The scripture is full of many amazing surprises. A scripture verse that has been quoted many times, Psalms 139:14 reads, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” To me this is a beautiful verse and for some odd reason seems to bring encouragement and joy to me. But one phrase from this passage has always puzzled me. What does this verse mean by the phrase, “for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”? I get the wonderfully made by the shear fact that the human body is of such undeniable complex design.
Just to name a few features of the human body that are just so wonderful are the eyes. These eyes see the same spot no matter where you focus or how often you refocus from two different angles but your brain interprets an information loaded picture. By the way your eyes are connect to a super computer that took only nine months to develop with an operating system and software package that Bill Gates could not develop in his wildest dreams. A person could go on about the wonder and complexity of the brain, the eyes, the so called simple cell and the list does go on. The part the catches my attention is the fearfully made portion of this phrase. What a curious phrase and just what does it mean?
Psalm 9:10 reads, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Again what a curious statement that fear can bring understanding. Let us go to the scripture for a definition of fear. Proverbs 8:13 reads, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” Using this definition as we examine Psalms 139:14 “… for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:” it would seem that when we consider the way we are made it should counter our pride, arrogancy, our choice to do evil and perverse speech. When an individual recognizes the awesome design features we have we have to recognize what an awesome Creator God we have. This is not the end of the story.
Let us go back to our creation in Genesis which reads, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Not only can we see so many wonderful design features but we are made in His image. Surely we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
