"Fearfully and Wonderfully Made"
by Michelle Pemberton
Click here for a printable Handout, Bible Study including a list of references and Discussion Questions.
Handout
We are on a journey of love this year to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30
What does and doesn’t go in our purse for this journey?
- We don’t need to try harder Instead we need add simple training practices.
- We don’t need to bring comparison.
- “Don’t judge or you too will be judge” Matt 7:1
1. I compare and see myself as less than that person. They are better than me.
- A training practice we can add is to embrace and value my own uniqueness.
- 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. Ps 139:13-14
- “One of the most important things I’ve learned came from my friend Nancy. She told me that when you compare yourself to another person, you always lose, and at the same time the other person also loses, too. Each of us has been created by the hands of a holy God and our stories and the twists and turns of our lives, the things that are hard for us, and the things that come naturally, are as unique as our own fingerprints. She told me that one way to ensure a miserable life is to constantly measure your own life by the lives of people around you.” Pg112 Shauna Niequist. Bittersweet
- Training practice - Be __________________(fill in your name here) make a list of how you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Things you do and don’t do. Share that list with someone close to you.
Training practices when I feel better than:
- Pray for that other person “that they are fearfully and wonderfully made. God help me see that and remind me of their strengths”
- Praise them for a strength
- Ask for their advice
- “Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.” Proverbs 12:25
- I shut up.
- Work at not participating in gossip. Definition of gossip is making unkind remarks behind the back of someone I know.
- Instead of gossiping, talk to calm, neutral and objective person who will help me think and pray.
“Prayer had become for him primarily a time of listening to the blessing. The real work of prayer, he said is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things to me. That may sound self-indulgent, he admitted but not if it meant seeing himself as the Beloved, a person whom God has chosen to dwell. The more he listened to that voice, the less likely he was to judge his worth by how others responded to him or by how much he achieved. He prayed for God’s inner presence to express itself in his daily life as he ate and drank, talked and loved, played and worked. He sought the radical freedom of an identity anchored in a place beyond all human praise and blame.”
Henri Nouwen
Table Discussion Questions
1. What is something that you do? A place where you are fearfully and wonderfully made? (It isn’t bragging!)
2. What is something that you don’t do?
3. Which one do you do more of “I am better than others” or “I am less than others”?
4. What is example of area where you judge yourself as better or less than others? (You don’t have to go into details)
5. What is one training practice that you could add to your life?
Bible Study
Read Psalm 139: 1-12
Does there feel like there is a scary area of your life right now that God does not feel present? I would encourage you to journal a prayer specifically telling God about this difficult area and asking him into this scary part of your life. One of my prayers is for God to help me notice His presence in all areas of my life.
Or if you love being outside take a prayer walk and talk to God about this scary part of your life.
Read Psalm 139:13-18 a couple of times and think about these verses
How are you “fearfully and wonderfully made”? What unique gifts, talents and passions has God given you? Thank Him for those gifts.
Read Matthew 7:1-5
Do you judge yourself harshly?
Who do you judge? And what kinds of things are you judgmental about?
When you judge are you more likely to see yourself as less than or better than the other person?
What is an action step you can take when you have judgmental thoughts about yourself or someone else?
Read John 8:1-11 Phil 4:4-9 Prov 12:25
What does Jesus’ response to the woman caught in adultery tell you about how He thinks about judging or comparison?
What “stones” do you need to drop?
What is “right, true, admirable or lovely” about this person you were holding a stone for?
Consider texting or emailing a quick note of gratefulness to that person for something good you see in them.
Other Resources
- Michelle’s sermon podcast on August 14th -http://heartland.typepad.com/sunday_podcast/2011/08/ancient-marvels-superhuman.html
- The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You John Ortberg
- The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are - Brene’ Brown
- Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way –Shauna Niequist
- Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life Shauna Niequist
