Like many teenage girls, I struggled to feel happy and comfortable with my appearance. Like many other girls and women, I thought the world was beautiful and started to hear and accept the way my body should be visible. I became self-conscious, anxious, potentially reduced my body’s purpose to that aesthetic.
It’s sometimes difficult to be happy and grateful for the body you have.
It’s sometimes difficult to be happy and grateful for the body you have. Parts of our bodies are experiencing pain and trauma, and our bodies are not considered valuable until something goes wrong.
Cultural issues
So is our bodies important? Our culture has conflicting answers to this question. The message is to love yourself and not be ashamed of the body you are in, but at the same time we are told to shape them and turn them into what we want to express.
We are taught that confidence comes from the ability to change how we look, but this is false confidence built on unrealistic standards set by others. In part of our culture, physical aesthetics have become a high priority and a way for us to express our individual selves.
The demand for cosmetic surgery is at the highest ever.
There are many examples of this happening in culture. The American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery (AAFPRS) reports that 75% of facial plastic surgeons see an increase in patients under the age of 30, and that the demand for cosmetic surgery is the highest ever.
In 2024, the adult entertainment industry was worth $585.9 billion, with men and young people most likely to see porn. See how the advertising and fashion industry can use your body to make money. Filters and editing are widely used on social media, blurring the line between reality and online gaming.
Elon Musk’s Company Neuralink has developed a technology that combines human consciousness. The problems surrounding the body affect everyone.
In other areas of our culture, the body has become something that tries to escape. This is evident in the growing interest in spirituality. There is so much suffering in the world that it is growing for some people to get out of their body and be perfected in the spiritual self as a way to deal with it.
Our (industrial) culture seems to be unaware of whether our bodies are important or not.
At the same time, our culture underestimates it. With all these mixed messages, our (industrial) culture seems to be unaware of whether our bodies are important, and more critically, and not know why. Our body’s purpose has been contested as we attempt to navigate this contradictory and complex story.
The church also has a hard time recognizing the importance of the body and speaking. The overestimation of spiritual people and the underestimation of the physical body have led us to ignore the importance of our bodies and the plans God has for them.
But our mental and physical lives work at the same time. They are not cut off. To be human is to have a body and soul that both have equal importance.
Our bodies are objects for consumption, and their value is reduced to practical and aesthetic functions. Our identity is constantly compromised and scrutinized. They become what we criticize and analyze, which separates us from their true purpose.
God’s Story – Why Our Body Is Important
Our bodies are part of what makes us human.
When we turn to God’s stories, we see beautiful, freedom-giving and unique alternatives to the stories that culture gives us. Our bodies are part of what makes us human. We use our bodies to physically exist and communicate and form connections with each other.
We just look at the way God chose to be among us, and that body is important. Through the Gospels we see that Jesus exists physically entirely through the human body. Where he visited, where he met, and how he used his body are important details that refer to the importance of physical existence.
Our Creative God designed every body to make it unique. He created you like you. We are the carriers of God’s image. The body means much more than what you can achieve physically or physically. Our bodies are precious gifts from God.
We have been completely restored and this includes our bodies as well.
Our bodies may not be what we wanted, but they are fundamental parts of God’s plan for us. We have a body now, and we have a body all the time. This is the incredible hope that Jesus brings. We will recover completely. This includes our bodies too.
It’s not easy to learn to see the importance of your body. As our bodies change, grow, and age change, we sometimes fight them more than others. For me, discovering God’s plan for the body and realizing the relationship between the body and mind helped me develop a deeper, more complete understanding of what it really means to be human.
This is a big topic to try our heads. Listen to this episode of the Being Human Podcast to explore further the purpose of our bodies.
Originally it was made public because of being human. It was reissued with permission.
Lydia Gilbertson joined the UK’s Evangelical Alliance in October 2024, joined the Alliance on Graduate Programme, working on the Being Human team. She studied fashion and textiles at university and previously worked in the fashion industry. Lydia is involved in the work of children of various ages in her church and wants to see her generation come to know and love Jesus.
Being human is a ministry of the British Evangelical Alliance. The evangelical alliance consists of hundreds of organizations, thousands of churches, and tens of thousands of individuals who joined together for the gospel. The Evangelical Alliance, representing our members since 1846, is the oldest and largest evangelical unity movement in Britain. Uniting with missions and voices, we exist to serve and strengthen the work of the Church in our communities and society as a whole. Emphasizing the important opportunities and challenges facing the Church today, we work together to fund Christians so that Christians can act on their faith in Jesus and speak in the fields of gospel, justice and their influence.
