Josh McDowell's Youth DevotionsSample

YOUR FIRST NINE MONTHS. Here are some things you probably never knew about yourself: The first moment-the very first nanosecond of your life determined whether you would be a boy or a girl. In the first hours of your life, your eye color, hair color, and other features were decided. When your heart began beating, you were so small you would have fit on your mother or dad's fingernail with room to spare! Before your mother even knew you were growing inside of her, you could hear and could even perform full flips inside her womb! About seven months before you were born, your fingers and toes looked much like they did at birth, though you were only two inches long! You started to grow hair in your fourth month of life (before birth) and may have even sucked your thumb! You first heard your mother's voice and began kicking and stretching three or four months before you were born! In the final two months before your birth, your weight tripled, you began sleeping and waking, and you used four of your five senses: sight, sound, taste, and touch all before your mother went into labor. You know what else? While all that was going on, God was watching you. He was forming you, day by day. The Bible says he was knitting you together in your mother's womb. He was loving you even before your mother knew she was pregnant. He knew how tall you would be, what color your eyes would be, whether you would have your dad's nose or your mother's cheekbones, and all sorts of other stuff that was going on from the first moment of your life. Literally from Day One of your existence, you were precious in God's sight because you were already the best thing God ever created: human life. REFLECT: Today's reading calls human life "the best thing God ever created." How do you think we know that? If you're not sure, check out Genesis 1 and compare what God himself says about the various levels of his creation. How does it feel to know that you're "the best thing God ever created"? ACT: Do you have any baby pictures of yourself? If you do, place your favorite in your Bible as a bookmark at Psalm 139. If you don't, ask your parents if you can borrow one from their photo collection for that purpose. PRAY: Say the words of Psalm 139:14 as a prayer: "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous and how well I know it."