Extra Great Than Being Stunning

What number of ladies, as we stand earlier than the mirror, stand earlier than ladies we discover displeasing, even ugly? We expect our hair skinny, our pores and skin splotchy, our shoulders sunken, our arms gangly. Even the smallest of physique components — ears, toes, molars — can chafe with critique. They’re too pointy, too crooked, too yellow. Practically each a part of us may use extra weight, or much less weight, or a special form or texture or coloration.

And what number of ladies, as we lament the way in which we glance, are pointed to Psalm 139 for assist?

You fashioned my inward components;
     you knitted me collectively in my mom’s womb.
I reward you, for I’m fearfully and splendidly made.
Great are your works;
     my soul is aware of it very effectively. (Psalm 139:13–14)

Perhaps you let your mentor in on a battle with physique picture, or looked for a useful resource on self-loathing, or lamented your dimension to a good friend in passing. Regardless of the state of affairs, most of us know one response by coronary heart: “However keep in mind Psalm 139? You’re fearfully and splendidly made in God’s picture! That makes you lovely. So cease believing you’re not lovely, begin believing you might be lovely, and people issues you’ve got with your self will start to go away.”

After all, trusted counselors and strong assets will put it extra gracefully and provide extra truths from Scripture. However maybe as a rule, we’re informed (and we need to be informed) that our body-problems are beauty-problems. If solely we may grasp how fantastically God created us and now sees us! Certainly then the storm clouds of self-despair would fade earlier than vivid skies of shallowness.

However what number of ladies know they gained’t?

Needy for Extra Than Magnificence

It isn’t fallacious to level ladies to Psalm 139:13–14, to declare who made them, after which to guarantee them how lovely they’re due to it. His glory does flood each atom of creation (Psalm 19:1), and the atoms of mankind distinctly bear his picture (Genesis 1:27). Girls are lovely certainly.

Even so, the counsel strikes too shortly away from God to be of lasting assist. Generally we mistakenly imagine, as Ed Welch writes, that “God’s job is to make us really feel higher about ourselves, as if feeling higher about ourselves have been our deepest want” (When Individuals Are Large and God Is Small, 20). However pondering higher of ourselves spreads as skinny and short-lived a balm over our weathered souls as concealer over blemishes. The day ends, and with one swipe of a washcloth each blotch and bump and wrinkle reappears. Self-despair rears its self-focused head as soon as extra.

As a result of finally, a lady’s downside lies not in small ideas of herself, however in too little considered her Creator. And the answer is to not assume higher of her look, however to dwell upon her God. Girls have been made for eternal worship, not each day doses of self-worth.

“Girls have been made for eternal worship, not each day doses of self-worth.”

And actually, Psalm 139:13–14 — the very passage to which we could flip for shallowness — affords a extra soul-satisfying answer to our body-struggles. Quite than utilizing King David’s phrases to navel gaze, let’s ponder the glory of God saturating these verses. He’s artistic, he’s highly effective, he’s close to — and he’s completely in a position to so amaze us with himself that we now not have to be lovely. We will probably be too busy worshiping.

Reward Him for Inward Components

We regularly flip to David’s phrases after we battle with outward look. However have you ever ever observed that the verses truly heart on the components of us we can’t see?

You fashioned my inward components;
     you knitted me collectively in my mom’s womb. (verse 13)

God did type our faces. He did knit collectively each strand of hair. However what sort of Maker is that this, whose palms have woven “all issues . . . in heaven and on earth, seen and invisible” (Colossians 1:16)?

If magnificence is skin-deep, God’s artistic energy shouldn’t be. The human physique incorporates “an unimaginable wealth of element, each level of it from the thoughts of God” (Derek Kidner, Psalms: 73–150, 503). The following time we stand earlier than the toilet self-importance pinching our stomachs, what would occur if we closed our eyes, took a deep breath, and praised God for making our kidneys? By God’s grace, people have created hundreds upon hundreds of medical applied sciences. We now have but to make a single kidney.

Psalm 139 reminds us that we serve a God who has made billions — and made them from nothing. Musicians make songs from notes they’ve realized, and woodworkers whittle away at lumber they’ve purchased. However there’s one Artist who was by no means an apprentice, and the one supplies his creations require is the truth that He Is (Genesis 1:1).

And as Yahweh set about making you and me, he wielded his incomparable energy with tenderness. He didn’t throw us collectively; he knit us collectively. He didn’t depart our formation to mere organic processes; he used our moms’ wombs to convey us — precisely us — into the world. Earlier than our first cry, he knew its pitch. For it was he who intricately wove our vocal cords into existence during the last forty weeks.

Reward Him for Each Half

With such a Creator in our sights, the necessity to look or really feel a sure means fades. As a substitute stands outward-and-upward-facing reward:

I reward you, for I’m fearfully and splendidly made.
Great are your works;
     my soul is aware of it very effectively. (verse 14)

Notice how David doesn’t decide his physique aside, solely thanking God for the items he approves. He doesn’t say, “I reward you for the way in which I used to be made — aside from my top. It will be an entire lot simpler to reward you if it weren’t for my top.” No, he worships God for the way in which he’s made David’s whole particular person: “I’m fearfully and splendidly made.” No suggestions. No excuses. Simply reward. For David, his entire physique is indeniable proof that God is worthy of worship.

For the God who types our most invisible and inaccessible components — knitting us collectively, cell by cell, organ by organ, in our moms’ wombs — all his works are nothing in need of great. And although feminine souls could battle to realize it very effectively with regards to ourselves, Psalm 139 exists that we would.

Reward Him — and Be Glad

As we reward God for his great works, he will get glory, and we get pleasure. It won’t be the fleeting pleasure of being happy with our look (Proverbs 31:30). It is going to be the eternal pleasure of the Christian who is aware of and loves the explanation she was made: to reward her transcendent and immanent Creator God. Solely his glory, and never private magnificence, can fulfill this lady.

Mysteriously sufficient, she’s going to come to imagine she is gorgeous. She is going to imagine it not due to what she finds within the mirror, however as a result of her soul is aware of effectively that the God of the universe made her, loves her, died for her, rose for her, lives inside her. So content material is she with who he’s for her in Christ that her spirit sits nonetheless, quiet, and delightful earlier than his eyes (1 Peter 3:3–4). The battle to imagine ourselves lovely can’t be gained until fought throughout the Higher Battle: the battle to search out God extra satisfying than anything in creation.

Psalm 139 affords the sort of meditative medication aching ladies most want. With its assist, we will start to grasp the unparalleled artistic energy and intimacy of our God. And in greedy extra of him, we set out on the (lifelong) journey of needing magnificence much less. There will probably be far an excessive amount of of our Creator to see, perceive, and revel in to concern ourselves a lot with ourselves.