Can I Love My Body And Desire Change?

Definitions needed when talking about our bodies and God:

Body - one’s physical body where God chooses to dwell (Greek word Soma)

Flesh - carnal desires felt in one’s body enticing us away from God. (Greek word Sarx)

I’ve been asked: Is it possible to love my body and want to change it? My answer is yes, and. Yes, you can love your body and want to see change. And what’s needed is to get to why you want the change. If we don’t take the time to understand what’s driving our desire for change, we risk digging body aesthetic holes for ourselves. We end up managing and protecting construction zone projects for our bodies rather than living as bodies in a beautiful yet broken world.

The world is broken, and it’s important to remember that everything we fix up and make more beautiful is temporary. We were meant for a love that never ends and a beauty that never fades and only increases. But now, the skin softens, muscles shrink, and hearts stop beating. Only God, His word, and His Love are eternal.

Before taking on a body improvement initiative, I try to remember to do a “perfect world” exercise to get to the root of my motives (Notice I try to remember. I, too, am still a work in progress). This exercise is essential because it gets to the shared desire at the root for us all. We were originally created and given a physical frame by a God who is Love, loves to be with us, and loves to see goodness increase and never end, but that went south when we desired something different than God, and our bodies took the initial low blow of sin.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate,…..Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together to make loincloths.” Genesis 3:6-7

Sin “opened our eyes” to the inability to see our bodies as fearfully and wonderfully as God. We can only see rightly now by taking on the mind of Christ. We can’t trust our own minds and definitely can’t put confidence in what we see. Because sin casts a haze of shame on everything, especially our bodies, we can not trust what we see. Now, the only way to see our bodies correctly is to see them through the eyes of God. We now need Jesus’s eyes to see what He sees. As Romans 13:14 says, we must PUT ON Christ to see the others, the world, and our bodies as God sees. (Does anyone remember the romance movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore? You get the picture. If not, do yourself a favor and watch this movie to understand how essential our bodies are for Love.)

We all continuously long for something we lost long ago -living in perfect peace with God, ourselves, and others.

When I do “the perfect world scenario,” I remember that in a perfect world, I live harmoniously, joyfully, and peacefully with God, myself, and others while keeping the “creeping things” under my feet as I work to increase good. Longing for anything other than that is me desperately looking for a shortcut back to the Garden of Eden, where I have an unbroken union with God.

Withness is my litmus test for body change.

Because Jesus sacrificed His body so I could be one with God again, when I desire to make a body change, I ask Jesus, who is with me and lives in my body, this question:

“Jesus. Do you want to do this with me, or is there something else you want to do?

Let me run this through a few scenarios to see how this plays out:

Changing My Diet - “Jesus, I’m not feeling well. I also do not fit into my clothing like I once did, but more than that, I’m not feeling well. I would love to fit into my wardrobe again, but I’m pretty sure more than that, I don’t want to feel achy in my body and foggy in my brain. I’m thinking of changing my diet. Do you want to change my diet with me, or is there something else you want to do?” If the answer is yes, I continue asking more questions about what we can change together.

Knee Surgery - “Jesus, my knees hurt. The doctor is suggesting knee surgery to replace my knees. Do you want to do knee surgery with me, or is there something else you want me to do?” (This was a question I asked the Lord, and he pointed me back to the above scenario to change my diet. Guess what? It worked. Changing my diet with Jesus healed my body of inflammatory pain.)

Lifting Weights - “Jesus, I’ve been hearing that lifting weights is better for my hormones at my age. I don’t love lifting weights and don’t feel like I have the time, but I want to feel stronger and wouldn’t mind if my pants fit a little looser. Do you want to lift weights with me, or is there something else you want to do?” (Ps. This is a real recent scenario; at first, I was really enjoying resistance training, but now I’m feeling burned out. I sense my Holy Spirit telling me I'm striving. There is something else Jesus wants to do. He is inviting me to try new ways of challenging my muscles for strength gain, like taking Pilates, a Kettlebell class, or Barre. I was never in it to compete for Ms. Olympia, even though I see cultural trends starting to move that way. What begins as a good thing easily becomes a God thing if God isn’t in it with me.)

Cosmetic Surgery - “Jesus, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to make this body part look better. I feel unattractive. I feel ugly. I feel old. I feel like I don’t fit in. I think my husband would find me more appealing if this part of my body changed. Jesus, do you want to go into surgery with me, or is there something else you want to do?

Aging Skin - “Jesus, I look in the mirror, and I don’t recognize who I see. The skin that wraps me is loose, cracking, and falling. I don’t like what I see. Jesus, do you want to fix my skin with me, or is there something else you want to do?”

Notice that in the first three scenarios, my body's inability drives the motive. How I feel drives me in the last two. If how I look dictates how I feel, this is vanity.

