Your hands have made and fashioned me;
Psalms 119:73 (ESV)
give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
This is a passage that took me most of my life to come to grips with. In High school, I was never popular, except with other socially awkward kids. I have never been good at making conversation. I am uncomfortable in crowds and do not make friends easily. And I did not seem to think the way that so many others did. Worst of all, I did not fit the mold that the church expected me to fit into. I was broken. Or so I thought.
But I finally came to understand that I was not broken. God was my creator. And He made me the way He wanted me to be. As the psalmist says here, His hands have made me, and He has fashioned me to be the person He wants me to be. I can point to my genetics, environment, and experiences as helping to produce the man that I am today. But the sovereign God, as the master potter, uses all those to shape me according to His purpose.
And it is not just me that He has made and fashioned like that. It is true of all of God’s people. We may not understand why He fashioned us the way He has. But we can take comfort in knowing that God has formed and fashioned us the way He wants us to be. We are not broken. We are God’s masterpiece, made in His image.
Being What God Created Me to Be
But there is more to this verse than just recognizing that God has made and fashioned us. The psalmist prayed that God would give him understanding so that he could learn God’s commandments. At one level, this refers to the general precepts for godly living that God has given us in Scripture. But I believe it goes beyond that.
It is a prayer for God’s direction in my own life. He has made and fashioned me according to His purpose. What does He want me to do with that? What role has He crafted me to fill within His kingdom? It is a prayer seeking understanding in how to carry out God’s purpose for me as His servant.
