My life is a market. A marketplace that I wander through.
“I like that, but I like this better.”
“That’s tempting. My friend would love that. My mom would love this.”
It feels like my eyes are always wandering from one thing to another, trying to decide what I like best.
The funny thing about the marketplaces in other countries is that there is always going to be something “better.” So how can you ever make a decision?
Let me explain:
So a few weeks back, my team came to Antigua for the weekend. We ventured into the marketplace looking for some pants to sleep in, because we found it to be much colder in Guatemala than we expected! As we went from vendor to vendor, we saw hundreds of different colored pants. Jacie quickly decided on a red pair, but I didn’t feel sold on any I was seeing.
“Shouldn’t I just KNOW when I find the right pair?”
—Exactly like what we say about a big decision, such as who to marry.
So the search continued for me. Hours. Countless vendors whipping out every single pair of pants they owned and offering me “very good price for you my friend.”
Feeling exhausted, I finally settled on a pair I ALMOST loved. They were colorful, embroidered, and cropped to capris at the bottom. I felt good about them. They were practical, pretty, comfy, and most importantly- already in my hands. I paid the price I wanted and fought for, and went happily on my way.
My confidence in my decision didn’t last as long as I would have hoped- as always.
On the way out of the market, I found a pair of pants that I was determined were PERFECT. THE ONES. Now what was I to do?
I immediately developed an idea, to offer to trade the ones I had just bought with her. What started as a “simple thought” turned into almost an hour of me trying to get her to trade me. The sales lady insisted that hers were different. I was driving myself crazy trying to convince her to trade, all I saw was a difference in color that changed everything to me! Why would it matter to her if she simply had a different color to sell to someone else?
I finally walked away, furious. It was the first time I hadn’t “won a barter” in my life. The first time that there was absolutely no way for me to get my way in a market. I was so frustrated that all I wanted to do was throw the pants I had bought away or tear them up, they weren’t as good!
My teammate, Andrew, said something that really caught me off guard though. He said “Kerry, what did you come to the market to get?”
“Pants.”
“And when you chose the ones you have, did you like them? Like them enough to buy them? Like them enough to choose them over all the others?”
“Yes. But then…”
“There will always be ‘better’. But you accomplished the purpose you set out with and you chose something you really loved. Nothing else matters after that.”
Sometimes, I feel like this is life for me.
I set out with a purpose.
Strong willed and fearless.
Then I come to a point where I have to make a decision. “What do I actually want. What do I actually need.”
There is a constant fear of deciding on something because there is a constant fear of missing out on something better.
Here’s where it gets real.
I can really love something, but fear that if I choose it then I will soon find something I love even more.
I can really love someone, but fear that if I choose them then I will have missed out on someone I could love even MORE.
I want to be able to go in a market not being overwhelmed with how many things captivate my attention.
Because when you know what you want, decide on what you want, and choose not to look back. When you truly choose to love and enjoy what you’ve commited to and admire all the reasons you fell in love with it, nothing else is tempting. When you know and love what you have, you don’t think of what you don’t have.
You won’t remember the hundreds of things you didn’t buy. You remember, cherish, and enjoy the thing you did.
Do you see the analogy God is painting?
When we KNOW what our purpose is in life, we aren’t easily distracted by the hundreds of other things we could be doing at that moment. When we KNOW that God has hand picked every friendship put in front of us, we don’t need to think about the friendships we feel like we don’t have.
When you KNOW the decision God is telling you to make, you don’t constantly look back on the other options.
So why don’t we just know?
Are you as distracted and wandering as I can be? Going through “markets” in life feeling like you can never truly be satisfied because you aren’t even sure exactly what you’re even looking for or what will satisfy you?
What will finally be good enough to where you stop searching?
I think I finally see it. That to stop searching, you have to walk in confidence and rest secure in what you have. Because I know Jesus, I don’t need to think or worry about what I don’t know. Because He calls me by name, I don’t have to think of the hundreds of other names that the world calls me. Because I know the gifts He is giving me every day, I don’t pay any attention to the things I think He’s not giving me.
As Ashley and I walked through an art store looking for markers the other day, I spent forever choosing each color I wanted. She simply reminded me, in the midst of unnecessary stress, that I wouldn’t remember the colors I didn’t get. I would just be excited about the ones I had.
Same with finding gifts for my family. They would never know the thousands of patterns and colors of table runners I didn’t get them, they would just know the ONE I decided on for them.
So my challenge is this- make a decision. Walk with God into that decision. Experience His acceptance of you. And walk in confidence. Because YOU can’t mess up what God is doing with your decisions.
Don’t live in a land of ‘if onlys’. “If only I would have {not given my heart away. chosen to marry someone else. not taken that job. gotten a different degree. tried harder in school. been better to my family.}”
THOSE AREN’T WHAT DEFINES YOU. God defines you by TRUTH, not by the absence of lies. He defines you through eyes of grace, not through the things you could have done better.
Know that God is telling you the truth when He says…
“I GO WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO”- Joshua 1:9
“YOU CAN NEVER BE FAR FROM ME” – Psalm 139:7
“NOTHING CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM ME.”- Romans 8:35
The words “Be Still” have consistently been spoken over me, but it didn’t really hit me until having my first real conversation with Bill Swan tonight. God kept giving him the words “be still” for me. He spoke out what He saw in me, having never talked with me before. That I am filled with a grace and love that invites people in. Who I am in Christ and what I have to offer this world, I don’t offer to myself. I approach other people with grace, but I don’t approach myself with grace. I offer other people joy, but I take myself way too seriously sometimes. I don’t expect others to be perfect, but I expect it of myself. I see the best in others, but I am so critical of myself. It is so much easier to think about the areas I feel like I’m ‘not measuring up in’, than to walk confidently in the giftings God has given me.
So I say this for all of us. Isn’t it time we start seeing ourselves the way God sees us?
Time we start giving God more credit for His truths than we give satan credit for his lies?
You choose what defines you. You choose what to hold tight to.
So will you be a wave blown and tossed by the wind? Like Kerry in a giant market of colorful Guatemalan souveniers, wandering too and fro never holding tight to anything out of fear of making the wrong decision and missing out on something?
It’s not a fun place to be. It’s not free.
Know who you belong to- GOD HIMSELF.
Know what He says about you- that you are LOVED, CHOSEN, AND PURE.
Know that whatever decision you make, He will never leave you.
Do you think your shortcomings, bad decisions, or mistakes are stronger than His grace?
Cause they’re not. And I can only pray that you see that faster than it took me to see it. Because in that place, there is such freedom and only in that place can you walk confidently in who He says you are.
And when you know that truth, nothing else matters.
Distractions and other options fall dim because you know what you have.
God doesn’t think about the thousands, millions, of things that He didn’t create.
He LOVES, CHERISHES, and ADORES what He did create-
YOU.
