Your Story Reveals God’s

As fall approaches, I miss my home in Colorado. The leaves will be changing soon, and locals will spend weekends driving up into the mountains to view the beautiful foliage of the Aspen trees. Here in California, a drought continues, fires rage, and I’ve learned to take pleasure in the handful of roses that are hardy enough to bloom in my front yard dirt patch. But darn it, those beautiful aspen trees! To me, the most beautiful creation can be found in those Rocky Mountains. God’s presence is undeniable.

All of us have places like this, don’t we? In fact, Romans 1:20 explains that it’s through seeing God’s creation, we see HIM. God’s creation is one of his masterpieces.

There’s one more place where God’s presence is undeniable: It’s the image of my 12 week old fetus son in my womb. While I’ve never appreciated the Mona Lisa or the David statue (Good Lord, put some clothes on!) this tiny fetus is a masterpiece. And there are no words. So I’ll borrow David’s from Psalm 139.

13

LORD, For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Even science is now recognizing the divinity in the womb.

Alexander Tsiaras, a faculty member in the Yale University Department of Medicine and Chief of Scientific Visualization, worked with a team to develop MRI imaging to see a baby in the womb as it grew from conception to birth. In his TED Talk, he explains what he and his colleagues saw using this technology, and the complexity of the human body as it grows:

"...using the new kind of scanning technologies," (the team saw) "things that had just never been seen before" -- things that "just made you marvel...So perfectly organized a structure, it was hard not to attribute divinity to it…"

“The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity."

Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s Masterpiece.

The Greek word for Masterpiece is the same word used in Romans 1 for God’s creation, poema. It’s where we get the word poem. We’re not just words slapped on a page, but words that have been carefully crafted together for a purpose. It is in the womb God plans who we will be and what role we will play in His Story.

I think about my 3 boys as babies, and how I would spend hours just staring at them, amazed by their tiny fingers and toes, their quiet complexity that words just couldn’t describe, and I would just cry. And then as the years have gone by, I’ve watched these little masterpieces throw up all over me, cry all night long, throw tantrums in stores and wipe mud all over my walls. I’ve watched them beat up their brothers and eat dog food, or drink milk from a sippy cup they found under the couch, from yesterday... with chunks in it. I’ve listened to them burp the alphabet, and eat whatever comes out of their nose. And instead of receiving kisses sometimes, they’ve licked me. As they get older, I must remind them to take showers and brush their teeth so that those around them can breathe easily.

But in all of that, I also watch as they laugh together, and help the baby brother build towers with blocks and teach him how to ride a scooter. I get to watch the oldest doing homework with the middle child, or the middle son reading a bedtime story to the youngest with all the right voices. And hearing them tell each other, “I love you.” And then there are the moments I truly see God’s hand - when they were baptized into Christ, when I hear them sharing the gospel with a friend, or helping out at Compassion Network to give away Thanksgiving meals or building a home in Mexico.

I praise you, Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

We are God’s most outstanding piece of work. We are God’s poetry.

“God is not merely the Creator of your life. He is also the Author of your life, and He writes each person’s life to reveal HIS divine story. God writes the story of my life to make something known about Himself…Your life and mine not only reveal who we are, but they also help reveal who God is.” -Dan Allender, author of To Be Told

Your life reveals God’s. What story will you tell?