No matter how many times I contemplate it, Psalm 139 always refreshes and amazes me. I hope it will have a similar effect on you as we move today from considering that God made the world to the staggering personal truth that God made you. Specifically, intentionally, joyfully, particularly, God created you. And he remains vitally involved with you. His thoughts toward you outnumber the grains of sand in the desert. And even though you forget about God, or slip into sleep, or even lose your right mind, God is still thinking about you. His thoughts wrap you in love and sustain you with life. 

 

Today, I’d like us to consider this profound sentence: It is good that you exist. Say this aloud right now: “It is good that I exist.” Listen to those words. In the midst of the swiftly passing years, God speaks an eternal truth in this present moment: It is good that you exist. Amid all your stresses and your delights, your toil and your loves, your frailty and your strength, God declares his deep opinion of you: It is good that you exist. 

 

German theologian Joseph Ratzinger, who spent the last two decades of his life as Pope Benedict XVI, reflected deeply on this truth. He is worth quoting at length: 

 

Where does joy come from? . . . The crucial factor is . . . based on faith: I am wanted; I have a task in history; I am accepted, I am loved. . . . Man can only accept himself if he is accepted by another. He needs the other’s presence, saying to him, with more than words: it is good that you exist. . . .

 

This sense of being accepted comes in the first instance from other human beings. But all human acceptance is fragile. Ultimately we need a sense of being accepted unconditionally. Only if God accepts me, and I become convinced of this, do I know definitively: it is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being.

 

If ever man’s sense of being accepted and loved by God is lost, then there is no longer any answer to the question of whether to be a human being is good at all. Doubt concerning human existence becomes more and more insurmountable. Where doubt over God becomes prevalent, then doubt over humanity follows inevitably. We see today how widely this doubt is spreading. We see it in the joylessness, in the inner sadness that can be read on so many human faces today.

 

Only faith gives me the conviction: It is good that I exist. It is good to be a human being, even in hard times. 

 

Pope Benedict XVI, Address on December 22, 2011, Pt. 5.

 

Why am I here? Adolescents ask that question as they try to find their life’s path. Adults ask that question after a profession proves deadening, or a marriage falls apart, or the investment sinks to nothing. The elderly ask that question in the tedium of lonely days made of just getting through to the next. Why do I carry on? What is the point of my life? 

 

The extraordinary message of Psalm 139 is that God made me on purpose. He notices me. He accepts me. He attends to my emotions, thoughts and prayers. He cares. And he takes pleasure in my living, even if it should be confused or diminished or difficult. For much of my life, I will have, no matter my faults and flaws, the ability to reach up to God. To give thanks. To declare his praise. To share his love in word, work, or prayer. It is good that I exist. Because I belong to God and always will.