By Ben Disney
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14
I had my annual physical this morning. Yes it’s the responsible thing to do. No, it’s not up there on my list of top ten things to do. You know what’s coming. Check cholesterol numbers, monitor blood sugar levels, order additional lab tests, and the always helpful suggestion from the doctor that this might be a good time to shed a few more pounds. If we really are fearfully and wonderfully made, we also have to admit there are days when we look in a mirror and sense more fear than wonder.
The wonder of it all is how incredibly well the body actually works on most days. On an average day we breathe 21,600 times, blink our eyes 16,800 times, while our hearts quietly go about beating 103,680 times in a 24-hour period - all of that happening with incredible efficiency - and we never once have to stop and tell our hearts to beat, our eyes to blink, or our lungs to breathe.
Pretty amazing when you think about it; it’s all embedded deeply in our DNA, and it’s such a natural part of who we are we rarely even think about it. We just take it for granted that every day, every night our bodies will simply do what they were designed to do.
So if God is the one who designed us, and if we really believe we’re fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image, why do we still think we have to wake up every day and decide if we’re going to hope, or believe, or love? If we don’t have to tell our eyes to blink, or our lungs to breathe, or our hearts to beat, what makes us think we have to instruct our minds to believe, or our souls to hope, or our hearts to love?
Maybe it’s already there inside of us and we just never realized it. The ability to hope, believe, and love coming from deep inside of us and as natural as the breaths we take every day.
Sometimes it takes a skilled physician to show you what’s really going on inside of you. A good doctor will point out all the bad stuff and tell you to watch it. God, on the other hand, will tell you about all the good inside of you and tell you to trust it.
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