Warning: This might be a touchy subject for you & it may not be something you fully understand. Please keep an open mind. I watched this video a few weeks ago and felt like it made so many valid points. I had no clue when I got saved that modesty was important, but immediately started covering more of my body than I had before. That's not to say I was completely modest, but it was a far cry from how I dressed and why I dressed before the Holy Spirit moved into my heart. I'll say more about that later.
A few days ago, Ann Voskamp posted thoughts on the trial which convicted two high school guys of rape in Steubenville, Ohio which rolled into a touching letter to her almost 18 year old son on her blog. It's a call to treat women as God sees women, as Christ treated women. Here is a link to this post. She says, "That Christ never beat down a woman with harsh words or lusting eyes or sneering innuendos, but He stepped in and stopped a broken woman from the abuse of angry men. Christ came to the defense of a hurting woman and the Son of Man stood between her ache and her attackers and He lifted the weight of shame from her and cupped her heart with hope and wrote a new future into the dust and dirt of everything and he saved. her. life. That’s how God loves His daughters with His defense." Check out everything she had to say, it is beautifully written.
Going back to the video. In a letter a pastor is reading, a guy says about a woman dressed provocatively "I wonder if she realizes 101 guys are going to devour her with their minds today, I wonder if she even cares." I'd say that being devoured is exactly what she wants. I've been that girl. That girl believes the lie society tells her that what a man wants more than anything is a woman's body and her response is to show it, because maybe just maybe some guy will want her for keeps. I had a lot of girl-friends in high school who bought into the same thing. Some gave away their virginity as soon as they had the opportunity. Some found ways to show off, like fishing, they'd catch some guy's attention. Most would dress in a way to purposefully attract masculine attention. All of us were starved for masculine attention/ affection. None of us would've ever said that we believed this was all we were worth, but the fact is our actions showed we believed it with every fiber of our being. We believed that the most value we'd ever have was to be desired by a man-- any man, and as many of them as possible.
Christian women. Most godly women will feel a sense of modesty by conviction from the Spirit alone. She may never ever realize the impact immodesty has on men, which is why a lot of Christian women still think along the lines of dressing to look sexy (even if she is technically covering the "important" places).
Jesus warns men:
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28-- NIV).
And I have to ask, who are we as women to purposely or even thoughtlessly cause someone to sin? Don't we have responsibility in this to think about what we're wearing? I'm obviously not saying we should be covered head to toe, one look at my FB page would tell you that. What I am saying is that we should first ask God how we should change, ask our husbands or fathers if we're dressing too revealing, and we should have a general rule that our clothes should not be too low cut, too short, or too tight-- but not be the one to determine what "too" is. I am as guilty as anyone on this, but who are we to continue. No we are not fully responsible for where any man looks & lusts, Jesus made him responsible for that!!! Men alone are responsible for their hearts & actions. Nonetheless, we can and should do our part, what would it say if we continued to make someone else sin. Let's stop being thoughtless about what we wear or how we behave. Jesus gave us far greater worth than that of being devoured in another person's thoughts. Again, I love Ann Voskamp's wording on this-- I posted the link to her blog near the beginning of this post.
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