Modesty Honors Beauty
by
Sarah HowellFirst, let’s get this straight: Modesty is not just putting on more
clothes. Modesty is honoring God by acknowledging the value He placed on your
body when He created you. If it were just about clothes, then Adam and Eve would
have been created wearing something more than skin. Modesty isn’t about your
closet, it’s about having a heart bold enough to throw aside that which society
tells us, and hold on to that which God tells us: That we are a beautiful
creation wrapped in the wonder and glory of the perfect artist.
Today’s world of advertising will never tell you that. Girls, you will never
hear an advertisement tell you how beautiful you already are. Instead, it will
tell you how beautiful you will become if you do this or buy that. And,
even more disappointing, that end result of “beauty” will have nothing to do
with your true self; it will have everything to do with the exploitation of your
sexuality. Guys, you will rarely see an advertisement that encourages you to be
a respectable man who spends his whole life loving one woman, but you will see
plenty that tell you success is measured in how many scantily clad females your
deodorant can attract.
Are we really so surface? Is there not more to us than an insatiable sex
drive?
In today’s media--commercials, music videos, movies, and television
programs--the bottom line is that sex sells. Always. Why? Because, at some
point, we actually started to believe that sex was a measure of success.
Women
think they have to be sexy, meaning constantly willing to have sex, just to
be
beautiful. And men think that they have to have sex, a lot of sex, to be
worth
something. And when you take those two ideas, and throw them into fashion
and
pop culture, you inevitably come up with styles and trends that depend upon
the
targeting of our sexuality. That which God created for mystery becomes a
commodity, and something glorious becomes commonplace.
This is where modesty comes in. Modesty is the decision to reclaim our
bodies
and tell this society that we do not need to sell ourselves to one another
just
to feel worthy. Modesty is a girl’s decision to encourage a guy in purity by
accentuating her love for Christ, not the curve of her hip. Modesty is a
guy’s
decision to prove himself a man by running after God, not by making himself
physically available to every girl. Modesty is choosing to let your beauty
speak
of Love, not lust.
Choosing to be modest is not sentencing yourself to a life of baggy clothes
and
long dresses. That’s not what this is about. Modesty, quite simply, is
daring to
live a life submitted to God. It is choosing to live outside of the norm.
Are you daring enough to be modest?
Sarah Howell -
sarah@standtrue.com