Girl Talk: Modesty... Who Me?!

And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. – 1 Timothy 2:9

I was asked to write an article about modesty. My first thought: wow, don’t know if I can do that. I’m not all that modest sometimes. I would be a hypocrite if I told others to be modest and I go and wear a bikini to the beach! If you’re like me, you probably thinking that modesty means wearing long jean skirts, high neck shirts, and having your hair pulled up into a bun. Then I decided to look up what modesty means. One of definitions of modesty from Webster’s dictionary is: being proper in dress, speech, or conduct. So modesty isn’t just about clothes. It’s also about being gentle and kind, humble and decent; Christ-like.

First let’s look at being proper in dress. We girls know what we should and shouldn’t wear. When we are deciding what to wear in the morning, we need to think about other people too, just not how “good” we look. Wearing clothing that shows a little too much of us might tempt a guy, young or old, to look or think of something God wouldn’t want them to. Is that really the type of attention we want? God definitely doesn’t want us to temp a brother in the Lord to sin.

Being proper in dress doesn’t mean we have to wear clothes that aren’t in style. It may just be a little more of a challenge to find something that’s appropriate.  I love to shop. I know what’s in the stores and I know it can be hard to find things that are modest. But you can make a low cut shirt modest by putting a pretty tank top under it. What about the cute skirt on sale that you just had to buy but is way too short? Some cute leggings under it will help. There are plenty of ways to take today’s clothes and make them modest but still stylish.

I know I’m going to keep this in mind when I get dressed in the morning because I don’t want to tempt anyone to think something they shouldn’t and I don’t want to make the people around me uncomfortable by the way I dress. So modesty in the way we dress isn’t all that difficult. How do you think God would want His daughters to dress? Next time we’ll talk about modesty in speech and conduct.