A young pastor that I really like gave me a book when I visited him recently. In the book was a question that startled me, and then had me thinking. The question was “Who am I now?”
That question is especially relevant to me since I have recently stopped being what I was for many years—a pastor. I realized as I pondered it that I have to really think about who I am now and what I am or should be. Whose opinion should I buy into? Well, only one opinion really counts – that is the opinion of God Himself.
David wrote in Psalm 139 a phrase that always strikes me with amazement. “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” [Ps 139:13-14 NKJV]
That psalm is probably very familiar to most of us. I hear people use the phrase “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” all the time. They go on and talk about our bodies and how wonderfully formed they are. A truth we take for granted—until something goes wrong in them.
That is not, however, the thought that always leaves me amazed. It is the one that follows it … “Marvelous are your works.”
I am a work of God … so are you. I am a marvelous work of God … so are you. Too often our view of ourselves is obscured by what the world thinks we are or should be. Too often it is clouded by the accusations of the enemy of our soul. Too often it falls victim to our own insecurities and anxieties, to our life experiences, or our life failures. Yet none of that changes the fact, the truth, that we are a marvelous work of God.
We need to stop listening to the voices around us or in us and start listening to the only Voice that counts!
