Guard the Treasure You Were Given!
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called. – 1 Timothy 6:20.
” It’s hot! I’m going swimming! What do you guys expect, you want me to wear mushanana?” Gizou asked, almost screaming.
Tina looked at Gizou in her… I guess we would call it a bikini although it really looked more like tiny coasters covering the basics… and shook her head.
“Lend her a gomesi, then!” Belinda shouted and walked off.
“Who are you glorifying in that?” Tina simply asked.
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Our style is the distinctive way in which we express ourselves.
I read last month’s Virtue is Possible article in which the Yakuti ladies were interviewed. Chichi asked a question – “As you dress, who are you attracting?” - that has stayed on my mind for a while.
I know, I know – “here we go again with the modesty debate,” you must be thinking! And it’s not my intention to make Fashion and Beauty redundant but please give me this chance, let’s take a brief moment to think about it.
The excuses we give reveal our motives. One example: some people say, “It’s too hot!” and so they walk around in tank-tops and shorts. But suppose they had a court date on that day? They would not give the same excuse. Even if the sun was at its hottest, they would go to court fully dressed in a skirt or pant-suit and they would be properly covered up in order for the judge to take them seriously and especially to give them a shot at winning their case.
As I was doing my research for this article, I came across so many kinds of advice that seemed to be the opposite of what I was searching for. My search terms brought up books about “How to dress to attract a mate” and “Dress your age to attract the man of your dreams.” I wondered, should this be our aim every morning? To do everything, go everywhere we go, simply to attract a man?
Then there were those on the other extreme; the ones that defined modesty as being very confining and just for people who want to live in the 1500s while the world is moving on.
Call it a catch-22. One extreme is too liberal, the other extreme is too confining to the extent of becoming like bondage.
We have been reminded on this site so many times that if we do things for others we will never be satisfied because no two people are exactly the same which means their preferences cannot be identical. One will congratulate us on what we have done, the other will hold us in low esteem and try to make us change, but when we change we will now be disappointing the first person who congratulated us. Imagine if they are from opposite sides of the two extremes. it is impossible to please people and even those we please can change on us like day changes into night.
It was hard for me to find articles that helped build me. After some time I gave up and decided to go where I should have gone in the first place – the Bible. What does God say? The Message Bible puts it this way, And oh, my dear Timothy, guard the treasure you were given! Guard it with your life. Avoid the talk-show religion and the practiced confusion of the so-called experts (Emphasis added). These “so-called” experts are almost everywhere we look. We see them on TV and YouTube and in magazines. They tell us to ” dress for success” and ” look the part.”
I think it’s possible to dress for success but we need to look at it in a different way. We don’t dress up to be successful; we dress up because we are successful. It comes from the inside out. “Looking the part” means dressing up in a way that we blend in with other children of God. Modesty does not mean dressing in a backward manner or looking like you are clueless of the times. It is possible to incorporate the wonderful resources God has provided us with, into our wardrobes but we must be careful not to pay so much attention to them that we have no time for God or are too preoccupied about ourselves that we decide to neglect others.
Dressing begins with knowing our value. We appreciate and care for what we treasure. A friend put it this way, that when you go to a shop, you find the more expensive things are packaged more carefully. This can also apply to us. Our bodies are vessels. We are carriers of God’s glory – He dwells in us. We can exhibit this in our dressing. We can respect ourselves and be respectful to others.
Modesty is not a kind of bondage that we need to be liberated from. It is guarding that which has been placed in our care, our bodies and our sexuality are treasures, given to us by God Himself. Every single day is an opportunity to worship. We can worship God in the way we carry ourselves. That should be our motive every step of our walk.
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