Weekly Devotional 30th of May 2025
by Bruce Billington
Weekly Devotional 30th of May, 2025
We will continue our series on hearing God through the Psalms by examining Psalm 139, a Psalm of David’s.
Psalm 119:16-17 – Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”
God established the process of birth. From beginning to end, it is the miraculous work of God’s hands. He creates every part of the human body as it develops in the womb. He weaves intricate parts together to form the fascinating, highly complex machine known as the human body. Even more amazing, God makes the body far superior to a mere machine: He creates in it the capacity to think, to feel, and to choose its own path. He breathes into this machine the “breath of life (and makes it become) a living soul (Genesis 2:7).
These facts affirm the claim that human life is sacred and that God is sovereign over it. No one is a master of their own destiny; rather, we are in the hands of the Lord. His Spirit is everywhere and cannot be avoided, and His countenance is turned in every direction. He has created a plan and a purpose for each person, but this cannot be fully realised unless they are in Christ.
The development of a child in the womb was regarded by the Israelites as one of the greatest mysteries (Ecclesiastes 11:5); here, the poet praises this coming into being as a marvellous work of the omniscient and omnipresent omnipotence of God.
According to the view of Scripture, the mode of Adam’s creation is repeated in the formation of every man (Job 33). The earth was the mother’s womb of Adam, and the mother’s womb out of which the child of Adam comes forth is the earth out of which it is taken. Though the body is formed progressively, it was always one and the same in God’s book, who is not dependent upon time for the execution of his work.
Verse 17 – The Psalmist is not the least bit worried that God knows all about him, and he considers it precious that God has many thoughts about him. As he states, “It really is a joy which should fill our whole nature to think upon God, returning love for love, thought for thought,” albeit poorly in comparison. God is: our Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Father, and Friend. The POSB commentary makes a wonderful statement here when it says,
It should fill us with adoring wonder and reverent surprise that the infinite mind of God should turn so many thoughts towards us who are so insignificant and so unworthy! What a contrast is all this to the notion of those who deny the existence of a personal, conscious God! Imagine a world without a thinking, personal God! Conceive of a grim providence of machinery! —a fatherhood of law!
David treasured God’s thoughts about him. They represented God’s detailed purpose and plan for his life, and David was amazed that God loved him so much as to think about him to this degree. It stirred him to praise God from the depths of his heart. He concluded his comments on this by saying, “When I am awake, I am still with you.” Every morning when he awoke, David rejoiced in God’s presence with him. Each day was a fresh opportunity to walk with the LORD and bask in His presence.
As David said, we are fearfully and wonderfully made—each one of us. We should praise God unceasingly for the fact that He loves us so much and that He designed us intricately, intimately, and individually. When we truly grasp how much God loves us, we will love ourselves more. We will learn to delight in the things about ourselves that we formerly despised. In addition, when we truly believe that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, pursuing that plan will be our priority. We will then seek God’s will diligently, submitting ourselves wholly to Him so that He might bring it to pass (Romans 12:1–2).
Amazingly, this extends beyond just our time on this earth. God takes all those who have believed in Christ and committed their lives to Him, into His special care, holding them gloriously in His presence beyond their time on earth into eternity with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
Oh, what a wonderful God we serve.
God bless you.