Heart of a Psalmist - Worshipping Christ Through The Psalms

III

IN THE WOMB - 13-18 God is All-Powerful

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous–and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.” 13-15) In older translations the Hebrew word “delicate, inner parts” is rendered as kidneys or reins. ‘God forms and possesses our secret parts, the seat of our desires and longings, called, by the Hebrews, the reins. This word sometimes signifies the inner nature.’ 5 The ‘reins’ are ‘ …the seat of the tenderest, most secret emotions’. 6 We were meant to be tenderhearted and loving from the very beginning. The all-powerful hand of God guided the wonder of our conception: “You guided my conception and formed me in the womb.” (Job 10:10) God formed and fashioned us as unique emotional, rational persons pos- sessing a nature that would continually grow into the likeness of Christ: “You must display a new nature because you are a new person created in God’s likeness–righteous, holy, and true.” (Eph. 4:24) Verse 14 is the sweet essence of praise from the psalmist’s heart as he is confronted with the mir- acle of human development in the womb. This is the embryonic beginning of ‘thanksgiving’; even chil- dren in the womb are capable of sensing a variety of emotions including love, joy, sorrow, as well as an awareness of the presence of Jesus. This happened when Mary, who was pregnant with the Lord, vis- ited her cousin Elizabeth also pregnant with her baby John. Elizabeth exclaimed: “When you came in and greeted me, my baby jumped for joy the instant I heard your voice.” (Lk. 1:44) The voice heard in this section of the psalm might be the Spirit of Jesus speaking prophetically through the writer describing the miracle of the incarnation, God becoming a man. Christ is clearly iden- tified in the Book of Isaiah: “the Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name.” (Isa. 49:1) The song intimates that our inner nature as well as our veins, bones, muscles, nerves and organs were knitted or embroidered together in a colorful, skillful work of art. Both the natural and spiritual birth are astounding acts of creativity and genius by a God who observes everything: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Eph. 2:10) There is divine purpose even before the child is conceived and be- gins its formation. “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me!” (16-18) Just as God knows our every movement before we make it, is aware of every emerging thought and knows every word before it is spoken; he knows our life before we live it. This is the highest moment of realization for the psalmist; ‘He is not in a position to measure the unfathomable depth of what has been said. The doxology (psalm) transcends the capacity of intellectual comprehension.’ 7 The prophecies throughout the Old Testament concerning Jesus makes it clear that these verses can be applied to him; his birth, his flight into Egypt, his childhood in Nazareth, baptism in the Jordan and miraculous ministry, his death and resurrection were all known and foretold in great detail. The Lord spoke to Jeremiah at the beginning of his ministry as a prophet to Israel: “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world.” (Jer. 1:5) We must search for him each day to fulfill the great purpose he has planned for our lives. We are intensely loved and cared for as God is constantly thinking about us from the standpoint of affection and delight. This is not a judge’s critical examination but a realization that he is always ready to guide, encourage, correct and comfort us with his precious thoughts. Sand is used in the Bible to represent immeasurable quantities; and here the finite mind is again confronted with an infinite God whose thoughts about even one person he has created would outnumber all the sand particles of every desert and seashore in the world. The psalmist does not want to let one of God’s thoughts go by him undiscovered and unclaimed. He awakens each morning to reflect on the new mercies laid out before him.

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