Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT

Adapted from Handbook to God’s Promises

GOD’S CREATION OF ME

Check Your Label (Psalm 139:13–16)

Labels aren’t always helpful, but in some cases they are. For instance, in defining where we human beings fit in the grand scheme of the “animal” species, here are the labels that zoologists use to put us in our place (moving from the general to the specific).

First, human beings (Homo sapiens) are animals (kingdom Animalia) with a backbone (phylum Chordata) and a segmented spinal cord (subphylum Vertebrata). We suckle our young (class Mammalia) and gestate them with the help of a placenta (subclass Eutheria). We have five digits at the end of our limbs, a collarbone, and one pair of mammary glands (order Primates). Then, we have front-pointing eyes, stereo vision, and a relatively large brain (suborder Anthropoidea). Finally, we are of the family Hominidae. A pedigree like that could be a source of pride. But, from the evolutionist’s perspective, it simply says that a human being is the most highly evolved collection of carbon and protein on the planet. So it takes more than a Latin label to give the human creature the respect he or she deserves. 

Long before research grants, tenure tracks, and textbook deals were part of the study of human origins, a simple shepherd-king living in the land of Israel was given a much more accurate perspective on the human being. He used one simple label to set humans apart from everything else he had observed: “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Through lonely nights and dangerous days as a shepherd, he had seen the world of living beings: sheep, lions, snakes, scorpions, bears, vultures, hawks, sparrows, ants, badgers—his list could stretch for pages. But in all his observation, he had found nothing that matched the humble but awesome beauty of the human being.
 

When David wrote this passage, he also wrote about you. You too were “knit together” in your mother’s womb under the direction and protection of God. Next time you feel a little lost in the land of living things, check your label: “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
 

God’s Promise: Of all He has created, only human beings—including you—are fearfully and wonderfully made.