Wonderfully Made

When you stand in front of a mirror, do you hear your inner critic or the voice of God? Do you hear a nagging voice that endlessly lists all the ways you are not enough? Or do you hear the voice of God assuring you that you are altogether beautiful, wonderfully made, forgiven, loved, and cherished? 

What if, instead of listening to the voice that says . . .  

• “My haircut and color are all wrong.” 
• “It’d be nice if I could get rid of these dark spots around my eyes.” 
• “What I wouldn’t give for the body I had twenty years ago.” 
• “My past is so stained with sin, there’s no hope for a better future.”

. . . we instead listen to the God of the Universe, who assures us that we are indeed wonderfully made?

• “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:26–27
• “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14
• “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18

What if this year, instead of allowing our inner critic to drown out the voice of God, we immerse ourselves in Scripture, daily, to allow its beautiful truths to overwhelm our thoughts? 

“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” Song of Solomon 4:7

Living in this truth is not easy because we live in a world that constantly suggests that the perfect man is equal parts James Bond, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Superman, and the handsome, sensitive, romantic leading man of every Hallmark movie—and that the perfect woman is of an equally impossible makeup. But we serve a God who didn’t create man and woman in such images. He created us in a much better one: His own. And this God is not concerned with the world’s standards of beauty that are ever-changing and fleeting; He is concerned with our hearts and souls. We serve a God whose desire is for us to be with Him forever in heaven. 

“Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” 1 Peter 3:4

So this year, when you find yourself standing in front of a mirror, do not allow your inner critic and the world’s definitions of beauty to overwhelm God’s truth that you are wonderfully made. Instead, believe God at His Word and ask Him daily to help you be a good steward of the body you’ve been given, which is a gift from God—and a temple of the Holy Spirit. 

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19–20