i cry when i see hot ppl

There is a deep lie that exists in many modern versions of Christianity. It’s a lie that has caused many of us to shortchange ourselves and label any level of confidence as sinful. I’ve seen this lie preached from pulpits—and even once in a staff meeting at a former church I worked for.

We had weekly staff meetings on Wednesdays where everyone would gather in the fellowship hall, listen to a sermon, and then discuss it. This particular sermon was on the call of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Now, I might be a bit naive to think that a hump day sermon for staff should be encouraging, because this one was a fundamentalist’s field day.

The associate pastor talked about how “Isaiah was a filthy sinner in the presence of a holy God” and how “all our efforts are as filthy rags to God.” You get the general vibe. I was sitting at a table of pastors and ministry leaders who continued the frenzy of self-debasement, cutting their wrists with biblical passages. So, I spoke up. “Where in Isaiah 6 does the Divine mention Isaiah’s flaws?”

Nowhere in the passage does God mention how wicked Isaiah is. God spends the passage calling Isaiah toward his larger purpose as a prophet. Isaiah is the one who brings up the excuses about uncleanliness.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5)

Still need a clue as to what the lie is? The lie is: you are not enough.

For anyone raised in a high-control church space, you know that anything having to do with sex is heavily policed. I can’t tell you the number of random “sex = bad” conversations I had with unqualified but well-meaning adults. Especially during my hormone-filled teenage years, the number one concern for all the youth leaders seemed to be either accidentally creating life with someone else or wasting it by yourself (if you catch my drift). The body was characterized as the center of all evil.

I remember desire and attraction being labeled as the sin itself through acrobatic interpretations of Matthew 5:27–30 or Jeremiah 17:9. Spiritually, the bottom line was that your body was sinful. You needed to repress that desire to focus on God. Unfortunately, it also taught us at a young age that we weren’t enough socially.

As a queer kid who already felt like God had given up on him, this really killed my confidence. It made it hard to be assertive at school, so I faded into the background. While other kids were going on dates or hanging out at each other’s houses, I was quietly at youth group trying to avoid Hell or punishing myself for having crushes on the athletes at school.

The lie that we are not enough causes a lot of shame in a believer. It reinforces the idea that nothing we ever do is truly worthy of love. That’s the heart of the problem. For a message rooted in God's miraculous love, many Christians still struggle to feel that love.

It’s like that staff meeting I was at. Here we all are, working hard every day to serve a congregation the best we can, and our “encouragement” is that everything we do “is like filthy rags to God” (Isaiah 64:6). By the way, that phrase in Scripture isn’t directed at church staff trying their best to do their jobs. Isaiah is addressing a people whose outward acts of righteousness exist alongside injustice and rebellion against God. It is not a universal declaration that everything you have ever done is disgusting to God.

Much of the belief about our “not-enough-ness” also comes from St. Augustine’s idea of original sin. Augustine taught that because all humans come from Adam and Eve, who rebelled against God, everyone is born with a sinful nature. From birth, humanity is already bent toward sinfulness and needs redemption. And Augustine isn’t alone in trying to figure out the problem of sin. Many Western theologians have wrestled with what the right combination of Adam, the Cross, grace, faith, and good deeds means for humanity to be finally enough for God.

But God’s plan for dealing with sin was Jesus, and it didn’t fail. Even before the Savior lived among us and embraced us, God looked at humanity during the creation of the world and called us good.

Feeling secure in God's love as you are is difficult, but it’s not impossible. One problem I face is truly loving myself and seeing myself as beautiful. I can count myself out before I ever put myself out there because of insecurity. I have an image in my head of what beauty is, and I don’t match it. And sometimes, yeah, it hurts my feelings when I see hot people. Because sometimes someone else’s beauty doesn’t just register as they’re beautiful. It registers as evidence against me.

“They look like that, and I don’t. People want them, so why would anyone want me?”

Suddenly, another person simply existing in their body becomes proof of my own inadequacy. But it’s in those moments that a much more helpful Bible verse comes into play:

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)

God doesn’t make garbage. So what if one of the most spiritually healthy things you could do is love yourself? Not worship yourself. Not believe you’re better than everyone else. Just refuse to treat yourself like God’s mistake.

Sitting in that staff meeting at a table full of pastors, I was getting angry. After another week of being overworked and underappreciated, I needed to hear the most profound truth of all: Not only was I enough, but the Spirit of God thinks I’m worth dwelling in. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). I have the power to do the things God is leading me toward. I have the agency to make decisions and to trust God with what I don’t fully grasp.

In that Isaiah 6 passage, God knew who he was calling. Isaiah may have been counting himself out, but God immediately moves to eliminate his excuses: “With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’” (Isaiah 6:7). Isaiah says, I’m unclean. God says, Handled.

Maybe confidence isn’t the enemy of faith. You are enough. When you are intimidated by what’s on the outside, remember what dwells inside. When someone else’s beauty makes you question your own, their beauty is not evidence against yours. When insecurity tells you to count yourself out before anyone else gets the chance, remember that God already knows exactly who he called. Remind yourself that you are God’s masterpiece.