When You Despise What God Has Made: What are We to Do with Body Insecurity?

When you despise what God has made, you may not realize that you are hurting God’s heart. Even though you may struggle with body insecurity, God affirms your value. Over and over again in scripture, we are told that God values our bodies.

Scriptures to Counter Body Insecurity

These scriptures can help you counter thoughts about body insecurity. When you despise what God has made in your body through your thoughts, choose to think about these things instead, and God will help you heal.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. – Ephesians 2:10, ESV

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God formed us individually. He made us, one by one, determining our height, our forms, our hair, and our eye color. He comes to dwell within us, to make our hearts, and therefore our bodies, His home. Paul compares our bodies to a temple.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. – 1 Corinthians 6:19, ESV

What does it mean when we look in the mirror and hate what we see? What are we to do in a society that chases perfection and sets up unattainable ideals? By meditating on these scriptures, we can feel handcrafted by a King who loves us.

Body insecurity is everywhere

One study from 2011 found that 97% of women admitted to having at least one “I hate my body” thought a day. Many in the study had more than one of these thoughts.

Whether it is hating our thighs, feeling fat, wishing we had different hair texture, wanting to be skinnier or taller or not as freckled, or not liking how we look in a particular outfit, many of us struggle with some aspect of how we look.

Body insecurity can range from hating how we look in an outfit to not feeling that anything fits our frames and only highlights what we dislike about ourselves to extreme cases of anorexia or other body-harming activities.

Body insecurity is looking in the mirror and disliking or even hating what we see. It’s being obsessed with the number on the scale. It is nitpicking what to others are small (or invisible) flaws.

It’s covering up our bodies, refusing to wear clothes we feel are too tight or that show off parts that make us feel self-conscious. It can become watching what we eat too closely, purging, or denying ourselves food. It can cause some people to become obsessed with working out and yet never be satisfied.

On some level, we all struggle with body insecurity. Even the most gorgeous woman you can imagine could tell you what she hates about her body. Your loved ones are beautiful in your eyes. Yet all of them can tell you what they don’t like about themselves.

How does all of this align with a God who created men and women in His image and called it good? (See Genesis 1:26-27.)

We are bombarded all day with photoshopped, filtered images that are presented as the standard. These messages start young. Preschoolers can take in messaging about their bodies. Younger and younger girls are starting to report hating how they look. It’s not just women and girls; men can have body insecurity too.

Body Insecurity and Shame

One study in the United Kingdom found that one in five participants felt shame over their bodies.

Shame: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. – www.dictionary.com

Men and women are looking in the mirror and are dissatisfied with what they see. Some feel deep humiliation and distress over how they look. Often what we see as a problem other people don’t even notice. We become obsessed with what we consider a flaw is something upon which no one else around us focuses.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? We choose to see our flaws. When our friends talk about the part of their bodies with which they struggle, we think they are silly. Yet we cannot turn that level of compassion or self-acceptance back onto ourselves.

So, what are we to do with these seemingly disparate realities?

We look in the mirror and sometimes dislike what we see. Yet we can choose to believe we come from a God who took great delight in knitting each of us together.

Some people obsessively try to cover up their perceived problem areas. They wear bulkier clothes, put on make-up, or work on that one area at the gym. Some resign themselves that there is nothing they can do about their disliked body parts. Others become demure and believe we aren’t supposed to give in to vanity. However, we try to cover up what we do not like, God knows our thoughts and hearts and we are not fooling Him.

Common but not incurable

This is not a place to heap more shame on something tender, real, and ingrained for many. If we have been carrying the message that something is flawed in us since we were three or four, adding shame or guilt to the mix will not help. Nor is it something fixed with positive affirmations and pep talks in the mirror. This is a battleground and needs to be treated as such.

Our society values perfection, youth, flawlessness, and being skinny and toned. Yet the human body was not naturally made to stay young forever. We will all age. We will get cellulite and scars. Our breasts will sag. Our bottoms will soften. We will get gray hair and our teeth will dull.

Getting back in line with how God made us is to acknowledge that God allows our bodies to age and change. Our bones become more brittle, our hair color fades, and lines become more apparent – and this is how God made us to be.

If that is how God made us to be, then our bodies are okay.

What God Has to Say about Body Insecurity

God knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. God crafts each form, meaning He gives us our eye color, nose shape, hip width, leg shape, differently sized breasts, and basic body shape. He decided how tall we would be and if we would gray in our forties or sixties. He knew about our thick ankles or that weight would always go to our stomachs or that we would get double chins.

And to Him it is okay. When we look in the mirror and tell God we hate this or that part of ourselves, we are telling God He got some part of us wrong. We are daring to defy the Lord in asking Him why he made us short, or our thighs touch, or gave us man-hands instead of delicate fingers. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a rather audacious gripe against the King of the universe.

But those feelings are in us, and we need to acknowledge them and bring them to God. He does not despise the parts of yourself you cannot look beyond. I truly believe He is grieved by our body insecurities and hatred.

What do we do? What God continually invites us to – bring this concern to Him.

Take it to God

First Peter 5:7 says, “Cast… all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully].” (AMP)

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, ESV)

For many, body insecurity leaves us weary and burdened. It affects what we wear, how we engage with others, and when we say yes. It keeps us from relationships and can make us feel isolated. Guilt and shame are weighty burdens to bear. But we are invited to come before God and lay them down.

How to Overcome Body Insecurity

Start by acknowledging, with love and gentleness, what you do not like about yourself. This might be hard. But the truth sets us free.

Look up verses about God crafting us in the womb. Read how careful and intentional He is with each of us. We are not coming off an assembly line; we are hand-made by God.

Then pray. Confess where you struggle and ask God to give you His eyes for your body. Ask for the ability to be gracious and kind.

When a thought of body insecurity comes up, fight it with a verse. This is a battle of the mind. We need to eradicate the weed of self-loathing and replace it with the truth.

Next Steps

This process can be daunting and overwhelming. A good counselor can help get to the root of the issue and eradicate it for good. It took years of messaging for us to dislike parts of ourselves. The road to truly seeing our bodies as God does will take some re-wiring of our brains. But it is worth it. You do not have to fight this alone. Please call us today, as our counselors would love to help you on this journey.