Psalm 139:13-16 teaches us that we are who we are because God Himself created us the way we are—not because of an impersonal biological process. Notice in verse 13 that David says to God, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” He pictures God as a master weaver at work in our mother’s womb, creating us as directly as He created Adam out of the dust of the earth.

    Obviously David was aware of the biological process that God used to bring him into this world. He does not deny that. Rather he teaches us that God so superintends that biological process that He is directly involved in fashioning each one of us into the person He wants us to be.

    The first part of verse 13 says, “For you created my inmost being.” The Hebrew word for “inmost being” is literally kidneys, a word used by the Jews to express the seat of longings and desires. The New International Version Study Bible says the word was used in Hebrew idiom for “the center of emotions and of moral sensitivity.” David, then, is essentially saying, “You created my personality.” Not only did God create David’s physical body, He also created his personality. David was the person he was because God created him that way, physically, mentally, and emotionally. And just as God was personally involved in the creation of David, so He was directly involved in creating you and me.

    Rev. James Hufstetler said it well when he said,

You are the result of the attentive, careful, thoughtful, intimate, detailed,        creative work of God. Your personality, your sex, your height, your features, are what they are because God made them precisely that way. He made you the way he did because that is the way he wants you to be. . . . If God had wanted you to be basically and creatively different he would have made you differently. Your genes and chromosomes and creaturely distinctives—even the shape of your nose and ears—are what they are by God’s design.

Psalm 139:13 is not the only passage in the Bible that speaks of God’s direct creation of each of us. Job said,

Your hands shaped me and made me. . . . Remember that you molded me like clay. . . . Did you not . . . clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bone and sinews? JOB 10:8-11

    The writer of Psalm 119 said, “Your hands made me and formed me” (verse 73). And God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).

    The application of this truth should be clear to us. If I have difficulty accepting myself the way God made me, then I have a controversy with God.

    If we have physical or mental disabilities or impairments, it is because God in His wisdom and love created us that way. We may not understand why God chose to do that, but that is where our trusting Him has to begin. In an earlier chapter, we saw that God ascribes to Himself the responsibility for physical disabilities. He said to Moses, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11).

    This truth is admittedly difficult to accept, especially if you or one of your loved ones are the object of such disability. But Jesus also affirmed God’s hand in disabilities. When the disciples asked Jesus why a certain man was born blind, He replied, “This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). Think about what Jesus said. A man was born blind and lived in blindness all the way into adulthood, so that God’s work might be displayed in his life. That hardly seems fair, does it? Why should that man suffer blindness all those years merely to be available to display God’s work on a certain day? Is God’s glory worth a man’s being born blind?

    Such questions when posed about a Bible character who lived 2,000 years ago seem crass and irreverent. We would probably all agree that the glory of God is worthy of a man’s being born blind. But what about our own physical disabilities or inadequacies? Is God’s glory worthy of those also? Are we willing to take our physical limitations, our learning disabilities, and even our appearance problems to God and say, “Father, You are worthy of this infirmity in my life. I believe You created me just the way I am because You love me and You want to glorify Yourself through me. I will trust You for who I am”?

    This is the path to self-acceptance, learning to trust God for who I am. To do this, though, we must continually keep in mind that the God who created us the way we are is the God who is wise enough to know what is best for us and loving enough to bring it about. Certainly we will sometimes struggle with who we are. Unlike specific incidents of adversity, our disabilities and infirmities are always with us. So we have to learn to trust God in this area continually. To do this we have to learn to say with David, “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

    As we thank God for who we are, we also need to thank Him for those so-called positive abilities and traits we do have. All of the abilities—physical, mental, personality, talents, and so on—that we do have were given to us by God. Paul’s words to the Corinthians apply to all of us: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). All of us received whatever ability, learning, riches, station in life, rank, or influence we have from God to be used by us for His glory. Whether it is an ability or disability, let us learn to receive it from God, to give Him thanks, and to seek to use it for His glory. – Jerry Bridges, Trusting God