2025 World Day of Prayer - Psalm 139
During my
teaching degree, at university, our lecturer talked about the difference
teaching with girls and boys. To
illustrate she told the story of two students who had failed mathematics the
previous year. The new teacher asked the
boy why he thought he failed, and he answered that his last teacher wasn’t very
good. The new teacher asked the girl the
same question, however she answered, “I’m no good at maths”. The point the lecturer was making is that
girls are harder on themselves, whereas the boys are more resilient and more
likely to blame everyone else for their failure. (and we all know that this
started way back in the garden of Eden with Adam).
As girls,
grown up, when our life goes a little pair shaped, we are still more likely to
feel that it is us who is not good enough, and we are the reason that our life
is crumbling around us. The men
obviously get to this point too and realize their need for God, but for
females, we reach this point more readily and more often. Psalm 139 is for us. While men will reach out for God and move on,
females are more likely to continue feeling less than good enough.
There is
something about Psalm 139, that hits you in the heart. Right from the first line; “You have searched
me, Lord, and you know me”, it goes right to the heart of the matter. We long to be known. Not just, “Hello my friend…” but, we long to be truly known. Our family knows us pretty well, but even
they, don’t understand our hidden pain, our hidden hopes and dreams… and
especially they don’t know our hidden shame, and that thing we keep well hidden
– the sense of not being good enough.
When the psalmist
says, “Lord, you have searched me, and you know me”, we straight away sense
that this searching means we have found a place where we can rest… we have
found a place where we are truly known. But there is more, and it is so
important. God knew us before we were
born. God knew all that we would be and
all that we would do and all that we would desire. He knew the temptations we’d resist and the
temptations to which we’d succumb. And
regardless of anything we would do in our futures, He loves us and willingly
died to show us this and to ensure that there would be nothing separating us
from his love.
Vainiu,
tells us that during her formative years she was shamed and devalued in the
education system, yet she knew that she was valued by God. She echoes the psalmist when she says; “when we are cast out and treated with
disrespect, God is still with us. God goes with us to the darkness at the
bottom of the ocean, where there is no light. And God helps lead us out of that
darkness into a wonderful light.” She
has learnt a lesson that we all need to learn by heart; that God is on our
side, loves us and is always with us.
We are of such
infinite value. Each of us is a master
creation of God. The psalm tells us
that God created my inmost being; He
knit me together in my mother’s womb.
God designed us. He gave us our
personality and made each of us unique and he made us this way for a purpose,
but to each of us He has given free will.
We can freely choose to go our own way and rebel against all that God
calls us to be, or we can rejoice in the calling of God and grow more and more
into his purpose and the person that he calls us to be.
Psalm 139
lifts us up. Think of all the amazing
creatures of the earth and the intricacies of creation. Of all these God said it was good and he was
pleased, but when God created us, he said it was very good. We are the pinnacle of God’s creation.
Psalm 139 is
also the great equalizer, because this is God’s word to us all. He knows us all, and loves us all. He loves us from the time we were conceived –
when our life began. He loves us when we
are frail and aging. At any stage, we
are no less precious to him. This has
implications for where we need to stand on areas of social justice, because we
know that God values those who are fragile – all are precious to Him.
It is my
belief that the most effective treatment for the most common of mental health
issues, is to learn and understand who we are in God’s heart. Following on from this has to be the
cultivation of a society that treats all as those precious to God.
God’s call
to us always, is back from the rebellion.
Rebellion is where mankind chose to be something different to God’s
design. God calls us to open our eyes
and see ourselves as the person who he created, and to continue growing into
the person he calls us to become. In
this there is true freedom. We can stop
trying to be something that we are not and rejoice that we are the workmanship
of God.
Ephesians
2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
As a female
we need to be sure that we don’t let the lie that we are not good enough stop
us from being the person God created us to be.
Saint Paul in the letter to the Philippians declares, “I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me.”
As we give
thanks to God for the ladies of the Cook Islands we stand with them in praising
God and declaring to God, “I will praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;” Fearfully and
wonderfully made by the God who created all this universe, but who about us
said, “It is very Good!”
You and I
are very loved.
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