Devotional.
Theodore is a builder.
I have no idea where he gets it from. We are not an engineering family. Creatives but not engineers.
But hand him a box of magnet tiles or a tub of Lego and he disappears into it, making bases and towers, placing each piece with a seriousness that is almost funny on someone so small.
Nothing is random. Every tile gets considered, turned, set down just so, and if one is not right he takes it back off and tries again until it is.
And when he finishes, the best part begins. "Come and look. Come and see what I made."
(Sadly, his one year old brother, who we've nicknamed Jesse the Destroyer, will usually have it flattened within a few minutes.)
But Theo's building and creating is one of the closest pictures we get of God.
Because the very first thing the Bible ever tells us about Him is that He builds. Light, sky, sea, every living thing, each one placed on purpose, nothing thrown together. And after each piece He stops, looks at it, and calls it good. Then He makes people, and the verdict changes. Very good.
That is what "fearfully and wonderfully made" means. Not mass-produced. Not slapped together. You were placed. Every part of you was set down with the careful, deliberate, awe-filled attention of a Maker who does not do sloppy work.
You are not a mistake. You are something He built on purpose, stood back from, and was proud of.
He is not embarrassed by you. He is not making do. When God looks at you, He does what my son does over a tower of blocks. He wants the whole house to come and see.
So when you catch yourself in the mirror seeing a problem to fix, remember whose work you are. You were meticulously made. You were made on purpose. And you are loved by a Maker who is still, today, proud of what He built.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Prayer.
Lord, I am fearfully and wonderfully made, created with intention, designed with purpose, crafted by Your hands with care I struggle to believe applies to me.
I look at myself and see flaws, mistakes, things I wish were different, but You look at me and see something wonderful, someone You made exactly as You intended.
Teach me to see myself as You see me, to believe that fearfully and wonderfully describes how You created me, that I'm not an accident or an afterthought but a deliberate work of Your hands.
You made every part of me, knit me together with attention and care, designed details I overlook or criticize, and You called it wonderful before I ever had a chance to disagree.
Help me stop arguing with Your craftsmanship, stop wishing You'd made me differently, stop rejecting what You intentionally created and called good.
Remind me that wonderful isn't something I have to become but something I already am because of how You made me, that my worth isn't earned but built in from the beginning.
Give me courage to accept myself as Your creation, to treat myself with the respect something wonderful deserves, to live as someone fearfully and wonderfully made.
Let me believe today that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, created by a God who doesn't make mistakes, designed with purpose I'm still discovering.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
