Get Inspired Into Healing

If God had His way, we would all be walking around naked.

God created man and woman naked. He called it good. It was only after they disobeyed God that they felt shame for their nakedness.

Modesty.

Not having become a follower of Yeshua until age 25, it’s a word I have fought long and hard to achieve.

Before I began to try to please Yeshua every day, I used clothing to make me feel sexy and wanted. This was what I thought made women feel pretty and what I thought men wanted women to be.

But once I began to try to please Yeshua every day, I realized lust and admiration are not the same thing. So I began to listen to the men and women in the churches I attended and the books and blogs I read. They told me that women shouldn’t wear tight-fitting, low-cut or otherwise provocative clothes. They said this causes our brothers in Christ to stumble and it is sinful.

So I threw out my yoga pants, bikinis, and everything else that fit that bill. I started my wardrobe all over, and it was baggy… dare I say, sometimes frumpy?

A few years later, I began hearing the voice of God in my heart and in my thoughts. God’s voice began leading me through trauma-healing and I started getting better. So I asked this voice about other areas of my life, including my clothes.

“Buy the bikini”, the voice said. “And wear the yoga pants. It’s not your job to prevent a man from stumbling by your mere existence. It is the man’s job to not stumble.” I didn’t know what to make of it. Was wearing a bikini in front of a man the same as convincing a recovering alcoholic that he could have just one cocktail? The voice continued, “You need to feel confident in your body and wear what you want to wear. This is true beauty.”

So I bought a bikini I liked.

Then, I bought some yoga pants.

And some running pants.

And some jeggings, too.

I hoped I had heard God right and then I focused on keeping a positive body image in my mind.

A few years later, I met my husband. He had been raised in that same modesty-culture and, honestly, he was sick of it. He knew that the clothes a woman wore weren’t the cause of a man lusting after her. Lust came from demonic oppression upon a broken heart. He knew the fix was deliverance and inner healing.

I was surprised to see how happy he was when I put on a bikini or yoga pants. He loved lower-cut tops and higher-hemmed bottoms (of course, within moderation). When I told him about my modesty journey, he said, “I spent my whole childhood trying to avoid women who dressed like that because I was told it would cause me to stumble. Once I realized that was a lie, I began to look forward to enjoying my wife in clothes that would show her figure and beauty. I would not have been happy if you dressed like a nun.”

Well, there you go. God knew my husband before I did and the church’s modesty rules went out the window.

I believe that if everyone welcomed the Holy Spirit into their lives to cleanse the spiritual oppression and broken hearts that cause lust, then what we wore (or didn’t wear) would not matter a bit. We could all go back to our original state in the Garden, naked and unashamed, walking with God in the cool of the day because of what Yeshua did on the cross for us.

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