We live in a day when the cult of 'have-a-proper-self-concept' is sweeping the Church of Jesus Christ. Me-ism is flourishing. The Dr Feel Goods are overrunning the land preaching their self-worth gospel. Confusion abounds. A guilt-laden conscience is passed off as a problem of low self-esteem. Holy Spirit produced conviction of sin is considered by many to be the number one enemy of a healthy self-image. Preachers are scolded for making people 'feel badly' about themselves. Discerning Christians have many questions. What of all this self-worth emphasis is legitimate and what is not? What is Christian? What is devilish?

Psalm 139 has some foundational perspectives which are essential in at least pointing us in the right direction for the answers to such questions. Here is a Psalm which begins by focusing our attention on an all-seeing, all-searching, everywhere-present God (1-12); which includes a holy and passionate imprecation against the wicked (19), and ends with an earnest prayer for the omniscient God to do a thorough search of David's heart (23, 24). And here, in the middle of this seemingly unlikely setting, we find invaluable instruction for a biblical approach to the whole discussion of a Christian's self-image. The part upon which we will focus our attention (13-18) gives us the answers to three very important questions:

1. Who am I?⤒🔗

Answer: I am a creature made by the living God (13a), 'For you created my inmost being'. Literally, 'you created my kidneys'. This expression is strange to us, but David is simply using it to refer to the core of his being — the centre of his pains and pleasures, the seat of his strongest sensibilities.

He adds (13b), 'You knit me together in my mother's womb'. And again, 'My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth' (15).

David pictures God as the sovereign weaver at work in mother's womb. Mommy's womb is the workshop of the Lord of Hosts. It is not Mother Nature who bends over her loom in Mommy's uterus. God is there! — sitting on his weaver's stool patiently weaving together the complex substances that make up a living human being.

The directness of God's creative activity is underscored by the inter­esting language David uses in verse 15:

I was made in the secret place ... I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

What is David talking about? Did he not say that he was woven together in his mother's womb? The depths of the earth is a roundabout way of referring to mother's womb. It is a euphemism. But what is the connection? How does he get from Mommy's womb to the depths of the earth?

You remember that Adam was made from the dust of the earth. And it is significant to observe that Scripture, at times, speaks as though every man since Adam was also made from the earth. In Job 33:4 and 6 we have the words of Elihu to Job: 'The Spirit of God; has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life ... I am just like you before God I too have been taken from clay'. But Elihu was formed in his mother's womb, and so was Job; they were not literally 'taken from clay' as was their first father Adam. Yet the Bible uses this imagery. In Job 10.9 Job says to God: 'Remember that you moulded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?' (Implying that he had been taken from dust together with the whole human race in Adam).

It is as though Adam's creation from the earth is repeated in the formation of every man. The earth was the womb that gave birth to Adam; God formed him from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7). From the time of Adam, mother's womb has been 'the earth' from which every child of Adam has come. And since the womb is hidden, it is called 'the secret place ... in the depths of the earth'.

Do you see how this imagery underscores the directness of God's creative activity? God made Adam directly with his very own hands. There was no Daddy and no Mommy there — only God making Adam. God and the dust. David is telling us by his figurative language that in a sense God is just as directly involved in creating us. We are his creatures as much as Adam was. He makes us as much as He did Adam. We are made, not by an unreasoning, unthinking, impersonal biological process but by God's own hands. We are moulded by the Great Potter. We are woven together on the loom of the Divine Weaver.

Who am I? I am a creature made by the living God.

Further, I am also a creature intimately known by the living God: 'My frame was not hidden from you (15a); when I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body' (15c-16a).

God knows every thread of our beings. He who wove us together knows us better than a weaver knows the cloth upon which he has worked for weeks. He has perfect knowledge of his own handiwork.

David is not surprised that God knows him — knows when he sits and when he rises, perceives his thoughts 'from afar', discerns his 'going out' and his 'lying down' and is familiar with all his ways (2-3). This know­ledge of David as an adult is perfectly consistent with the knowledge which God had of him when he was only a tiny embryo in his mother's womb. There God overshadowed him. There God saw him. There God wove him together, thread by thread.

Who am I? I am a creature known by the living God.

But I am still more: I am a creature distinguished by the living God.

The first part of verse 14 can be more literally rendered, as E. J. Young renders it, 'I praise you forasmuch as in respect to fearful things I am distinguished...'

David is referring to being distinguished in his creation from the lower beings, whom God has also made. David was a man, not a toad. In respect to fearful things he was distinguished.