When it comes to changing our body, if improving our ability (physically and mentally) is at the heart of why we want body change, then I say go for it! God is with you. I would place my last dollar that God wants to do that with you. God wants you to have more Spiritual energy for ability. Increasing your ability (aka energy) is an inside-out job, something the Holy Spirit specializes in and can do. But if we feel bad for how we look, that is not inability but vanity. That's an outside-in job, something God can still work with because He's God, but not something that puts you on the fast track to a transformed life with the power to transform others and the world around you. It’s probably not something God wants to do.

It’s not hard for me to see Jesus wanting to go the gym with me as I desire to gain strength, which will ultimately help me feel better, but it is hard for me to picture Jesus wanting to go with me as someone pokes, prods or cuts my body open with a knife so I can feel better. I sense God has something better He would like to do with me. It's worth me spending some time with Him to find out and receive sufficient grace for all things.

Often, something better will cost us the killing of our flesh desires and bring us what we long for: body belonging, love, joy, and freedom!

 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Now listen, I type all that above as a 53-year-old woman who went under the knife when she was 30 years old to “enlarge her chest.” I had a strong suspicion it wasn’t something God wanted to do with me. Twelve years later, I sensed the invitation from God to undo what I did. Since my love and trust in God had grown over those years, I felt brave enough to return under the knife again. (Read my WHOLE story of my breast implant removal. She’s long. I didn’t leave out any details. Consider reading if you’re tempted to “go under the knife.”)

I would love to tell you that since then, I’ve been a Superwoman of faith, strong in the Lord, overcoming every temptation to change my body when I know Jesus doesn’t want to do that something with me, but I would be lying if I did. I’ve given in a time or two to things to make myself feel better that I’m pretty darn confident God didn’t want to do with me. They weren't obviously offensive things; they just weren’t liberty-provoking things. I didn’t want to check in with God to have my heart tested. I knew God probably had other things on His mind to do with me. Things that would fuel my battle for body freedom and my power and authority to transform the world of fitness, health, and beauty with a better story for our bodies, but my flesh cried, “Fix it now!”. I’ve drowned out the voice of The Holy Spirit that whispers, Remember, it’s for freedom. (Galatians 5:1)

When we desperately want to look better to feel better, we aren’t being compelled by freedom. (Please don’t get legalistic about this statement. Of course, we can take this statement too far. What man or woman doesn’t “feel” better after a warm shower, brushing their hair and teeth, and putting on some clothes to express personal artistry if that’s what they love to do? These acts of care for how we look can help us DO what we’re called to do by God, like serving others with our body ability. )

You don’t need to look better to serve others, but feeling good is very helpful and Godly. Again, feeling good is an inside-out job of the Holy Spirit, not an outward-in. And if anyone tells you that you need to look better to do the will of God and “look the part,” forgive them; they know not freedom nor what they do. They’ve been culturally convinced and influenced regarding their body. They think of their body as separate from who they are, so their body turns into projects to be worked on or fixed. More freedom is available to them, too.

You know you’ve grown into Jesus’s definition of freedom when your freedom isn’t for serving yourself but others and includes considering others better than ourselves.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers (and sisters). Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity fo the flesh, but through love sere one another.” Galatians 5:13

(Sizzzzzzzzz….that’s the sound of our flesh burning when we stop being so focused on ourselves.)

Now, I’ve promised you all this is a shame-free zone. BUT… If we’re going to talk about loving God and our bodies, we can expect the monster of shame to rear his ugly head. Feeling shame is part of the whole health-healing process. It's necessary to feel shame to heal from it. Please don’t panic. Breathe. Stay with me. It’s just a feeling. It will pass. Shame is not who you are. It’s just what you feel. Shame about our bodies has been dormant in our souls for so long. The church isn’t talking about it body shame, and the world is loud about it. I can make you this promise; there is a Way through.

Here's extremely Good News: No matter what we’ve done or what we do, God will not leave us or forsake us. More than anything, He wants to always be with us and do everything with us because He is madly in love with His children. He gets sad and misses us when our flesh convinces us to separate. Yet because of His extravagant grace that chases us down, He stays with us even when we go and do things He doesn’t want to do.

God is with us to love the hell out of us - the fear, shame, and guilt that the world slings at our bodies, trying to get us to live in a fractured state of separation from God, ourselves, and others. This separation drives body dissatisfaction and pain.

I’m continuing to stumble my way towards freedom. More than anything, I want my body to be a place where Jesus feels at home and loves being and doing things with me. I am not planning my stumbles, but I am, by blind faith, as a human body that God made for Himself, with closed eyes to shame, feeling my way toward Him. You're invited to join me. I hope you will.

One thing with all my body being I know is true: nothing is better than being with God and doing life with Him. In that state of being, my flesh shuts up, and my body sings!

Below, I would love to hear what you think. Your input and thoughts contribute to the collective conversation of loving God and our bodies more beautifully. Let me know if something in this post needs more explanation. I know I’m plowing fallow ground here, so let’s expect to hit many rocks and thorns on the way. The one thing we won’t do is stop digging. God is with us and will be found.

Peace,

Alisa