You were made to glorify God. It's time to start living like it.
Sanctification in Christ is the only path to truly divine femininity you’ll ever traverse.
When I was growing up without a concrete spiritual worldview of any kind, it drove me nearly mad how perfect and beautiful nature was and how utterly incapable I seemed to be of putting sense or reason to why it stirred my heart so to perceive it.
It was as though the majesty of the sunset, the grandeur of the mountains, the peace of a gentle rain, and the comfort of the sunshine were trying to tell me something I had no vocabulary with which to translate into words a human mind could comprehend.
Now, as I am so blessed to spend my days in a woodsy cabin in the Ozark highlands, I feel I finally have a grasp on that language of creation as I praise the Author of those wonders and beauty of the natural world that so loudly and non-verbally praise His Name and sing of His great glory.
The Bible is a perfect piece of divinely inspired literature that serves as the guidepost to our lives and to understand as much of reality as God has seen fit to equip us to absorb this side of glory.
Yet to take in the wisdom of Scripture by merely intellectual means acquaints us with its Author about as sufficiently as I was able to comprehend the heartbeat of created life without a worldview that centered around the divine.
We must absorb the Word with the mind of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit within us, that we may be opened up to its multidimensional spiritual ministry to our souls.
As consecrated Christians, we are spiritually reborn people.
We read scripture not simply to partake in its correctness and authenticity, but to be utterly, completely, and supernaturally transformed by it.
We look at a created world, bursting with the majesty and artistry of life and God’s provision, not simply to prove that God exists but to prove that He is glorious.
God isn’t only righteous. He is also good. He is love. He is the source of all perfect beauty.
He is amazing.
And the work of His hands shouts this out in plain view — it very literally praises His name!
So what does this mean for us? Our bodies, souls, spirits, and minds, designed by Him, for us?
The pain, discord, discomfort, confusion, doubt we’ve experienced all your lives; the defense mechanisms, methods of self-preservation, protective judgment of others; these are the symptoms of the Genesis 3 curse, which is a distortion of God’s original creation for us as His image-bearers.
Your sins are a curse upon, but not a full negation of the goodness with which He made you.
My sisters, God designed you, woman, as a totally unique, one-of-a-kind edition of the original woman Eve.
And through Christ working in you, the original glory Eve’s creation gave to God’s masterpiece shines every bit as bright as our Maker ever intended it to be.
Perhaps all the more so as we participate in the daily, ongoing renewal of our feminine creatures in the work and power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It has been a joy to come to know the One Who crafted the indescribable beauty of the natural world all around me.
Yet it took me so many years to come to realize that my own body, my own whole person was made not only with the same loving care, but as the final loving touch on the glory of Creation.
The world offers women empty platitudes about our own sufficiency or perfection just as we are; it breaks my heart that this message would not include the glory of regenerated femininity in Christ.
We will never be enough on our own; thanks to the deceit that lured away Eve, there’s a glitch in the system that causes us to look for validation, satisfaction, and a faux sense of control in all sorts of frustratingly dissatisfying ways.
But thanks to the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, this glitch has been resolved, and we are enabled to live with newness of life every day, to Him.
We were designed to glorify God.
In Christ, we have the only victory we’ll ever need over the parts of ourselves that fall short of giving Him this glory.
It’s time to start living like it.
Sanctification in Christ is the only path to truly divine femininity you’ll ever traverse.
Now, it’s your turn! Meditate on these questions and share your answers in the comments or write them down in a journal.
Do you believe you were designed to glorify God? If not, why? If so, do you behave or perceive yourself as though you believe you were designed to glorify God?
Do you feel as though you fall short? If so, why and in what areas? What is the standard you use that makes you feel as though you don’t measure up? How do you feel physically when you think about this (e.g. butterflies in your stomach, tightness in neck and chest, etc)? What statements about yourself do you make (e.g. “I need to try harder,” “I suck at XYZ,” “Why can’t I do better?”)
How do you feel about your body? Do you think of it as beautiful, or ugly and flawed? How does it make you feel to consider that it is designed to glorify God, and that He made it just for you? Consider the complexity of feelings this may arise, and try to identify narratives that may not be true by an objective standard (your feet are “too big” or your hair is “too thin”).
Contrast these feelings with how you feel about a perfect sunset, beautiful birdsong, sweet wildflowers, or majestic mountains. How does it feel to consider your own body and mind as just as unique and beautiful as these natural wonders?
Do you believe this is true? If not, what do you think makes it difficult? How might this reflect your view of God? How might shifting this mindset change your relationship with God and men?