Your Body is a Dwelling Place
Confession: I don’t want to post this. I don’t want to talk about this because it has been my #1 insecurity my entire life—something I daily struggle with, something the bullies still hold power over me, something that God has whispered time and time again, “girl, I got you.”
You totally don’t have to read this. But if you do, please know that these words are personal and powerful, realistic and redemptive—and very, very, very much a work in progress
So, here goes.
“‘Your body is a temple.’ This is a statement I’ve heard over and over again my whole life. Words that are sooo easy to gloss over and ignore. But today in my reading, I meditated on 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 where Paul writes, ‘Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.’
We all know how easy it is to have too much of great things—especially ice cream or a medium-rare strip steak (my husband told me to say that). And these are not bad things in a vacuum; they are great things that God created for our enjoyment! However, these things were not meant to be enjoyed at the detriment of our bodies. As a believer, I know that I was bought by the blood of Jesus on the cross through the power of His resurrection from the dead. Because of this, the Holy Spirit lives in me, making my body a temple of the Holy Spirit (whoa, right?).
Knowing this, shouldn’t I be doing all that I can to make this house of God—aka my body—a glorious dwelling place for Him?
These past two months Josh and I have made a lot of healthy changes to our routine. We try to be done eating dinner before 7pm, we work out around 3 times a week, and have been drinking around 100oz of water a day. For some, this is not impressive—but to us? Life changing.
In order to make small choices to better honor our bodies, we did a few things that set ourselves up to succeed.
We put in place monthly “words” that we focused on that were specific. Mine in January were “Stairs, Steps, and Snacks” where I took the stairs pretty much exclusively up to my desk at work, moved more, and snacked intentionally instead of habitually. This took a big scary goal and made it actually feasible and attainable!
We set a plan based off of the reality of the week. We meal-planned for simpler meals the nights we were working out and not trying to squeeze too much into an evening.
We gave ourselves grace. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live hating the good things around me. I want to enjoy my body, not hate it, and grace plays a huge role in that.
So, that’s that. That’s where we are and where we’re going. There’s a lot more to this story that I don’t have space for today, but just know that we get to enjoy our bodies, not punish them. We get to enjoy the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.