According to the Creator
“You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.” — Psalm 139:1–4, NIV
Have you ever eaten something so delicious that it makes getting all the details absolutely necessary? Maybe an aunt brought a dish to a family holiday gathering or a friend brought something to a potluck, and you just have to know what is in it and how they made it. Or have you ever been to an art gallery and had questions about the details of a particular piece of art? What inspired it? Why did the artist choose those colors? What does that tiny detail in the corner mean? Or what about simply needing the details on a work project for a client or boss?
In all of these instances, who is the best person to ask for the details? The creator — the one who made the dish, painted the piece, or designed the project. Other people may be able to make observations. They may even know a good bit about it. But the most reliable source for the truth of all the details is the origin—the one who created it in the first place.
The same is true of us. If we want the absolute, irrefutable truth about the intricate details of our lives, we must go to our Creator.
“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.” — Psalm 139:13–14, NIV
God knows everything about us. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” (Jeremiah 1:5, NIV). Those words were spoken specifically about God's calling on Jeremiah, but throughout Scripture we see the same incredible truth about God's intimate knowledge of the people He creates. God knows our names, hearts, thoughts, worries, actions, fears, sins, words, weaknesses, and all of our days.
Nothing about you surprises Him. There is no part of you He has somehow overlooked. There is no hidden corner of your heart He has not seen. There is no insecurity you have discovered about yourself that God somehow missed when He made you. He knows the parts of you that everyone else sees, and He knows the parts that no one else does.
Other people may know us well—our parents, siblings, friends, coworkers, spouse, or partner. People on this earth can certainly know us deeply. The closer you are to a person, and the more time you spend with them, naturally, the more you learn about each other. Yet another person can never know you the way God knows you. God knows you even better than you know yourself.
What God says to be true about you is extremely important when people begin to have opinions about you (and they will). Some will be encouraging. Some will be critical. Some will be accurate. Some will be completely wrong. People may decide who they think you are based on one interaction, one season of your life, one mistake, one accomplishment, one rumor, one weakness, or one thing they simply do not understand about you.
But their perspective is limited—God's is not.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” — Genesis 1:27, NIV
The Creator of the universe is a creative God who sees beauty in all His creation. And human beings occupy a unique place within that creation because we were made in His image. God sees the real you—when your hair is a mess, you have puffy bags under your eyes, your house is a disaster, you are overwhelmed, you did not handle something the way you wish you had, or you simply do not feel very impressive that day.
None of those things change who created you. None of those things erase whose image you bear. Our value does not come from being impressive enough, productive enough, attractive enough, successful enough, liked enough, or understood by everyone around us. Our value comes from our Creator.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10, NIV
The creator holds the truest design for their creation. Just as an inventor understands the tiny mechanics of an invention in a way no outside observer ever could, God alone knows the intimate details, intentions, and purposes of our lives.
Jesus told us, “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30, NIV).
So why would we allow the voice of someone who did not create us to have more authority over our identity than the One who did? Why do we so easily allow a criticism, rejection, comparison, failure, relationship, title, number on a scale, job, accomplishment, social media comment, or someone else's opinion to tell us who we are?
People can speak about you—only God has the authority to define you.
Now, that does not mean we never listen to correction or wise counsel. “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Proverbs 12:15, NIV). God absolutely uses other people to encourage us, teach us, challenge us, and help us grow. Sometimes we need someone who loves us enough to tell us a difficult truth.
But there is a difference between allowing someone to speak wisdom into your life and allowing someone to determine your worth. There is a difference between receiving correction about something you have done and accepting condemnation about who you are. There is a difference between hearing someone's opinion of you and treating that opinion as truth. Human voices have limits—The Creator's voice does not.
And sometimes the voice we need to question is our own. We can look at ourselves and think, I am not enough. I am behind. I am too much. I am difficult to love. I should be further along by now. I ruined everything. I do not have what it takes. There is nothing special about me. I am too far gone. I am not worthy of love. I am too afraid. These thoughts can become so familiar that we stop questioning whether or not they are actually true. But being familiar with a thought does not make it true. Feeling something deeply does not make it true. Hearing something repeatedly does not make it true. Someone else believing something about you does not make it true. Truth is not determined by what is loudest, most repeated, or most deeply felt—Truth comes from God.
This is why it matters so much that we know what God actually says about us. When another voice—whether it belongs to a stranger, a friend, someone from your past, the enemy, the culture around you, or even yourself—says something about who you are, you can take it back to the Creator and ask, Is this what YOU say about me?
Isaiah 43:1 says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine” (NIV).
God does not speak about us as though we are unknown, accidental, or insignificant. He speaks with the authority of the One who formed us and knows us completely. For those who are in Christ, our deepest identity is not found in our mistakes, achievements, relationships, career, appearance, reputation, or anyone else’s assessment of us—It is found in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (NIV).
That means our identity is not permanently defined by who we once were, what we have done, or what someone else remembers about us. God is not limited to the labels people may place on us. He is not limited by our past, and He is certainly not limited by someone else’s perception.
The world is constantly changing its standards for what makes someone valuable, successful, beautiful, worthy, or important. If we allow those standards to define us, we will spend our lives chasing a moving target. But God does not change.
Hebrews 13:8 tells us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (NIV).
The truth of who God is does not change with culture, opinion, circumstance, age, success, failure, or season. And because He does not change, the truth we receive from Him is steady when everything else around us feels unstable.
The One who knit you together is the One whose voice you can trust. The One who knows every word before it reaches your tongue is the One whose opinion carries the greatest weight. The One who sees every part of you is not working from incomplete information—he knows the whole story.
Psalm 139 does not describe a God who knows only the polished version of us, the public version, or the version we wish everyone else could see. He knows all of it—and still he loves us, pursues us, and calls us his.
Romans 12:2 tells us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (NIV).
Sometimes that renewal looks like recognizing that a thought we have carried for years does not line up with what God says. We do not have to keep believing something simply because we have believed it for a long time.
So, when another person’s words begin to settle too deeply into your heart, or when your own thoughts become louder than the truth, go back to the source. Go back to the Creator. Ask him what is true, and let his Word have the final say.
bytaylormcgee
