The "Hunger" Games

It’s that time of year again! The time we’ve all been waiting for…

Bikini season!!!

Wait what?

You haven’t been looking forward to this?

You mean you haven’t been counting down the days until you get to show off the hot bod you’ve been working on all semester?

You’re saying you didn’t spend all winter trying on your swimsuit just for fun? Just to look in the mirror and say, “Wow- I look GOOD”??

Yeah, me neither.

The truth is, we as Christian girls have a love-hate relationship with our bodies. We love our bodies because we know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We find rest in the fact that our Creator did not mean to make us any differently. He didn’t make a mistake and then decide to settle with a less-than-perfect finished product. He didn’t mean to make me taller, thinner, or more athletic. He made us lovingly, carefully, and without mistake. In fact, when God finished making us He said, “Yes! This is EXACTLY what I was going for.” This, in some deep part of our minds, we know.

Yet, as fallen daughters of Eve, we hate our bodies. We hate the texture of our hair all the way down to the size of our feet. We look in the mirror every day and find something that can be changed, minimized, or improved. Each of us has insecurities that consume our thoughts. We believe that if this “problem” is fixed, we’ll be happier. If we looked differently, then surely we would be satisfied with our appearance. But this, my friends, is a mode of deception straight from the Father of Lies himself. Satan would have us question these two things when thinking about our bodies:

1)   God is not really good. If He were good, He would not have made you this way. He would have given you clearer skin, a faster metabolism, and a natural desire to exercise. He wouldn’t have made it this hard. He would have made it easier for you to like how you look. He made other girls taller, skinnier, and prettier than you. If he really loved you, why would he hold these things back from you? And,

2)    Your identity rests in the image you see in the mirror. Your worth lies in what others think of you. Since God is, in fact, holding out on you, your only option is improve yourself. Want to look like her? Try harder. Then more people will like you. You’ll find success and satisfaction, and, finally, you’ll be happy with who you are.

Ladies, without even realizing it, these are the lies we let ourselves believe day after day! Things haven’t changed much since the Garden of Eden. Satan is tempting us with the same deceit with which he tempted Eve- Is God really good? Don’t you want what He’s keeping from you? He makes us doubt, strive, and stumble, and it’s not until we’ve hit rock bottom that we see his deception for what it is. It’s a vicious, seemingly inescapable cycle, and the Enemy has mastered how to both trap and keep us there. (See 2 Corinthians 11:3)

But God (what a hope-filled interjection!), like always, has something different to say. In fact, God has a lot to say about what we think about our bodies, and even what we put into them. For so long, I saw the attempt to lose weight and look good as merely a worldly, physical struggle. I saw it as selfish, and, therefore, had no intention of taking it to the Lord. I figured that He only cared about the “big” stuff. My desire to like my appearance had nothing to do with my spiritual life. This burden, I told myself, I can handle on my own.

Until I couldn’t. My relationship with food and my body has been- like every girl’s- a broken one. I’ve over-eaten for comfort, when I’m feeling stressed, worried, or upset. I’ve eaten too much because I’m bored, or just because I didn’t have enough discipline to stop. I’ve also gone days eating barely anything- taking a few bites at meals just so people wouldn’t ask me about it. I’ve had weeks where I would work out three times a day and hope that my friends would either not notice or ignore it. In both extremes, I was consumed with thoughts of food, and it became my idol- whether I was over-eating for comfort or under-eating for control. Satan convinced me in both cases that turning my battle with food over to Jesus just wouldn’t work. I could survive these “hunger games” alone. He told me that God didn’t care about such a trivial matter. He said that it’s my job to clean myself up, to mend my relationship with food and my body, and then present myself to the Lord. Jesus isn’t concerned with petty insecurities.

But like I said, God has something else to say about this. Because we know that if the Enemy cares about how we relate to food and our bodies, then our Father cares about it infinitely more. In response to Satan’s lies, the Lord said to me,

1)    My goodness is infinite. Furthermore, there is no good apart from Me, for I am the giver of all good things. I do not withhold this goodness from My children; it is theirs to have. From this goodness I crafted your form purposefully and flawlessly; I weaved you together with my own unwavering hands. I made you unique; each part of you is special to me. Because of this, I love you- every inch of you- as you are right now. (Psalm 100:5, Psalm 16:1, James 1:17, Psalm 139, Isaiah 43:4)

2)    Your identity rests in Me. Your worth lies in how I perceive you. You have been covered in the righteousness of Christ, and therefore are unconditionally accepted by the One who created you. My approval of you is all that matters, and it will never diminish. I will not love you better when you become better. In fact, there is nothing you can do to make Me love you any more or any less. You will never find satisfaction until you rest in this truth. (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 4:20-24, Romans 8:35, 1 John 4:16, Psalm 46:10)

Is that a breath of fresh air, or what? When we exchange the darkness of Satan’s lies for the light of Jesus’ truth, we find relief beyond what we can comprehend. Praise the Lord!

But wait, you say you already know these things? You’re telling me you’re not cured from your problems with body image now? You’re still insecure? You still struggle with comparison and the temptation to use food for comfort or control? Well guess what?

Me too.

But I’m reading this great book by Lysa TerKeurst, that everyone should read, called Made to Crave.

           

 

The premise of the book is “Satisfying your deepest desire with God, not food.” When I picked it up, I honestly thought I could just use it as a tool to help other people. (How prideful, right?) I don’t have an eating problem, I thought. Until I realized that I do, actually.

I realized that this is a journey that I didn’t want to invite Jesus onto, because I thought He’d tell me that I just need to be content with my body and not concern myself with what I eat. But the truth is that Jesus does care about this! He wants me to be healthy, to eat well and to exercise more. He desires that I have a balanced relationship with food. He doesn’t want it to become my idol by eating it too much or not eating it enough, but He understands that it’s a central part of my life, and He does care about it.

Yes, He wants me to be content in who I am in Him, but He also wants me to be disciplined in how I take care of myself. When we channel the desire for self-improvement into the desire to glorify Christ, we see that this isn’t merely a selfish, worldly, or physical struggle. As our motives are increasingly centered on Him, we realize that this is a deep, spiritual battle that Satan can use to hinder us from making an impact for God’s Kingdom. The fact of the matter is, we can’t survive these “hunger games” alone! We need our Ever-Present Help, our Almighty Burden Bearer, our Refuge and our Sustenance, to fight this battle for us. Because He cares about our bodies. He cares about food. He cares about how we relate to these things. And we can’t overcome this struggle without Him! So, bikini season? Psh…  We’ve got better things to think about.

“Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”

                                                                                                            1 Peter 5:6-10