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Looking Good (Part 3): The solution
This is part 3 of a three-part series.
In The Devil Wears Prada’s climactic scene, as Andy Sachs and her boss Miranda Priestly ride in the back of the town car through Paris to their next haute couture function, Andy is confronted not only by the ugly side of Miranda’s actions against Nigel, but the ugly side of the way Andy herself treated Emily, Miranda’s other assistant, in taking her place on the trip. Miranda tells her, “You chose to get ahead. You want this life, those choices are necessary.”
“But what if this isn’t what I want?” says Andy. “What if I don’t want to live the way you live?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Andrea,” Miranda replies with a hint of a smile. “Everybody wants this. Everyone wants to be us.”
In my first post, I raised the problem: there’s a disparity between how we look and how we want to look. The media, other people and our sinful hearts contribute to and exacerbate this problem so that, for many of us, there is a psychological link between how we look and how we feel about ourselves. As a result, we believe the world’s lies and give ourselves over to them. In my second post, I dissect some of those lies—firstly, that there is only one kind of beauty; secondly, that we should want to look like that; thirdly, that we can look like that; and fourthly, that if we look like that, all our wishes will come true.
In this post, I want to look at what we can do to combat those lies—to think rightly about fashion and beauty, body image and appearance—in other words, to look good, not to look worldly. Here, I think, lies the key to breaking the link between the way we look and the way we feel: we need to change not our appearance, but our perceptions.
To do this, we need to do four things.
1. Recognise your false gods
Firstly, we need to recognise and even acknowledge our false gods. Do you worship clothes, bags and shoes? Do you live to shop? Are you afraid to leave the house without putting on make-up? Do you obsess over what you eat and how much you weigh? What are your ‘earthly treasures’, and where does your heart reside (Matt 6:19-21)? As Andy says to her boyfriend at the end of The Devil Wears Prada, “I turned my back on my friends and my family and on everything I believed in … and for what?” “For shoes and shirts and jackets and belts”, he replies with a tinge of sadness. But these are the sorts of things that Jesus tells us the pagans run after (Matt 6:31-32). Instead, we should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33), for he is the true and living God, and no one else should rule our hearts other than him.
At this point, if you know that you have exchanged the truth of God for a lie—the glory of God for the ‘glory’ of man (Rom 1:21-23)—repent and turn back to him. Seek his mercy at the foot of the cross, and re-enthrone him in your heart. Failing to render God the acknowledgement he is due will result in judgement, wrath and even hell on that last day.
2. Spot the lies
Secondly, we need to train ourselves to spot the world’s lies. Some of them are more obvious than others; some operate more insidiously, ingratiating themselves in the guise of self-care, altruism or even ministry. We can fool ourselves by thinking, “I’ve worked hard; I deserve this” or “It’s not really for me; it’s to make so-and-so happy” or “If I do this, it will further the cause of the gospel”. Sometimes we can say these things to ourselves with integrity; sometimes, when the world has gripped our hearts, we can’t.
So as we travel through life, we may need to keep examining our motives to see if we’re being honest with ourselves. We may have to keep reminding ourselves of the truths behind the world’s lies as the world tries to seduce us with glamorous images and clever marketing, and convince us we need things we don’t. We may have to stop ourselves from looking for a time if the temptation becomes too great (and let me assure you, the older you get, the harder it gets!).
But most of all, we need to keep remembering that the world is not our friend (Jas 4:4). The Apostle John urges not to “love the world or the things in the world” because “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world.” (1 John 2:15-16). This is why we are not to be “conformed to this world”, but instead “transformed by the renewal of [our minds]” (Rom 12:2). The kingdom of the world will eventually be Christ’s (Rev 11:15), and so, as the grace of God transforms us, we should allow that grace to train us to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions” so that we can “live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).
3. Get things into perspective
Thirdly, we need to get things into perspective—specifically, these five aspects of biblical teaching:
God’s sovereignty: It may gall you to admit this, but God created you just the way he wanted you (Ps 139:13-16)—black-haired, brown-eyed, broad-shouldered or big-boned. You may not like the job he did (and certainly some aspects of our physiques have been affected by the fall—Romans 8:20-21), but if you learn to accept this expression of his will, it may help you to accept yourself, imperfections and all. It may also help you to stop nitpicking about those aspects of your body you just can’t change, and learn to be content with them.
