Why Should Your Freedom be Limited?

You deserve to live each day free in your own body.

For any person, young in age or young at heart, our bodies go through many changes over the course of our lifetime. Quite frankly, it can be difficult to keep up. From those teenage years where your body is going through its first huge transformation, to stretching and widening to accommodate small humans, general ageing - and to top it all off - menopause. At every point, things feel and look different from what they used to. Whatever stage of life you find yourself in - what you do right now is important.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live not consumed or worried about your appearance?

I am not saying that looking nice and taking pride in your appearance is bad – it’s actually the opposite. What if we could do that without obsessing and scrutinising ourselves over the smallest detail?

So where does that begin? How can you and I live freely? 

For me, it starts here…

1 Corinthians 10:29b {New Living Translation} 

”For why should my freedom be limited to what someone else thinks?”

For context, Paul is talking about food with some unbelievers and whether you should or shouldn’t eat things that had been offered to an idol first, which is a good conversation to have. But when I read this specific verse it reminds me that my freedom is not found in other people’s opinions.

My freedom is found in Christ.

If the son sets you free – you are free indeed! Right? When we allow God to speak to us daily and when we ask Him to show us how He sees us every day, we can find freedom. If you are unsure about what God might be saying and you are still learning to hear His voice – learn some of His scripture!

The things God says about us are good and everything He says is true. When we focus on filling our minds with that, we find freedom before we find diets and social media’s lies!

Finding freedom and leaning on God is so important; way more important than anything else I can say from here on. But there are some things that I have learnt and would like to share. 

Our Temple & God’s Temple

God asks us to look after His temple. I don’t know about you, but I am glad that I do not have to look after the temple from the Old Testament. The dead animals… blood and guts… no thanks! We look after our temple - the church building - because we don’t want to leave it a mess! We look after the garden, sweep the front steps, clean the windows because wherever it is, we want to show how much we care for the place God has given to us to worship Him.   

The word of God talks about our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit. Even we say ourselves “we have Jesus living in us” or “the Holy Spirit lives here” or even “He is my Creator” - but we follow up those statements with things we dislike about ourselves (and sometimes even about other people) or wish we could change as though the Creator didn’t know what He was doing with you.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 {The Passion Translation}

”Have you forgotten that your body is now the sacred temple of the Spirit of Holiness, who lives in you? You don’t belong to yourself any longer, for the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, lives inside your sanctuary. You were God’s expensive purchase, paid for with tears of blood, so by all means, then, use your body to bring glory to God!”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 {New International Version}

”Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honour God with your bodies.” 

We are high on God’s priority list. We are valuable treasure to Him, just like He is to us! So, I want to honour Him every day by putting Him first, including Him in my life and I can continue to do that by treating my body with the respect and care it deserves.

So, what does that look like? 

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

Pay attention to the things you are filling your mind with!

It may not seem like a big deal — but it is! Social media is rampant, and is not always truthful. This all affects our mental health and the way we feel about our own bodies that do not measure up.

Which accounts could you unfollow that might help your mental health around what a healthy body actually looks like?

It is easy to want what is seemingly so good, but unfortunately, those images are fake and they are feeding lies about what you should and shouldn’t look like or what you can and cannot eat.  What society deems is beautiful, successful and valuable is not necessarily what God has in mind for you, it will not make you feel great or be the place to find the freedom that God wants you to experience.

WHO ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ABOUT YOUR HEALTH? 

Everyone has an opinion on health: doctors, nutritionists, PT’s, the ‘experts’ who did a 2-day nutrition course (quite literally), your friends, your family and the lady, her four kids and their dog walking past you at the shopping centre. Honestly, it is good for everyone to form opinions around how they choose to live a healthy life and then live by those convictions. For you, it’s what you start to choose to take on board from now on that is really important. 

So, please, listen to the people around you. But don’t just listen and take everything on board. Listen and choose for yourself what you will believe. 

• Are they encouraging you to feel beautiful in the skin God made just for you, or are they making you feel bad about how you look, encouraging you to be different and change this or that because that is obviously the better look?

•  Are they saying kind things about their own body – if not, I don’t know if I would want to follow in their footsteps on how they treat their body? 

• Are they bouncing from one diet to the next, shredding all week, and then going all out and eating whatever they want over the weekend only to ‘start again Monday’? What are they doing? What are they saying?

If you are not sure that what they are saying is the healthiest option, seek honest answers from trusted people who know some more of the facts — everyone can do a quick google search.

HYDRATION, SLEEP, FOOD & EXERCISE.

Here are my go to’s!! If you do these three things every day, you will be transformed by the power of following rules around health.

No, don’t listen to rubbish like that!

I can’t just make a list and say the wonder tip for each of them and promise it will change your life forever. However, hydration, sleep, food and exercise are all important things to have as a priority in our lives. 

Hydration.

Drink. Water. Yes, it is that simple. 

Not everyone finds plain, cold water from the fridge as incredible as others do. Find your ideal water situation - sparkling water is my favourite, and so I bought a Soda Stream and now I am wanting to drink more water because what I like is readily available and way more exciting than boring old tap water (and it’s cheaper & less pollution from bottles).

Sleep.

Sleep — because God designed that for us. Getting 7-9 hrs a night will do you wonders. Put the phone down. Stop scrolling. I promise it will be there tomorrow and the conversations you can have in person during lunch over a delicious meal are far better than the ones had until 1am typed out, eyes half open. 

Food.

Eat the fresh stuff and find new ways to enjoy it! Focus on the fact that there are so many delicious healthy options out there before you even consider creating lists of the ‘foods to avoid’... because that my dear friend, never helps. 

Exercise.

Move your body! Why? Because it makes you feel good from the inside out and the rush of endorphins (the happy hormone) makes you smile. Move everyday. Have a routine to help with motivation! Make some days more challenging where you work out, dance, run or lift weights and other days where you simply stretch at night, park your car further away at the shopping centre or do some Pilates. Move and enjoy moving!

You deserve to live free. You deserve to live happily, not consumed around food and diets.