St. Paul urges us to recall who we are, who God is, and how we ought to live in light of those truths.

In that spirit, try to set aside some time this week to pray with the verse quoted above.

Beginning with the phrase “we are God’s handiwork,” start by observing, very concretely and specifically.  As you move through your ordinary days, what do you make with your hands? 

Perhaps you write with a pen or pencil or type at a keyboard, creating texts (grocery lists, memos, love notes).  Perhaps you use your hands to prepare food for yourself or others.  Perhaps you sort or stack things by hand, creating an orderly space.  Or perhaps you spill or scatter things, creating a stain or a mess.

Allow yourself to become aware of the work of your own hands.  Are you pleased, displeased, or indifferent toward your handiwork?  What would need to be different for you to take more satisfaction in the work of your hands?

Next, take some time to pray with your imagination. How would you picture God’s hands at work creating you?  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you enter into that image, seeing and feeling it, building it in your mind’s eye.  You are God’s handiwork—what comes to mind when you sit with that phrase?  What feelings stir?  What questions?

Maybe you want to “talk back” to the image—that’s fine.  Whatever stirs in you, talk with God about it as openly and honestly as you would with a good friend.

Finally, consider the verse as a whole:  we are hand-made by God for “good works…that we should live in them.”

Here’s one way to hear those words:  each one of us is designed by God to do things that are both good for others (and the world around us) and life-giving to ourselves, the doers.

What kinds of things do you do well—either naturally and spontaneously, or because you’ve developed a skill—that give you and others joy, satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment?  Take some time to notice and savor the “good works” you do, and the aliveness, the life, you experience in the doing of them.

Give thanks to God, whose handiwork you are.