The following is a piece I wrote for use at my church for the World Day of Prayer on 7th March 2025, which was themed, “I made you wonderful” and based on Psalm 139. The format for the service was prepared by Christians from the Cook Islands.
https://worlddayofprayer.net/cook-islands-2025.html
~~~~~~~~~~
Psalm 139:1-18 The Complete Jewish Bible
ADONAI, you have probed me, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I stand up, you discern my inclinations from afar, you scrutinize my daily activities. You are so familiar with all my ways that before I speak even a word, ADONAI, you know all about it already.
You have hemmed me in both behind and in front and laid your hand on me. Such wonderful knowledge is beyond me, far too high for me to reach.
Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I lie down in Sh’ol, you are there. If I fly away with the wings of the dawn and land beyond the sea, even there your hand would lead me, your right hand would hold me fast. If I say, “Let darkness surround me, let the light around me be night,” even darkness like this is not too dark for you; rather, night is as clear as day, darkness and light are the same.
For you fashioned my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I thank you because I am awesomely made, wonderfully; your works are wonders – I know this very well.
My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes could see me as an embryo, but in your book ALL my days were already written; my days had been shaped before any of them existed.
God, how I prize your thoughts! How many of them there are! If I count them, there are more than grains of sand; if I finish the count, I am still with you.
In our daily lives, we bear many names and wear many hats! Maybe parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent, employer, employee, teacher, carer, gardener, chauffer, head cook and bottle washer… to name just a few! We represent different things to different people.
And who is the best at what they do? Who is to be celebrated or given praise? Who makes the most delicious food, who has the most well-behaved children, who has the most beautifully kept home, who is the best at their job, who earns the most money, who is the best dressed, the most attractive, the most interesting, who has power and influence in their workplace, in their community, in the world…?!!
It doesn’t matter how things look on the outside. It’s what’s inside that counts…
Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart… 1 Sam 16:7 NKJB
God knows your heart. He made you! He gave you life, he knows what potential you have! So, the most important title you can ever have is simply “Child of God”.
He knows everything there is to know about you. He created you; he knit you together in your mother’s womb, even as a microscopic clump of cells. There is nothing that is hidden from him.
“Your eyes could see me as an embryo, but in your book ALL my days were already written; my days had been shaped before any of them existed.”
No matter the circumstances of your conception, whether you feel you were loved by your earthly parents, how your body looks or works, what kind of life you have led, you were created for a purpose, in the likeness of God. He breathed life into you at the earliest moment of conception, he knows you and loves you… your thoughts, the very depths of your being. He knows everything…
Verse 14 in the NIV says:
I PRAISE YOU BECAUSE I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
BECAUSE we are fearfully and wonderfully made, it follows that we should PRAISE GOD! Jesus made a way for us so we can! By giving his life as a sacrifice and shedding his own blood on the cross, Jesus made a new covenant with God, which puts us in right relationship with our heavenly father, our life giver, to fulfil the purpose he has for us.
God has a good and purposeful plan for your life, if you choose to walk in it. Perhaps you aren’t yet? Perhaps you do not feel able to call God, Father… yet?
Just look! Think! How amazing and complex is the human body?! How marvellous is our ability to create and think and understand?! We are not accidental life forms, spawned from a primordial soup! Could that even be possible? No! Order cannot come out of chaos without intelligent intervention.
Isaiah 40:26 NIV Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
If God created the stars and knows each one by name, how much more love and care did he put into making YOU?! How precious you are to him, how cherished and beloved… He created you to be sons and daughters of the Most High, to share in his life and be with him for all eternity.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart…
He says, “I made you wonderful!”
Believe it, receive it, and accept your inheritance…!
The Finished Work 