Is It Wrong To Want To Look Different?

This past Saturday, I was scrolling through the app store, when I saw a section marked, "top paid". The number one app listed in that section caught my eye. 

It was a selfie editing app. 

An app where you could whiten your teeth, cover up lines and wrinkles, brighten any colors, and pretty much change anything about your appearance that you could imagine. 

The reason this caught my attention was because an app where you can change anything about your looks that you could imagine, was the number one paid for app on the app store. 

It made my heart sad to see that so many people wanted  to change their appearance, that they were willing to pay about four dollars for an app that would provide the ability to do just that for them. 

Now, before I go any further, I want to throw it out there that I am not perfect, and actually, for many years in my life, I wanted everything about myself to look different. 

I hated my nose, my smile, my body, my hair, my eyebrows, my voice, you name it.

I wanted everything about me to be different, and would have probably wanted to buy this app until about a year ago. 

Honestly, part of me was, and is, still tempted to try it out, even though by God's grace I've learned to love how I look. It's just that curiosity of, "what could I look like if I looked like this?..." 

I'm aware that not everyone who has bought this app has bought it because they don't like how they look, and most people probably bought it just because of the curiosity. 

But even if you give into the curiosity in an innocent way, by just simply wanting to see what you could look like if you looked different, you begin to feed the desire to compare, and the desire to look different. 

The problem doesn't begin when you wear a little makeup, or even edit a picture. The problem begins at your heart. What is your reason for wearing makeup? What is your reason for putting on that filter? What is your reason for editing that picture? 

We're all human, and we all have our own insecurities and struggles... But we don't have to let them control us. 

If you think you will be happy if you looked different, you won't. You might temporarily be satisfied... but in the end, you'll just end up wanting more. 

Because until you learn to be content with who you are and where God has you, you will never be content no matter what your world ends up looking like.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made. 

And that's not just a caption for Instagram. 

Let that truth soak into your soul.

Because you are priceless, no matter what you look like, or what your life looks like. You are worth more than this world makes you believe, I promise you. 

Ask yourself what your reason is for putting on makeup, or for editing your pictures, next time you go to do it. Do you love what's underneath?

"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be." -Psalm 139:13-16