Week 3: Identity in Everyday Life
Today’s application: Knowing I am a child of God and FREE in Christ changes how I view my body image and self-worth.
Have you ever wished you could change something (or multiple things) about the way you look? We’ve been there, too. Today Joy Summers, Betty Rock, and Bekah are unpacking the negative ways they talk to themselves, how they’re actively replacing lies with truth in day-to-day life, and how negative body image and self-worth might actually keep us from our God-given identity!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwjnBuK8BnY
Here’s the article Bekah mentioned called “Learning to Be a Friend to My Body” by Danielle Shaub.
Bekah: “I was getting ready for bed and I made some comment about some weight I put on recently. My husband was like, “Say something nice or I’m not letting you go to bed!” But it worked! I needed that wake-up call because sometimes you get into that pattern of negative, negative, negative. Pretty soon you don’t realize you’re doing it, but that’s what you’re speaking into your life. Just as we wouldn’t want our daughters to copy our bad habits, our Heavenly Father is looking at us and He’s the one who made us fearfully and wonderfully. He doesn’t want us to talk to ourselves like that. He doesn’t want that to be our identity – these negative things that we label ourselves with.”
Joy: “It says “my works are wonderful.” The truth is if God made us exactly how we are, I could lose all the weight in the world and I’m always going to have hips because that’s the way I’m designed. I don’t like that! But I’m trying to go, “Ok, God, if you made me and I look in the mirror and I say negative things about myself, I’m saying negative things about what you’ve done. You’ve already called me wonderful! At the beginning of the World’s Biggest Small Group, we talked about who I am as a child of God. If you’re created and loved by God, that’s our identity! Our body image has nothing to do with that. We have to separate them best we can.”
In the final and 3rd week of the World’s Biggest Small Group: Identity, we’re taking the truths we’ve learned and start applying them to everyday situations we face in life and culture. Here’s where you’ll see – our identity truly changes everything. The verse we’re thinking on this week is:
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
(Ephesians 2:10 New Living Translation)
Don’t miss out! This is just one day in a 15 day series on Identity. You can subscribe and get each day in your inbox below.
I also once heard don’t say things to yourself that you would not say to anyone else.
After I watched this, I was readin my devotion on my YouVersion app, which is Letters to the Church by Francis Chan. I’m on day 4 and he had this to say: “Far from being an accident, you and I are part of a brilliant plan that started before planet Earth and continues beyond it. This is why self-deprecation is as wicked as slandering God’s Church. We are belittling the creation of something God has planned and crafted. He chose us before the foundation of the world, knew us before He made us (Jer. 1:5), and drew up works for… Read more »
I know as a woman I have struggled with body image issues since kindergarten. I’ve learned to speak truth to myself using God’s word. Now raising young men God has shown me that they too struggle with some of the very same issues as girls do, and it amazes me because I falsely believed boys had it made. God is teaching me now how to speak truth and life into my husband’s and boys’ lives.
After raising 2 boys and 2 girls, I agree that both struggle with how they look. God is our creator. He is perfect in every way, so I spent a lot of time talking about being His child made in His image is where we get our self worth. Not from the world. Comparison is a deadly enemy.
It broke my heart when my oldest began his struggle at the age of twelve. I am so thankful God saw him and our family through that valley and he is now a happy and healthy nineteen year old.
On a head level, I tell myself “who cares what other people think?”, but the impact is so much harder on our psyche and feelings. I don’t want to be around people who don’t like me so I isolate myself if I assume they are judging me. But that’s the key: we assume what others are thinking and 90% of the time they are thinking no such thing! In fact, most of the time people are not even noticing us. It’s a difficult head game to get free of.
I think I traffic in the same kind of thinking often. But, what I work on most is realizing that ultimately the only important judge is God. And since He made me in His image, he must like what He made. Others don’t have any determinative choice in the matter. I also realize that it is very rare to meet someone who doesn’t in some way struggle with what they look like. Even the most beautiful models often hate the way they look. Comparison never leads to contentment. You are either better or worse.
I have been reading- None Like Him by Jen Wilkins. Greatly challenged! This clearly lays out where we get our identity and worth!
“Our value, yours and mine, derives from our origin. We often read Psalm 139 to bolster our self-esteem. But when Psalm 139 reflects that humans are fearfully and wonderfully made, it does so to raise our eyes from our mirrors to our creator. It is a passage about who made us before it is a passage what he made. It is an appeal to origin based value”.
this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks for all the encouragement. If I just remember that God created me exactly the way I am, the way He wanted me then why do I feel like I’m not good enough? I know it’s
the devil tormenting me. But he doesn’t have the power over me. So I need to quit listening to him and start remembering that I am a child of God created in His image the way He wants me to be!
#1 way I overcome wrong thinking and lies from the enemy is filling my mind with God’s word. He has lots to say❤️😀
This is honestly one thing I feel so blessed not to struggle with. I’ve learned to separate my body image from my self esteem. What I look like doesn’t dictate my value, who I am, and who God created me to be. I am significantly overweight (morbidly obese) and I will actually get frustrated and mad at the world around me for not seeing my worth because society is so looks/thin oriented. I have a thin friend that told me once that she wished that she had my outlook. I wish I could make everyone understand and accept who they… Read more »
I love this!!! this is so important for men as well.
By far the BEST discussion yet!!
I received my HelpFinder Bible the other day, haven’t been able to put it down.
It will be my #1 tool in my street Ministry.
Ok Men,…lol…I’m agreeing with Ian. MEN suffer almost equally from this ‘self judgement’ as women do. Just substitute what Joy, Bekah, and Betty said, for ‘Men things.’ For instance; “why didn’t God make me with the body of an NFL football player? I wish I were 3″ taller. Is my hat on ‘just right’ so I look the part on the construction site. I’d be better with ‘six-pack abs,’ is my hair just right.” So we work out more, try not to eat as many ‘fast foods,’ clean up our appearance, and so on, and so forth, (ohhhh vanity !… Read more »
There was some great insight here. I wish they would have brought a guy in the mix to speak to this from a male angle, as we go through this, too.