Blessed be the Lord...who alone does wondrous things! (Psalm 72:18)
David said, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14 NIV). We might say, "That's well enough for David; he was handsome, athletic, skilled in war, and a gifted musician. But look at me. I'm very ordinary physically and mentally." In fact, some people feel they don't even measure up to ordinary.
I understand people who feel that way. In addition to having hearing and vision disabilities, I've never been excited about my physical appearance. But God didn't give His own Son handsome features in His human body: "He had no beauty or majesty to attract s to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2 NIV). Jesus, at best, was apparently nondescript in His physical appearance. This never bothered Him nor interfered with His carrying out of His Father's will.
David praised God not because he was handsome but because God made him. Dwell on that thought: The eternal God, infinite in His wisdom and perfect in His love, personally made you and me. He gave you your body, your mental abilities, and your basic personality because that's the way He wanted you to be - and He loves you and wants to glorify Himself through you.
This is our foundation for self-acceptance. God sovereignly and directly created us to be who we are, disabilities or physical flaws and all. We need to learn to think like George MacDonald, who said, "I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking."
Awesome post!
ReplyDeleteDitto!
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