We know that God has made each of us unique. He knit us together in our mother’s womb, watched over us and wrote our book (Psalms 137). We hear it, but do we really think about it or understand it?

Some scientists say that there was only a 1 in 400 trillion chance that a specific egg and a specific sperm united to form a specific person. Just that number – a 4 followed by 15 zeros – is an astronomical number. But what if we go even further…our parents had to meet and get together for the egg and sperm to have a chance. And before that our grandparents had to meet, and our great-grandparents, and our great-great grandparents all the way back to Adam and Eve. Some scientists say the chance of a person being born is 1 in 10 followed by 2,685,000 zeros.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand (Psalms 139:17-18)

Think of it. Each couple has a story of how they met and how a child was born to them. That child met another child from another couple with another story to tell. Those children formed their own story and on it goes through the generations until a specific child was born for a specific purpose in a specific time frame ordained and fashioned by the Almighty God Himself. That child was YOU!

How often do we try to make ourselves into someone else? God took a whole lot of trouble to make us unique and yet we don’t esteem that. Can we improve ourselves? Yes, God always provides a seed and we need to grow and nurture that seed. But before we can refine who we are, we must first accept and honor ourselves as the person God created.

Do we understand that we need to lose weight or get into better shape? Yes, but if all we are doing is focusing on our flaws, we end up complaining and dishonoring what God made and says He loves. So we need to learn to love ourselves, be grateful for how we are and thank God for helping us become the best possible us we can be. We can dress our bodies in ways that bring glory to Him even as we are striving to lose the weight, or whatever the case may be. But if we are negative about who we are right now, and dress to cover rather than to honor, we end up dishonoring our Creator. And this can be applied to any area of our lives.

God Himself literally took centuries to make us who we are right now. We need to honor His craftsmanship and not try to imitate someone else. An artist spends hours spreading paint on a canvas in a distinctive way to make that painting express exactly what he is seeing. If someone doesn’t like the painting or criticizes it, the artist feels the rejection as a cut to his very heart. Are we to tell God, our Maker, that we do not like His creation?

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul calls us God’s handiwork, His masterpiece. We are God’s 1 in 400 trillion or 1 in 10 to the 2.685 million. Let us esteem, appreciate and honor His creation – US!

We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny He has given each of us (Ephesians 2:10 The Passion Translation)