God’s priorities: God is less concerned about our appearance and more concerned about the way we live our lives in obedience to him. Consider Jesus, our “example” in 1 Peter 2:
He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (vv. 22-24)
As he writes, the Apostle Peter recalls Isaiah 53 and one of the songs of the suffering servant:
Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
(Isa 53:1-3)
Had we been around in first-century Palestine, there would have been nothing that would have attracted us to God’s Messiah when it came to his physical appearance. He died an ignoble death, breaking his body to reunite our bodies with our creator and Lord. In doing so, he “learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb 5:8), thus laying down the model for how we should live the Christian life. To reiterate Matthew 6:33, we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” and act in all things for his glory (1 Cor 10:31).
This is the thinking behind Peter’s words to wives in 1 Peter 3: instead of cultivating external beauty or “adorning”, he instructs them to “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious” (v. 4), and cites the example of Sarah, whose beauty lay not in her appearance, but in her submissive and obedient spirit.
God’s creation: As I said under my first point, the things of this world should not supplant God in our hearts. But we mustn’t think that creation is completely evil and anti-Christian. There is nothing wrong in taking pleasure in a pretty dress, a nice pair of shoes or an attractive shade of lipstick. It’s when these things become our idols that we have a problem. For those of us who live in an affluent society, 1 Timothy 6:17-19 is well worth pondering:
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
God has given us so many good things—food, cosmetics, jewellery, handbags. We have the great privilege of enjoying them, giving our gratitude to God. But we must remember that riches are ephemeral and earthly (6:17). Furthermore, used wrongly, they have the power to destroy us (6:9-10). So don’t feel unnecessary guilt for, say, buying yourself a new pair of shoes; just don’t turn them into idols.
God’s curse: The other thing that may be hard to accept is that we are all under the sentence of death because of our sin. Our bodies are in bondage to corruption (Rom 8:21). This means we should expect to go through different seasons as we age. We will get wrinkles, our hair will grey, our organs will slowly break down and we will die. Women especially should not expect to look the way they did when they were 20 when they are 40. Indeed, women’s bodies change monthly according to their menstrual cycles. If they marry and have children, pregnancy and childbirth will also leave their marks. And then, for all women, there’s menopause. It is foolish to think that we can remain forever young and fabulous, so don’t expect to.
God’s plan: It is true that, in this world, we will never have the perfect body. But the Bible tells us we will have it in the next. In this life, we are under bondage to corruption; in eternal life, our bodies will be imperishable, immortal, glorious and powerful (1 Cor 15:35-55). The body we have now is not final because we look forward to the resurrection.
Now, in the new creation to come, we will not all be like supermodels, or even like the vampiric and godlike Cullens of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. But we shall bear the image of our Lord and Christ (1 Cor 15:49, Phil 3:21)—an image more beautiful and more glorious than the models who grace Vogue and the actors who grace the silver screen (Rev 1:12-16).
4. Look at yourself
Fourthly, we need to take a good long look at ourselves. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably doing it already—weeding out your false gods, recognising which of the world’s lies you have given into, and getting things into God’s perspective.
But more specifically, we need to look at that psychological link we’ve formed between the way we look and the way we feel about ourselves. We need to break it once and for all. Thinking back over God’s perspective, if our identity and worth is bound up with Christ, it won’t be invested in our clothes, weight, diet or appearance. It means we won’t care if we don’t look like the fashion magazines and billboards. It means we won’t care because we know those things don’t matter.
Furthermore, God’s perspective enables us to separate our looks from our emotions, allowing to them remain untangled the way God intended them to be. This means we won’t feel bad for not living up to the world’s standard of beauty, and we will be less likely to give in to the world’s lies. Instead, we can put into practise Paul’s words to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:6-8:
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
In The Devil Wears Prada, after throwing her mobile into the fountain and walking away from Runway, Andy Sachs emerges back in New York, sporting a black turtleneck sweater, cigarette jeans, Calvin Klein stiletto boots and a new outlook on life. It strikes me that to look good, we must achieve something similar: we must look good—look rightly at the things around us and see them through the lenses of God. Once we recognise our false gods, spot the world’s lies, get things into perspective and take a good long look at ourselves, the disparity between how we look and how we want to look will lessen and eventually disappear. Instead, we will notice no difference—no discrepancy; we will see ourselves just the way we are.
