More Than Decoration

We treat our bodies a little like Christmas trees.

Every December, out come the bins from the garage. Lights, ornaments, the garland that somehow gets more tangled every year. We turn this plain tree into something elaborate and bright that we prop up in the corner and admire. And honestly? That's kind of how we approach our bodies too.

We're usually in one of two modes. Neglect or decoration.

Neglect looks like running yourself into the ground and calling it hustle. Skipping sleep, skipping rest, treating your body like a machine that's supposed to keep going no matter what. It'll be fine, we think. Until it's not.

And then the other extreme is decoration. There is always something new telling you what needs to be fixed about what you see in the mirror. A new product, a new procedure, a new routine. And before you make this a women's issue, men feel this too, just in different packaging. The pressure is real across the board.

But here's what scripture actually says about all of this.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Not showpieces. Not machinery. Temples. Which means they weren't given to us primarily to decorate, and they weren't given to us to run into the ground either.

They were given to us to steward.

Stewardship is such a good word for this because it carries the right weight without dumping a pile of guilt on you. To steward something simply means to care well for something that ultimately belongs to someone else. A good steward doesn't neglect what they've been given, but they also don't obsess over it or turn it into a performance.

That one shift, from decoration to stewardship, actually takes a lot of pressure off. You're not chasing an ideal. You're not measuring yourself against whatever standard the algorithm set this week. You're just asking a simpler question: Am I taking care of what I've been entrusted with?

The Christmas tree frame is exhausting because there's always a bare spot, always something that needs adjusting, always one more ornament that would finally make it right. That hamster wheel doesn't stop.

The temple frame gives you somewhere to land.

Honor God with your body. Not perform. Not punish. Not chase. Just honor the One who made you, with what He gave you, today.

That's actually doable.