Wonder Words

We continue to sit with Psalm 139.14:

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works.

“I’m wonderfully made,” the psalmist rejoices, using a word that singularizes him from everyone else. And we join him in our confidence and marvel that we are all distinctive creations. God shapes and guides each of us to live out God’s will in particular ways, to serve God and others as only we can. Thus we exult in our differences, rather than disparage them or doubt their worthiness. “Wonderful are Your works,” the psalmist declares, employing a second “wonder” word that denotes our inability to grasp the vastness of God’s creative power—as well as our reluctance to believe God’s ways and thoughts surpass our own. (“Such knowledge is too wonderful me; it is so high that I cannot attain it,” the poet admits in verse 6.) So we come to God without pretense, just as we are, willing to abstain from conformity to manmade patterns and expectations, knowing full well that God transcends pattern-based creation. Unyielding trust in our Maker instills two core truths in our hearts: not one of us is ever alone, and no two of us is ever alike.