How awe-inspiring is the conception of a human being! How amazing its development in the womb! Life has come to be that will live in some place forever. Life which images God. Life capable of communion with God. A mind, will, emotions, personality which reflect the infinite Creator!

This moved David profoundly and with great conviction he expresses his praise, 'Your works are wonderful, I know that full well!' (14b).

But as with David we adore, we are struck with some of the impli­cations of God's creative activity in Mommy's womb.

There is a terrifying word here to those who would dare invade God's workshop, smash his weaver's loom, and tear in shreds the fabric he is so carefully weaving.

Is God at work in the womb of every pregnant woman? Has he there set up his weaver's loom to weave together a human being in his own likeness? Is he there at his weaver's stool intimately monitoring every movement of his divine shuttle? Is he personally concerned about the location and integration of every thread? What, then, will he do to that man who crashes through the door of his workshop, overturns his loom and tears to bits his handiwork? What will God do? Never was any mortal so jealous of his work as the Holy One of Israel is of his creation. Dare any man invade the sacred workshop of the Almighty? Dare he lay a treacherous hand upon his work? Dare he destroy what God has made? He will pay with his life — life for life — He will be visited with everlasting divine anger! He will burn in eternal flames unless atonement is made for his heinous crime by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

There is also a sobering warning here for all who disdain or abuse the handiwork of God. Job knew this. Hear his reasoning (Job 31:13-15):

If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One form us both within our mothers?

His logic is clear and concise! Because God made my menservants and maidservants they must be treated with equity. They must be dealt with justly or God will contend with me. To abuse them is to abuse the handiwork of God! When men lose this perspective they lose the most fundamental reason for treating others with fairness, kindness and dignity.

Christians above all people should be lovers of men. Our heavenly Father made them. Yes, sin mars the handiwork. It twists and makes ugly. But have we become so dull, so hard, so selfish and so calloused that we can no longer be profoundly moved by the thought that every man we see is God's creature — fearfully and wonderfully made! Do we see each person we meet as God's sacred fabric or just another statistic? True compassion for lost and perishing men begins with this perspective. Creationists of all people should treat God's image-bearers with appro­priate respect and love. Brethren, let us never mistreat or abuse the fruit of God's loom!

There is also a thrilling word here to every person made in God's image. You are the result of the attentive, careful, thoughtful, intimate, detailed, creative work of God. Your personality, your sex, your height, your features, are what they are because God made them precisely that way. He made you the way he did because that is the way he wants you to be. Do you like what God made? Are you satisfied with God's creation? Have you embraced who and what he has made you to be and thanked him? Your attitude about this will mould and shape your entire outlook on life. Perhaps you want to be taller — then you could be the star basketball player. Or you want to be prettier, then the guys would be fighting over you. Maybe you want to be shorter, then more fellows would work up the courage to date you. You wish you had someone else's intellect, or wit, or hair texture, or speed, or musical dexterity, or personality type, or athletic ability? Listen, dear Christian; if God had wanted you to be basically and creatively different he would have made you differently. Your genes and chromosomes and creaturely distinctives — even the shape of your nose and ears — are what they are by God's design. This moved David to praise! What does it move you to? Well, you say David could praise God because he was handsome. No! David did not praise God so because he was handsome, but because God had made him and because God had made him a man.

You will never really enjoy other people, you will never have stable emotions, you will never lead a life of godly contentment, you will never conquer jealousy and love others as you should until you thank God for making you the way he did. Certainly you and I need to change, develop, and grow a great deal. But what we need to change has nothing to do with how God created us — our creatureliness. It has only to do with how sin has twisted and warped us — our sinfulness.

2. Does My Life have Meaning?←⤒🔗

The answer, again, is here in this psalm: 'All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be' (16).

The proper translation and interpretation of this verse is difficult. The NIV reflects one of the best ways of translating the Hebrew words. If you want to study the text in more detail read E. J. Young's exposition of this psalm. My exposition here is largely dependent on his.

While the exact translation of this text is problematic the basic thought is clear. Verse 16 is telling us that the entirety of David's being, even 'all the days' of his life, are inscribed in the book that belongs to God. By 'all the days ordained for me', the Psalmist has in mind all that he would experience in his personal life history outside his mother's womb. All his life — every single day, with all that each day would bring, had been written down by God in his own book. The details of each day David would live had been recorded by God in his own book before any of those days had actually occurred in David's personal experience. And we are told by Scripture that what was true of David is true of every single person created by God. Job says: 'Man's days (not just David's) are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed' (Job 14:5).

