I want to see myself through the eyes of God.
I want to measure myself up to God's standards and not the grossly superficial standards of my culture. I can do this if I bury deep within myself and profess the truth of what the word of God says about me. And even though my flesh cries out, "that's not enough, you must transcribe to the cultural standards of beauty": the standards that are illustrated through the images plastered through out our society that claim to define a universal beauty. The standards that attempt to cloud my perspective and shift my thinking into believing that my physical appearance is what matters most. The standards that demonize us if we have a physical appearance that does not reflect what our culture defines as beautiful and tempts us to feel less than beautiful because of it. The standards that leave many of us feeling, if only I changed this or that about myself, then and only then will I be beautiful, confident and have a great self-esteem. The standards that give us a false and cheap imitation of true beauty.
I want to reject these standards as they do not glorify God, instead that promote a faulty way of thinking that is destructive and damaging. This faulty way of thinking does not produce a healthy self-esteem, because it is placed upon a unstable-shaky foundation that will crumble in time, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" Proverbs 31:30. Thus, we must base our self-esteem and our confidence on who we are in Christ, not upon what others say we are or are not.
I want my self-esteem to shine bright because of who I am in Christ, not what I look like. I want to define my beauty by what I do to honor God with my life, not by what size pants I can squeeze into after having two children. I want to define my beauty by how I treat people and how I care for others. I don't ever want to look at myself with the harsh-critical eyes that immediately gravitate to features that others define as less than, instead I want to find the beauty in every ounce of me and I want to do the same for others. But, how do I get there? How do I get to a place of loving the skin I'm in while feeding my soul? Can I be aware of my physical appearance and not consumed by it? Can I define beauty without describing anything in the physical, but yet only focusing on the spiritual? I believe yes, but I have to do some digging within myself to recognize just how I got to this awful place of low-self image.
How and what people think of me is at the root of it all. There were so many things I didn't like about myself because someone told me I shouldn't, and I believed them. We may not have the childish bullies poking fun of our so-called flaws as we did when we were younger, but we have an even bigger bully now, one that is bold and relentless.
Just take a stroll down the check-out line, flick through the channels of TV, scroll through social media, listen to the radio, all of them tell us the same thing: your worth is defined by the skin you're in, so be sure to make sure it looks good. How do I know? From the night creams that promise youthful skin to the diet pills that ensure fast and long-lasting results, all designed to help us achieve a desired physical appearance. Beauty is . awarded, admired and desired. So much so that beautiful people are generally more successful than unattractive people. No wonder so many of us spend a life time trying to perfect our physical. I believe as a woman, there are many of us that share in this desire to to be beautiful. In a lifetime, many of us spend thousands of dollars on our hair, skin and makeup. We stay up-to-date with current fashion trends and we spend hours working on our fitness, because we want to look good. We want to be beautiful. But, I believe we have been lied to for so long that we don't even notice that beauty, real beauty has nothing to do with our physical appearance.
Yes, the human body is a wonderful piece of art designed by God and yes we are created in His marvelous image. We must never forget that. But, to be created in His marvelous image is much deeper than our physical. We must also never forget that in the word God tells us that it does us no good to gain the world and lose our soul. We can have all of what our culture tells us is beautiful, but if we do not have a beautiful soul, one that is in a passionate relationship with the Father, then we have nothing. The most beautiful physical designs of the human body are underneath our skin.Our genes, veins, vital organs and our brain are all buried within us, yet when one is not working as it should we often see it on the outside and without them we would be nothing. I believe this is a strong parallel to the beauty of our soul. Our soul lives within our body, our temple, and without a healthy-thriving soul we are nothing. When our spirit is not right with God we see it in our physical, such as how we treat others and how we treat ourselves. So, shouldn't we be focused on the beauty of our soul and not our flesh? Our flesh will one day pass away and yet our soul will carry-on
So, come with me on a 10 day beauty quest of reclaiming for yourself what God says about you and regain the confidence you deserve by understanding and celebrating the identity you have in Christ. Come back tomorrow for day one of the 10 day beauty quest.
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