THE OCCASIONAL JOKE in our family is that I’m a crafty guy. That doesn’t mean I’m sneaky; it means I like creating things with my hands. Every year before Christmas, for example, I make keepsake ornaments out of polymer clay — some colorful little figurine representing a person’s interests to hang on the tree. I’ve been doing this, literally, for decades, ever since our kids were small, and now make ornaments for the grandkids, too.

It’s not just clay, though; I enjoy other crafts, too. Whenever my wife needs to send a birthday or sympathy card, I create one in watercolors. And I’ve done an endless list of every kind of DIY project you can think of around the house, from flooring and carpeting, to drywall, tile, and cabinetry, to roofing. I’m not saying I’ve done all this equally well; I marvel, for example, at how quickly and seamlessly professional drywallers do their work. But the point is that I take pleasure in being crafty.

As we read in Genesis 1, human beings are created in the image of their Creator. Through the ages, theologians and Bible scholars have offered different interpretations of that biblical truth. The image of God is to be seen, they teach, in our capacity for rational thought or for relationship. But I like to think that the impulse to creativity is also a reflection of the Creator. Just as God looked at creation and pronounced it good, so too do we take satisfaction in the act of creating something pleasing. Yep: I think even that delicious pot of spaghetti sauce counts.

In Psalm 139, the psalmist seems to remember the story of Genesis 2, when God created Adam from the dust of the ground; indeed, the name “Adam” itself appears to be derived from the Hebrew word for “ground” (perhaps the first human should have been named “Dusty” instead?). Similarly, there may be an echo of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, who described God as the potter who shapes us like clay (Isa 64:8; Jer 18:1-6). The psalmist sees himself as God’s creation, and marvels at the craftsmanship:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
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.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be. (Ps 139:13-16, NIV)

I don’t think we have to imagine the poet waking up, looking in the bathroom mirror, and saying, “Well, hello there, handsome,” or “Good morning, gorgeous.” Rather, we should read these verses as following on the ones before, connected by the little conjunction “for.”

In the previous verses, the psalmist declared that it was no use trying to hide in the darkness, for the darkness is not dark to God. Thus, the womb is yet another dark and secret place which isn’t hidden to the omniscient, omnipotent God. Nor are the “depths of the earth,” which may be an echo of the earlier reference to Sheol. But I doubt that the psalmist actually believes that he was created there. Rather, I read him as echoing the creation story and applying it to himself. God is the Creator, who takes what is dark, formless, and void, and makes something wondrous — including the psalmist, including us.

God knows not only our external behavior, but our inmost being and thoughts, and knew us from before we were even born. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book,” the psalmist says, “before one of them came to be.” We need to be careful here, I think, to not force the psalmist’s poetry into some strict doctrine of predestination; that’s not the poet’s purpose.

Rather, the psalmist is continuing to marvel at God’s omniscience in a deeply personal way that continues the tone of the rest of the psalm. God not only knows us inside and out, but knows the whole of our story, even the chapters that from our perspective have yet to be written.

. . .

AGAIN, IN A world in which we often hide our true selves from each other, it may sound a bit unsettling to think of someone, anyone, knowing us that well. Part of this is born out of a sense of our brokenness and inadequacy, our shame over who we are as compared to who we should be — or who others say we should be.

But what does it mean for the psalmist to know this and yet praise God? “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” the psalmist declares. That’s not an overinflated ego talking; that’s someone lost in wonder. Another David psalm says it a little differently. There, the psalmist contemplates the majesty of God as Creator, as the one who carefully set each star in its proper place. Filled with awe and against that background, the psalmist asks: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Ps 8:4).

As the late, great jazz singer Ethel Waters once said, “I know I’m somebody ’cause God made me and God don’t make no junk.” She could say that despite a troubled and unstable childhood; her birth was the result of her mother being raped as a teenager. But late in her successful career as a singer and actress, she rededicated her life to Jesus at a Billy Graham crusade, and afterward, sometimes toured with him.

Waters knew something that we should know and take to heart. God knows everything about us, because we are the very handiwork of God. We should believe that about ourselves and see it in each other.

Because God don’t make no junk.