The Buck Stops Here

"Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple 

and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?" 

1 Corinthians 3:16 

Yes, yes, I realize my body is a temple, but I sure don't treat it like one. It's not even about what I eat or don't, how much I exercise or what level of purity I maintain. For me it's the emotional side of how I treat my mind and body. I criticize, critique, judge, and reprimand with the harshness of a drill sergeant when I should look out and care for it with the eyes of a new mother. Even I know I don't do well with someone breathing down my neck, yelling in my ear and telling me to suck it up. I am more of a Bob kind of girl than a Jillian one. With Bob I am encouraged, empowered, and pushed to new levels. With Jillian I just want to crawl into a bowl of my heart's content right after I punch her in all of her 6 glorious packs.

Despite being a Bob kind of girl, I treat myself with the harshness of Jillian. I have the best of intensions, yet I don't seem to respond well to the attack method. Instead of treating my body (heart, soul, and mind included) like a temple, I point my finger, shake my fist and raise my voice attempting to reign it into submission.

The next verse in the passage listed above says,

"If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person; 

for God's temple is sacred, and you together are that temple," (verse 17). 

There are countless ways to destroy your body, whether it be physically with food, sex, torture or a plethora of bad habits. You can destroy it with excess or by leaving it in want. You can even destroy your body with words or self-hatred. Me? I choose to whip my body into submission with a lethal combination of words and self-hate. There are seasons where this method has shown results, but those results are in vain. They have nothing to do with who I am or was meant to be. They do, however, show that apparently there is a little Jillian inside of me, which is probably why I hate, with passion, the little Jillian I see on the T.V. screen.

As much as I would like to believe I am doing my body a favor, really I am exactly the destroyer verse 17 is talking about. I am the one destroying God's temple with my words and self-hate. I am doing exactly what this passage warns against. I am destroying God's temple, I am destroying who God created me to be, and I am sabotaging my life.

I am destroying me, I am destroying God's temple. 

The buck stops here.