This summer I made a decision to go completely make-up free for 30 days. Now why would I do this? First off, let me just say that I did not have some sudden revelation that make-up is evil. Quite the contrary, I enjoy make-up very much. I think it does wonderful things for self-esteem, which is something we all need. However, it can also have just the opposite effect.
How many of you have seen a girl with perfect make-up or hair or clothes and just thought, “Man! I wish I looked like that!”? This brings me to my second point. For me, make-up had become somewhat of an idol. So, I decided for that set amount of time, I was going to fast from make-up and instead use the time I would use to apply make-up and obsess over how I look and use that for my quiet time in the morning. It worked wonders, or rather He worked wonders. It literally took my half the time to get ready in the morning, not only that, but my relationship with God grew stronger and stronger.
In my study of beauty and self-image, there are several points which really defined what they are. First of all, before we define beauty, we must differentiate between what God considers beauty and what man considers beautiful. I’m sure many of you have heard Genesis 1:27 when dealing with the subject of beauty. It reads, “So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.” Unfortunately, at least for me, I’d heard this verse so many times when dealing with beauty that it became something that I simply stuck in my back pocket without understanding its full meaning.
One thing that I’ve struggled with when dissecting this verse is the phrase “image of God”. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I thought when reading that phrase is that I’ve never physically seen God. However, that’s where faith comes in. God told us that he made us to suit his perfect plan for us, and we must accept this as true. I read a commentary once that said, “Faith proves to the mind the reality of things that cannot be seen by the bodily eye.” Hebrews 11:3 states that “By faith we understand that the
universe was created by God’s command, so that what is seen has been made by things that are not visible.”
Another problem that I’ve always come up against is that if God made us all in his own image, why don’t we all look the same? I recall once, reading an excerpt from a magazine, that if God had a plan for Esther’s beauty, then he has a plan for the way you look as well. Another illustration comes from James 3:12; “Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a saltwater spring produce freshwater.”
Now as most of you don’t frequently see olive trees or fig trees, here’s a different way to think about it. Imagine yourself as an apple tree, and God has told you that he wants you to produce apples. An orange tree, however, tells you that you can only be beautiful if you produce oranges. So, you listen to the orange tree and spend the majority of your time trying to produce oranges and end up creating shriveled apples and never creating oranges, therefore never living up to the orange trees’ expectation of beauty and not fulfilling God’s ultimate purpose for you. This is what we do when we spend our time idolizing the world’s version of beauty whilst ignoring God’s purpose for us.
This does not mean you cannot have one without the other. A friend of mine recently told me that repentance was not turning away from our sin but turning towards God. For me, make-up had become an idol, so I chose to give it up in order to focus my heart on God and set my priorities straight before I chose to take it up again. I urge you that if there is something in your life that is keeping you from God in any way, that you fast from it or give it up completely until you can refocus on God.
Also, I urge you not to do this alone. If you have a friend who can keep you accountable, then ask them to do so. The more the merrier, in fact, and don’t be ashamed. The Bible tells us that we all stumble in many ways. I pray that one day what you struggle with will become the foundation for your faith. I also hope that one day you will all look in the mirror and feel content in the beauty God made you with, a beauty that no man can define and only God can appreciate to its fullest.
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