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             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. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)

            “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” (Luke 8:25)

 

            Yesterday, I noted that the first six verses of this Psalm were about God’s omniscience, and the second six were about His omnipresence. It follows that today’s would be about God’s omnipotence. Usually, when we think about omnipotence, we think in terms of speaking the universe into being or we think in terms of what God is stronger than: the sea, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, snow and cold, the gods of Egypt… You get the picture. Even David often thought in macrocosmic terms.

            But in today’s exploration of omnipotence, David describes microcosmic, personal omnipotence. He is not only powerful enough to speak to the universe and have it obey, but He is also powerful enough to attend to the finest details.

            I’ve watched quite a few drawing/painting videos, and what amazes me is the number of times they return to a quarter of a square inch. One artist seems to like to do eyes, and the reflection boxes get sketched in, then the pupil gets shaded. He shades it darker, and darker, eventually covering the reflection boxes. Later, he returns with white paint and adds the white in again. No wonder I can’t draw. I have this stupid notion that an eye should be considered complete in no more than a minute.

            No, imagine an artist, or even better yet, a sculptor who worked on the molecular level.  Or, like the artist who uses a brush with one hair to add the fine details, someone who worked at the level of quarks, leptons, and gluons. Imagine an artist who can spend eternity working on a single masterpiece.

            Of course, we can't really imagine those things. But as we watch the amazing things that artists do, we can begin to appreciate the things that David talks about in this psalm. All of the details in our DNA are arranged by God for us combining different combinations – metaphorically shades and hues, textures and variations on themes He set up so long ago. Among the things that amaze me most are the diversity in unity and unity in diversity involving the tiniest variations in genetic code. The smallest “paint strokes” make all the difference in the world and are as needed as the huge brush strokes that soften the background of a painting.