Many of us struggle with a love-hate relationship with our bodies. Narcissism and how it relates to our bodies is gauged by how much we obsess over our body image — no matter where we fall on the spectrum from self-pity to boasting. Whether we are willing to admit to it or not, our bodies matter to us, and this is part of the brokenness we experience as human beings.

Proverbs 31:30 says that “beauty is vanity,” in this sense meaning beauty is “empty.” Society tells us we can and should make our bodies what we want through extreme means of fitness, health, cosmetics and so on. However, in doing so, we mar bodies God intimately designed as His temple, the one physical gift created and personally given to us for the purpose of serving Him.

1. Are you living your life in a way that shows you know that God personally made you the way He made you for a reason?
2. Are you chasing after beauty, health, and strength? These are empty pursuits that are all running away from you faster than you can get to them.
3. Are you honoring God with your body by loving and serving others? We all have capacities and deficits that exist to equip us to love and serve in unique ways.
4. Are you tyrannized by your own sense of inadequacy, or do you take pleasure knowing the Lord makes His strength known in weakness?
5. Do you think of the care of your body in relation to your responsibilities?