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Listen while you read: "Now Thank We All Our God"1 (Lyrics) |
Over the past few years, DNA testing has become very popular. As I went off to a genealogical conference this year, a couple of people at my church asked me to bring them home kits for testing their DNA.
Many of us are aware of the hype that this has received from companies wanting to help us to discover our origins and to connect us to relatives that we may previously have known nothing about. We get half of our mother's DNA and half of our father's DNA, and our siblings each get the same amount, but not the exact same bits or characteristics. That is why we are encouraged to have everyone in the family tested.
All the things that are pushed by the companies are well and good, and people are finding new relatives and new places of origin for their families, but I have come to realize that there is a lot more to me and my family than DNA.
Psalm 139:1,4,13-14,16b – O Lord, you have searched me and known me. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. (NRSV)
What David tells us is that life is much more than DNA; it is much more than family; it is much more than religion; it is God Who has known our end from our beginning.
In this psalm, David is praising God and telling Him that he realizes that it does not matter where he went, what he thought, or what trouble he got into, God already knew and was there ahead of him, even to the extent that He was there when David was created and grew.
What do you take from this? Are you able to acknowledge, as David did, that God knows you — your thoughts, your actions, your desires — and He is there with you at all times and in all places? After all, it is in Him that we live and move and have our being.
Prayer: Lord, we thank You that You made us, You know us, and You are with us wherever we are and in whatever we do. Help us, Lord, to remember this as we go about our day-to-day busy-ness. Thank You. Amen.
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Amen Ruth, well said.
Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks for the good word Ruth.
Well done Ruth. Please write again!
Amen and Amen. Thank you, Ruth, for sharing this devotional with us. Praying blessings upon you and yours. Blessings.
Thank you for your devotional. You write well. We do need to remember we are God’s unique creations with all the responsibilities and blessings that come with that.
Yah, for sure. My husband and I know our origins back to the 1700’s but that is not as important as how we live our lives today and what God has done in and through us!
Psalm 139 is, I believe, my all-time favorite and I never tire of the words people use to talk about it. Thank you for your insight.
(Texas)
Amen, Ruth. Great insight about all the DNA propaganda! Is this another way we created beings are pushing God and His goodness and grace to us out of the picture?
Thanks for the devotional. God bless you.
Good morning Ruth:
Over the years Psalm 139 has come to mean a great deal to me. Thank you for sharing your insights in today’s devotional.
Blessing.
Hi Ruth,
I enjoyed your devotional and your connections between scripture and our world thoughts of today.
Well written. Thank you.
Blessings.
Dear Ruth,
Thank you for sharing your insights.
I agree with most of them.
I appreciate your choice of words from the psalm.
I’m wondering about: “That is why we are encouraged to have everyone in the family tested.”
For what benefit for a senior person?
Keep writing.
Ruth,
I had my DNA tested through Ancestry and was really excited about the matches and the way that Ancestry displayed them using the submitted trees.
In some cases, it confirmed lines of my tree where at some point hard documentation was lacking.
I was also struck when the common ancestor was very far back, a person so far back that over the years I had had no interest in researching them.
Yet here I am walking around with their DNA in a measurable amount.
I had a sense of awe and the phrase “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” came to mind from Ps 139 that you quoted.
Also, it gave a new meaning to “You knit me together in my mother’s womb”.
From one point of view the combination of DNA that we receive is random, but from the faith point of view we can believe that it was God’s handiwork.
Blessings, and thanks for your devotional.
We are wonderfully made, just a little smashed about in the parcel delivery.
Hi Ruth,
Good devotional yesterday, which I read this morning, I use those verses from Psalm 139 quite often.
Thank you for reminding us the importance of faith rather than DNA
Blessings.
Dear Ruth: the contents of your Devotional was right down my ally of thought which I have frequently asked myself, “Why am I existing? Why at this particular time in ‘history’? “Why has God (thankfully) kept me so healthy over these 90+ years? and “Why have I been fortunately blest with a fine lady-wife for 66 years”.
I simply wanted to share with you that I too believe our Lord knew the life future of both my wife and for me because of what follows.
May God’s blessings upon you continue.