He is and what He has done that we get the title of “wonderful.” And it is because of His breath of life in us that we get to know that full well.