Growing up, I didn’t like my body. I was too tall. I was teased about being too skinny (I know! Don’t laugh!). I was so sensitive about my body that I always wore a sweater to school regardless of how hot it was. I wanted to be covered up. And additionally, I cried about everything and my nose was too big. Sometimes it felt as big as a rhino’s.
When I looked at how God made me and I concentrated on my physical imperfections and personality weaknesses, or I thought of some bad things that had happened, I concluded that God didn’t love me very much; otherwise He would not have saddled me with such burdens.
When I first heard that saying, I found it hard to believe because of all the faults, insecurities and sins that oppressed me. Eventually, as I began to comprehend the truth of that statement, I could receive God’s love. I really began to believe that since God made me, I wasn’t junky!
God made you, too, and He wants your estimation of yourself to be as He regards you: important, valuable and loved. Psalm 139:13-18 says:
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in Your Book!
How precious it is, God, to realize that You are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day Your thoughts turn towards me. And when I waken in the morning, You are still thinking of me!” (LB)
God created you for His purposes and plans. No matter what your past represents, you can appreciate God’s design of you because He knew exactly what He wanted for you!
If you reject yourself, you are saying, “God made junk!” Isaiah 45:9 encourages us to submit to the workmanship of our Heavenly Father: “Woe to the man who fights with his Creator. Does the pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with him who forms it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ or the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be!’?”
Once we surrender to God’s design of us, we can concentrate on how He shows us His love. His primary way was by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. When we acknowledge that we have sinned and receive God’s forgiveness through Jesus because He took the punishment we deserve, God adopts us as His children.
Then we can more fully appreciate God’s design of us–because of that kind of love. (Tweet that!) After all, if He did all that for us, certainly His love motivated His beautiful creation of each of us.
Is there something that you didn’t like about yourself that you now see God is using for His glory? He can even use a nose that’s as big as a rhino’s! (And yes, I do appreciate starting out too skinny!)
