Sunday, March 13, 2011

"Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God.."

I'm a pretty religious/spiritual person. My entire life revolves around my spirituality and my religion so I'm always looking for resources from religious leaders pertaining to inner and outer beauty. I have a book called "Modesty, Makeovers and the Pursuit of Physical Beauty" by Jeffery R. Holland and Susan W. Tanner, both leaders in the LDS religion.

Sister Tanner quotes the scripture in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. What would happen if we truly treated our bodies as temples? The result would be a dramatic increase of chastity, modesty, observance of the Word of Wisdom, and a similar decrease in the problems of pornography and abuse, for we would regard the body, like the temple, as a sacred sanctuary of the Spirit. Just as no unclean thing may enter the temple, we would be vigilant to keep impurity of any sort from entering the temple of our bodies."

How often do we defile our "temples" by obsessing over what we look like, how fat or thin we are, if our hair and makeup is just right, eating the wrong kinds of foods, overeating and then throwing it up or not eating at all, exercising too much or not at all, comparing our bodies to someone else, etc, etc? Sister Tanner says that she had problems with acne in her childhood and her and her parents did everything they could to take care of the problem. She even went without chocolate and greasy foods for years without any healing consequences. It was very difficult for her to fully appreciate the body which was giving her so much grief. But her mother taught her a higher law...she said to her over and over "You must do everything you can to make your appearance pleasing, but the minute you walk out the door, forget yourself and start concentrating on others."

Isn't that great? We should care about our appearance, we should make ourselves pleasing, but we shouldn't spend so much time worrying about it that we don't take the time to help others feel their best. So this is my challenge to you. See yourself as God sees you, see your body as a Temple of God, see others in the same light and you will find that you will be much more happy and at peace with this "temple" that you have been given. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed reading this post. Something I have forgotten about. Thanks for the reminder. <3

Natalie Murray said...

You are welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!