Coming Out of the Closet

Posted by Ashley Strong-Green on Aug 19, 2011 in Daily Bread | 3 comments

How much time do you spend getting dressed in the morning? My hour and a half won’t be breaking any records anytime soon, but between the process of elimination to find an outfit, brushing my teeth, curling my hair, and of course makeup, I have a lot to do. I’d much rather enjoy the extra hour of sleep than to spend so much time getting ready for work , but image is important. Right?

Well, reading James 2:3 might be a nice Godly reminder that it is okay to hit the snooze button every now and then. Through James God challenges us saying” Suppose you give special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say to him, “Please have a seat.” But you say to the poor man, “Stand over there,” or “Sit on the floor at my feet.” Within the greater context of James, it becomes apparent that it is God’s place to bestow favor and not our place to enforce favoritism and especially not based on something as trivial as appearance.

Thank goodness God doesn’t bestow favor based upon appearance! So I decided to change my morning routine. If God wasn’t judging me based upon my clothing and He told us not to either, then it didn’t really matter. So I’ve started what I called “dating” God. Every morning instead of spending so much time invested on my appearance, I remind myself that God loves me just the way I am and more importantly He designed me. I don’t need labels or makeup to improve upon His already divine work. So I put on the shirts and pants were are at the front of the closet instead of trying on everything I owned. I left the house sans makeup. I simply pulled my hair back. Man oh man, I had like an extra hour! And I took that hour and spent it with my God. I talked out loud to Him over breakfast. God and I did karoke and by that I mean I listened to all my favorite Christian songs and sang them extremely loud and very off key. I read my Bible. I found that when I got in the car, I didn’t want to listen to the same stations anymore. So I listened to the CD the church gave me in my welcome package or to Christian radio. By the time I got to work, I was relaxed and had set a nice pace for my day.

My days got easier because my foucs shifted to something more important. Funny enough when I cared less about my appearance, I got more compliments on me. Instead of hearing, “that’s a nice dress,” I heard, “You have a pretty smile.” The experience reinforced for me that God knows exactly what He’s doing.

So here’s my challenge, for one week cut out every unnecessary element of your morning routine. Focus less on your appearance and more on your reationship with God and see what happens. By the way you have a very pretty smile.