The Psalmist has here reached a lofty peak in his exaltation of his God. Not only is his God all-knowing (1-6) and everywhere present (7-12) — not only is he the mighty Creator (13-15) but he has also foreordained all things that come to pass (16).

David has brought us face to face with the doctrine of predestination. He regards his life not as a series of chance or random happenings but as a life entirely planned by God even before his first cry outside his mother's womb. David's life was not determined by David. He is not the master of his fate nor the captain of his soul. And in this David took great delight. It thrilled David to meditate on God's thoughts concerning him — verse 17, 'How precious to (concerning) me are your thoughts, O God!'

Every man's life has purpose because every man's life is planned by God. But this reality does not bring joy to the heart of every man as it did to David's heart. Some men are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. Some men are raised up like Pharaoh to display God's power and proclaim through their own destruction his great name (Romans 9:17-22). In the case of others God works all things together for good. They are the vessels of his mercy through whom he makes the riches of his glory known.

What must be true of you and me if we would be brought to delight in God's foreordination in the way that David did? According to this Psalm three things must be as true of us as they were of David:

• First, we must hate all the enemies of God (21, 22).
   
• Second, we must welcome the searching eye of God (23).
   
• Third, we must want to be rid of everything in our lives that is offensive to God (24).

Are these three things true of you? Then like David you have a heart after God's own heart — a heart that can and should take great delight in saying to God, 'All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be' (16).

Now let me ask our second question again, addressing it specifically to you who stand with God against all his enemies — the enemies both inside and outside your own heart. Does your life have meaning? Too many Christians respond in great frustration to this question. I hear someone saying: 'Oh, my life seems so humdrum, so futile and meaningless'.

What am I doing to advance the kingdom of God? How is my life contributing to the glory of God in the earth? I can see that the life of my Pastor has meaning. It is obvious that the days of faithful missionaries of the cross are filled with meaning, but not mine. I love God — I want to please him — I do my best to serve him, but it is hard for me to see that my life has much meaning. I spend 40, 50, 60 plus hours a week doing nothing but providing for my family or picking up after little kids. Most of the days of my life are very insignificant. There are a few red-letter days here and there. Some days I live are really important, but "all the days" of my life filled with meaning and significance? I don't see it. Nobody notices me. My church doesn't need me. My life has no real purpose. I can't even make the church softball team — I'm a bench warmer!'

Just a minute, dear Christian! Did we not just see that all the days of your life were planned by God before you even came out of your mother's womb? If you say your life has no meaning you call into question God's plan. Your life has meaning because God purposed it. The days of your life have significance because God ordained them. God has drawn up a unique transcript of your life unlike any other. Your esteemed brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus have different transcripts. Had God wanted your days filled with exactly the same things with which their days are filled he could have and would have arranged it like that. But how boring! How unlike God that would have been. He is not the God of monotonous sameness but of infinite variety! Your life has meaning because your God planned it from start to finish. How can something God planned in such minute detail — the life he has weaved together with great care — be without meaning? Dear Christian, your loving Father made you the way he did. He gave you the sex, the personality, and the gifts which he did. And he orders the affairs and days of your life the way he does because he loves you. He wants you to be the creature he made you. He wants you to live the life and to pursue the vocation for which he suited you.

If you could, would you walk up to God's throne, take the transcript of your days, and the blueprint of your life, out of his hands and in his very presence tear it to shreds? Do you dare to say to him, 'I don't like what you made and I detest what you wrote!' Oh, dear child of God, don't you see that such brash folly would only be the logical outcome of your present discontent? 'But', you say, 'what about the sin in the days of my life? Is God the author of sin? Are we after all mere robots? How is that meaningful? Do we live in a mechanistic universe? What about human freedom? What about human responsibility to make something of our lives?' Ah, my dear friend, you are a finite man wading out into the ocean of thought which belongs to him who is infinite. Unless you take care you are going to drown in the sea of his infinity. Come back to shore! Don't dive for answers which are buried in the depth of God's hidden know­ledge.

Remember what Paul exclaimed, 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?'Romans 11:33-34

God is not the author of sin. Men are not robots. They act freely in accord with their nature. None of their actions are coerced by God. We are entirely responsible for all we do or do not do. Yet, all our days were pre-planned by God before we drew one breath outside our mother's womb. Do not allow the mystery of the truth to cloud the glory of it!

How this liberates us from thinking that only the lives of some Chris­tians have meaning, and that if my life is not just like theirs then it is no good! Such foolish thinking almost made me a nervous wreck my first few years as a pastor. I would read about Jonathan Edwards and want to be just like him — but he studied that now famous thirteen hours a day. I would read the thrilling, almost fairy-tale, life of John Welsh and want my life to be just as exciting, but it was obviously impossible to recreate those historical events. I would read, too, about Whitefield and want to be like him. But he often preached four or more times a day and I never could find that many audiences to address.

