God’s Marvelous Workmanship

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

Psalm 139:14

I was reminded of God’s unique design of each individual when I worked in a summer arts camp for gifted junior high students one summer. As a writer, I worked with the verbally talented kids to help them create poems and stories. A musician directed the vocalists and those who played instruments, and a drama coach worked with the starstruck thespians. But perhaps most interesting to me was Maggie, the dance teacher, a ballet choreographer. At the end of the week, she and the dancers made up graceful movements and dance steps to interpret the poetry that was written and read by my students. After watching Maggie choreograph and dance, I complimented her. In reply, she said—as if we all shared this kind of talent—“Oh, I just think in movement all the time. That’s how my mind works. When I hear music or poetry, I see dance steps and a whole flow of movement in my mind.” To me—a person who thinks primarily in words, not in movement or pictures—this was an amazing talent.

Marsha, a ceramics and pottery artist, can look at a lump of red clay, see a porcelain angel, and then create a whimsical, colorful one in an afternoon. My sister-in-law Lou Ann has the analytical, mathematical, and administrative talent to create a financial plan for an entire city. Just as God has done with each of these women, he has designed you with gifts and talents, and he has wonderful, and sometimes surprising, plans for how he wants you to use them. My heartfelt hope is that you’ll discover those gifts within you and utilize them not only as a way of expressing who you are and what you think and dream but also as a way of blessing others and glorifying God. —CHERI

To be honest, Lord, sometimes I’ve wondered why you made me the way you did. But you knew me before I was born and know just how I was sculpted, from nothing to something. I want to trust your heart even when I can’t see your hand. I give myself with all my uniqueness and quirks to you for your purposes.

God, our wise and creative Maker, has been pleased to make everyone different and no one perfect. The sooner we appreciate and accept that fact, the deeper we will appreciate and accept ourselves and one another, just as our Designer planned us. —CHARLES SWINDOLL, PASTOR, AUTHOR, EDUCATOR, AND RADIO PREACHER

From the book