Body image is a struggle that so many men and women face no matter what part of the world you may be in. What is considered beautiful and ugly are defined for us from when we gain an understanding of the world. What can make it worse is the constant social media that feeds us how we should and should not look. But this can cause an unhealthy, obsessive, and negative self-image by the time we become adults. As Christians, how are we to face our body-image issues? How should we view and approach when it comes to our own bodies?
Grabbing Our Body-Image Issues At The Root
Our enemy does a great job of convincing us that there is something wrong with us. When it comes to our body-image issues, we need to get to the root. We may see ourselves in such a negative light because of what someone else said. Maybe it was a careless adult while we were going through puberty, maybe it’s the other girls at school or even our own parents. Our default thought patterns when it comes to our body image can be a product of our upbringing and environment. But it doesn’t have to. We do not have to allow these self-loathing, self-critical, and unfair thought patterns to continue.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. - Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
Our thought life is what determines our heart. The Proverbs writer knew how important our heart is because everything we do flows from it. We may have so many other areas of our lives in good order. From our families, jobs, relationships, and finances. But God is too good to allow us to live in critical judgment of His creation. We are not able to choose who our birth parents are. We were never given the option to choose our genetic makeup. Who are we to raise our fist at God for how He created our bone structure and skin color? So to create new thought patterns that honor God as well as our bodies, let’s look at what we need to start practicing instead.
Remember That Our Bodies Are A Temple
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. - 1 Corinthians 3: 16-17 (NIV)
It is a common saying in the Christian community that “your body is a temple” and many of us may even say this without much thought. But here’s what we need to consider. Our body is a temple for God’s Spirit to dwell in us. A temple is a place of reverence, a place to be respected. It is a place that we give and bring our best to. It is one we treat with care and good effort.
A temple is not a place that we condemn. It is not one where we allow others to trash-talk and certainly not one we would trash-talk about. So why should our living bodies be any different? Our body-image issues are first addressed when we know, accept, and remember that our bodies are where God’s spirit dwells. God’s Spirit does not choose to dwell in a temple based on its outer appearance but rather what is inside.
That means how we treat our bodies needs to be as mindful as to how we would treat God’s temple. That could require that we overcome our own unhealthy habits and form new ones. We would not neglect or abuse God’s temple. But this is not a call to become vain and obsess with how we look. Rather, this is a call to honor God with the temple that He entrusted to us by caring for it the best way that we can. We reshape our thinking of our body-image from one of vanity to one that serves God by doing our best to take care of it.
Let Go Of The World’s Standard
Remember that enemy we have and how he loves to try to convince us that there is something wrong with us, aka God’s creation? He is the same liar that tries to convince us that we should be something better. The devil even had the nerve to offer our Jesus the kingdom of the world in exchange for worshipping him! (Matthew 4:1-11) Similarly, he whispers in our ears that just like the kingdom of the world, we should have that body instead of the one we got. And that creates an ungratefulness in our hearts while festering a heart of envy for someone else’s.
You could say, “oh it’s not that bad for me. I just want my (name a body part) to be more (name the change) or less (name the change)”. The Bible is not against self-improvement but we were never meant to perfect or complete ourselves. When we base our standard of what should be on that of the world, we will never be satisfied. In fact, we know that nothing that the world could offer will ever give us satisfaction. Being content with what God entrusted to us and being faithful to take care of it is what our focus should be on. When we have peace with what God’s given us, we have peace within ourselves. We are able to let go of the world’s standard for what we should look like.
So what should we base our values on instead? One that fears the Lord instead of a worldly beauty that is fleeting anyway.
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. - Proverbs 31:30 (NIV)
Let us instead live a life of gratitude for the body that God gave us and what it is able to do for us.
Let Us Pray
Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing light into this area of my life. Open my eyes to see what You see, beyond the bones and flesh that You made. Forgive me for being so critical of myself, which is Your creation. Help me to form better habits to take care of this temple so I can also honor You with my body. In Jesus’s name, I pray.
Recommendation
Knowing God starts with knowing His Word. If you don’t already own a Bible, there are many churches that give one for free. You can also download a YouVersion Bible App. Or if you’d like a physical copy, it can easily be found on amazon.