(REFLECTIONS ON Psalm 139:1-24)

We spend so much of our lives trying to measure, understand, explain, and predict. Has our desire to control our environment, our lives, and even our own faith, led us to a place where we have lost the mystery of God’s creation? 

In today’s Psalm, we read the psalmist praise God saying,

14 “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Fearfully and wonderfully made means that as we look at God’s creation, especially His creation of the people of this earth, it should leave us speechless, in awe, and in reverence. 

Human life is not ordinary, but is a work of divine craftsmanship, and belongs to the category of God’s wonders. Fearfully and wonderfully made speaks to that mystery that we call life, and more than just life on earth, but eternal life. 

Perhaps our lives on earth seem mundane, average, and ordinary, but the eternal life that we have in Jesus Christ, the shift in our identity as people of this world, to sons and daughters of God, is a mystery that can only be understood by God. 

Not only does fearfully and wonderfully made remind us of our creation from birth to eternal life through Jesus Christ, but it also reminds us that we are known by the God that created us, because being known also belongs to the category of God’s wonders.

The psalmist writes in Psalm 139 versus 1 – 4,

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
And are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

To be known so intimately, and brought into a direct relationship with God the creator, through Jesus Christ, should leave us speechless, in awe, and in reverence. Not only is it an amazing wonder that the mystery of eternal life is available to us through Christ, but it is also an amazing wonder because God knows us so deeply and so specifically, even before we were born. 

7 “Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence? 

There is no where we can go, no where we can be, that is away from the presence of the Lord. God is with us, even when we don’t acknowledge Him, sense His presence, and even at times when we don’t want His presence. Although it may seem like a nuisance to us when we desire to be left alone, but it is to our shame when we don’t realize that He is our comfort, peace, and hope. 

We desire to be known, loved, accepted, part of a family, to have purpose and meaning in our lives, and today’s Psalm reminds us that we are the Lord’s and He is our God. There is no better relationship to have, and no better place to be, but in His presence, in His arms, and in His care. 

How should we then respond to the Lord? We should be His, just as much as He desires to be our God. We should care for what He cares about, love what He loves, do what He does, and worship Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This is our God, and we are His people, and this is the mystery revealed through Jesus Christ our Lord. So let us, like the psalmist, say, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Psalm 139