A Disciples Take On A “Hot Girl Summer”
I am living the final months of my teen years indoors, by law. My teen bucket list only resurfaced in my head a couple weeks back and trying to tailor all my daring suggestions to restriction friendly escapades seems like an impossible feat.
It seems that I am not alone in my thinking.
By some shocking feat, the joined efforts of cooped up teens and single millennials have amounted to what I can only describe as a season’s horoscope that no one was prepared for. A prediction fuelled only by the forced desires to feel good and have others think you look good while doing it. An exploited teen fan fiction plot, where we’re taught if we act so happily single, someone will feel completely obligated to take you off the market.
Like with all cringey Rom-Com plots, there are rules.
A storey-line coined, ‘Hot Girl Summer’:
Rule 1. You must be single, but you don’t have to be.
Rule 2. Only the hottest new 2021 summer fashion, which is anything thrifted from a decade before this current one.
And Rule 3. You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t care a single bit about what anyone has to say, except you must tweet about it, post about it, link playlists and share photo dumps to prove that you are actually having a “hot girl summer”.
From a biblical mindset, this ‘initiative’ promotes an unhealthy independence. A lustful rubric that advocates to agree and endorse the insecurities laid bare by any social media platform. A painful outlet that paints freedom as a commodity bought by impressing the followers you do and don’t know.
What I know about freedom, true freedom comes from the bible. God’s word and promise to set you free from the sinful cycle that the world deems as ‘successful life’.
Romans 8:21 - “That the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
This may be a tad on the nose, but it felt poignant. This is God’s love in action.
He wants me to recognise the difference in what the world suggests and what the bible promises.
As much as I crave the validation, living by what my Instagram feed decides as liberating or revolutionary is exhausting and impossible. The idea that, I must find freedom in myself completely contradicts God’s divine purpose for my life. The concept that freedom is an individual journey and I dictate every aspect of it just to make myself happy, is self-destruction.
Colossians 3:12-14 - “Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience... Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
God created humans to be different in the way we feel his love and live out his promises, but we are all the same in sharing the love he has for us and the promise leading to true life.
This life is not meant to be an individual journey, or a journey that only feels rewarding when someone else tells me it is.
I have been promised to live in a life of love, of grace and of freedom from sin.
The only difficulty I see with this win-win situation is finding the courage to let this divine and perfect God be in the driver’s seat of the fulfilling life he has already planned.
I encourage anyone reading to explore this freedom with God’s Word and the fellowship here, to be courageous enough to live in the way the perfector has prepared for you out of pure love.