Clothes....

I know we Christians have a frustrating knack of spiritualizing everything. I know that it gets up the rest of the populations nose, and most likely many of our own noses as well. This one has certainly been up mine all week.

I found myself thinking very deeply about what my clothes say about me.

Do they represent any deeper side of my character, both good and bad?

Can you tell things about me by my clothing?

Can I tell things about my clothing?

This goes deeper than the 'modesty' debate that Christians normally get stuck on. This is, why do I make the choices I make about the clothes I wear, where I shop, how much I spend and even the fabrics I wear?

Jesus said in Matthew 15

16"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. 17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "


It is what comes out of us that 'indicates' our heart conditions. Surely something as simple as clothing choices can also be governed by the condition of our heart? And if this is indeed the case then surely our clothing on a conscious or unconscious level represents something of the inner man both good and bad?

Things like the amount of money we spend on clothes, a desire for particular brands, or not for brands but a particular style, or fitting a mold, representing a cause, a team, people pleasing, fitting a group, a political part, the debt we may go into to afford our clothing or have we even developed a scrooge mentality that has come from something deeper within us that may not be God?

I am NOT talking here about rules, regulations or legalism in the sense of trying to tie anybody to any one particular choice or train of thought. I am trying to dig a little deeper into why we do the things we do!

I like comfortable clothes for instance. I go out of my way to find soft fabrics at an affordable price. I KNOW this is a reflection on the part of my character that likes comfort. This is a negative thing about me. I dislike it when I am uncomfortable in my clothes, in life, in a social situation, even in the weather. I lack particular traits that enable me to grin and bear it with style and grace and trust in God.

BUT over the last year the Lord has been showing me little niggly things like this in my character through the things that 'come out of me'. The every day things like preferences in clothing have shown me deep inconsistent, failings in my character that need to come under the power of the cross.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not at all suggesting a life of introspective naval gazing where we constantly examine everything we do, becoming so caught up with it that we are no good to anyone. What I am challenging is from time to time, examining some of the more robotic choices we make to see if there are hypocrisies that can be picked up in these choices that do not measure up with the character of God and the 'renewal of mind' we are supposed to be coming under.

I like this quote about being a hypocrite.

Hypocrite: 'one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity'- Andre' Gide (in When Bad Christians happen to Good People by Dave Burchett)

Something as simple as the clothes we wear, may very well reveal a flaw (or good trait) in our character that may be silently speaking volumes in the 'spiritual' realm as well as the physical.

We may be under a deception and blissfully lying beautifully to the world around us.