Much of my time recently has been spent preparing some lessons for an upcoming seminar we are having here in Moshi for the girls/young women. The theme of our day will be “Beautiful in the Eyes of God.” One of the four lessons that I will be teaching is “Dressing to Please God.” Regardless of where you live, this is a relevant topic. Insufficient clothing has been a problem since the Garden of Eden, yet many people have yet to learn the lesson.
We identify many people by the clothing they wear. Here in Tanzania, we can easily identify a member of the Massai tribe, by their traditional clothing. We recognize policemen, or other people in public service occupations, by their clothing. As a Christian, what does your clothing say about you?
In 2007, a group of young people conducted a modesty survey.* While they are not members of the Lord’s church, they are religious. The results of the survey were very enlightening. For example, 70.4% of the guys agreed that a woman that shows any part of her cleavage is immodest. Here is a comment from one of these surveyed: “I find it totally distracting. It is EVERYTHING I can do to keep my eyes on her eyes when cleavage is showing.” Another comment: “This is the biggest thing that causes me to fall.”
For the most part, the women of Tanzania tend to keep themselves more covered than females in the states. So, after living here for a year and a half, when our family went back to the states for a visit, we were struck by the degree of immodesty we faced at every turn, including members of the church.
Missionaries have many different challenges on the mission field, and one that we’ve had is the immodest clothing worn by women who come to help, especially during campaign time. Even when the issue has been addressed during orientation time, some continue to do as they wish. This does not help the work!
Ladies, if you catch a man because you advertised with your body, you can lose him just as easily when something better looking walks by. Is that the kind of person you want? What does your clothing say about your heart? Are you dressing to catch the eye of men, or are you dressing to please God?
*(See www.therebelution.com/modestysurvey/ for the complete survey and results.)
Joy, The interesting thing is most women/girls don’t really dress to ‘catch’ a man, they dress for other women/girls. How many times I have heard some female (age is irrelevant) say to another ‘that is so cute’, or I love… what ever…it may be a dress, often it is a ‘hair style’. And I look at the thing that is supposed to be so ‘cute, or lovable’, and I wonder, what is wrong here? The styles don’t look very good, just by themselves, but on the person in question they are absolutely ludicrous. Perhaps women ought to be more honest.
Donevy