My Body Image By Pete BriscoeSample

Your essential earth suit

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. —Jim Rohn

These days in Christian culture, we’re often taught to look away from our earthly selves and focus on God. This appears most often in response to problems like physical temptations, obsession with personal image, or substance addiction. While it is certainly important that we do not become our own idols and serve our own fleeting wants, let’s not forget our bodies are “fairly important” for the act of living on earth (sarcasm intentional). Let’s be realistic, you can’t live here without it!

Counselor Bill Gillham calls the human body an “earth suit.” Just as a spacesuit keeps an astronaut alive, the body is essential for our earthly existence.

Your body is indispensable.

May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

The Bible says that human beings are made up of a spirit, soul, and body. In God’s creation, we are confined to a limited existence so we can reach others and tend to the creation He entrusted to us. While it is really important to pay attention to the growth of your spirit and soul, the body is what sustains those things on this earth. We must treat it in a healthy respect. Each part of us sustains the other, so being negligent to one part of us is just as bad as paying too much attention to it. Paul told us to take care of our whole selves, and that includes our bodies.

Father God, I need You to balance my life the way You meant it to be. I can’t do that on my own. I want to care for this “earth suit,” but I don’t want to do that in my own wisdom or strength. I surrender them all to You. I submit to Your Spirit, in me, in every area. Show me how to care for them all, keeping my attention in check when they become pointed or selfish. Amen.