Leslie Janikowsky serves as campus staff with Reformed University Fellowship at Rhodes College. This article was orginally published at ByFaith Magazine. You can read the full article here.
The onset of summer means we are bombarded with body messaging: what to wear, what sunscreen to use, what protein hack builds muscle, and what weight loss drug builds our dream body.
Recently, I saw a wellness influencer’s video stating that if I believed positively, I could magically change how I live in and feel about my body. The video left me feeling hopeless and frustrated.
How I feel about my body changes based on the weather, my clothes, my dinner, how I interact with the people around me, and even the data from my smartwatch. Something besides our own feelings or our culture’s idea of the perfect appearance must give our bodies worth and value.
God’s Design for Our Bodies
From the beginning, God created embodied human beings. Rather than simply creating us with souls, he chose to create us with physical bodies. We know little about Adam and Eve’s particular physical bodies, but we are told two important things about their bodies – they were made in the image of God, and they were physical.