I soon learned that I was none of those men and certainly not all three of them rolled into one. I look back now and marvel at my folly and arrogance and discontent. If God had wanted me to be an Edwards or a Whitefield or a Welsh he would have made me differently. He wants me to be the man he made me to be and to live out the plan he wrote just for me. I do not know what the plan includes, but as I live by the precepts of his Word, and seek to, love him with all my heart, mind, soul and strength, I know that he is fulfilling his purpose for me (Psalm 138:8); the transcript he wrote is being lived out and with this he is well pleased.

This truth also liberates us from thinking that only the big things in our lives — the red-letter days — have meaning. No, the details of every day we live have purpose; they are all part of his plan; they are the important pieces that make up the whole.

David's perspective also liberates us from the despair and aimlessness of those who know not God and understand not his ways. Multiplied millions of people all around us are gripped by agony, foreboding, fear, and despair. Their lives, as they see them, have no meaning. Teenage suicides have increased at an alarming rate. Hopelessness — it abounds! Is life, after all, mere chaos? Is it, as the poet said, a tale 'told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'? The Christian knows better and sings:                         

Whate'er my God ordains is right;
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet am I not forsaken.
My Father's care is round me there:
He holds me that I shall not fall
And so to Him I leave it all.

We have asked, who am I? and, Does my life have meaning? Now we are ready for our third question.

3. Am I Significant to God?←⤒🔗

David has considered the staggering reality that every day of his life, and the details in each day, were ordained by God before he was ever born. Does he start quarrelling? Does he protest? Does he argue or dispute? Does he call for insurrection in the city of Mansoul? No! He begins to revel, to glory, to exult, and to rejoice. Think about what this means, he seems to say. God is thinking about me all the time (17-18). He is seeing to it that his plan is lived out. How precious are his thoughts concerning me! 'How vast is the sum of them'. How innumerable! They are vaster than all the details of every day of my life — more than all the granules of sand on all the earth's beaches! When I go to sleep I am in his presence. When I wake up it is again to bask in that same presence. He never takes his loving, caring eyes off me! Dearly beloved in the Lord, for ever banish the unworthy thought from your mind that God's notice of you consists only of occasional attention directed your way when he is in the right mood.

We are never out of God's sight, never out of his thoughts, never out of his care, never separated from his love.

How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God!

Now let every true believer — who with David hates the enemies of God, who welcomes the searching eye of God and would be rid of every sin that is offensive to him — let every such believer answer this question for himself, Am I significant to God?

You are so significant to him that you have his full attention all the time. You may be a nobody in your own sight (that is a wholesome perspective to have) but remember that God's thoughts concerning you cannot even be numbered!

Does God think of us so constantly? Does he purpose all for our good? Do his omniscience, his omnipresence, his decrees, and his creative power all combine to work for my best? Then he shall have my supreme allegiance! But from now on let me never again say that my life is meaningless. Am I a Christian? Let me never talk of an insignificant existence. And let me be done with petty jealousy! Do I really want the life of another, the calling of another, the gifts of another, the days of another, when God has so carefully planned my life and ordered my days, made my being and given me my gifts? Christian, if you are in a healthy spiritual condition you will answer with a resounding, 'No I do not want to be someone else! I want to be a more Christlike me!'

Taking our answer only from this psalm let us answer this question. What gives the true Christian proper self-esteem? Does he get it by minimizing sin? No! By running from God's all-searching eye? No! By blurring the distinction between God's friends and his enemies? No! Proper self-esteem is had by coming to believing grips with three realities:

You are God's creature — made on God's very own loom — created just the way he wanted you.

Your life in all its details has been lovingly planned by God.

You are the object of God's unceasing love and full attention!

My friend, do you know this God as the God of your salvation?

It should fill us with adoring wonder and reverent surprise', said Spurgeon, 'that the infinite mind of God should turn so many thoughts towards us ... what a contrast is all this to those who deny the existence of a personal God! Imagine a world without a thinking personal God! Conceive of a grim providence of machinery! A fatherhood of law! Such philosophy is hard and cold. As well might a man pillow his head upon a razor edge as seek rest in such a fancy. But a God always thinking of us makes a happy world, a rich life, a heavenly hereafter.

Is this God your Friend? Is he your Father? He will be if you believe upon his Son Jesus Christ. Oh, may you come to know our God before the sun sets tonight!