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Psalms 139:14 · World English Bible

Psalms 139:14 Meaning I Will Give Thanks to You

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.

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What does Psalms 139:14 mean?

Underneath every scar and failure sits an original design of staggering workmanship, and part of a person already knows it. The praise here is a man agreeing with the verdict God passed on him at the making: sound, intricate, worth wonder.

From the Cybernetics reading below.

Psalms 139:14 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CYBERNETICS

Cybernetics

Underneath every scar and failure sits an original design of staggering workmanship, and part of a person already knows it. The praise here is a man agreeing with the verdict God passed on him at the making: sound, intricate, worth wonder.

His soul knows this well. Even when his conscious estimate of himself runs low, that deep knowing holds, and a self-image built on it carries a quiet steadiness. He stops arguing with his own worth and lets it stand.

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Cybernetics lens

Live Psalms 139:14 today

  1. Stand in front of the mirror this morning and skip the usual running critique. Not praise, just a plain look, the way you would look at anything well made.
  2. Say one specific good thing to someone today about who they are rather than what they produced. Watch how unused they are to hearing it, and how much they needed it anyway.
  3. When a review, a number, or a comment tries to tell you what you are worth, let it be information about the work and not a verdict about you. The two were never the same thing.

What part of you already knows your worth better than your worst day does?

The same truth in other traditions

Zen

You are already complete and nothing needs adding. The work is not to improve yourself into worth but to stop disputing the worth you came with.

Judaism · Mishnah

Every person is stamped from a single mold yet comes out unrepeatable, which makes each one worth a world. Your value is in the making, not in the performance.

Sufism · Rumi

You are not a drop in the ocean but the whole ocean in a drop. Something in you knows this even on the days your opinion of yourself runs low.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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