Julia: Loved

Loved Where You're At

I’ve been self-employed with my husband for the last two years, which has been wonderful and challenging in a thousand different ways. But in the last 6 months I’ve felt this fire in my gut (aka the Holy Spirit) leading me to consider pursuing other work on the side. The daunting thing for me is letting go of something that is comfortable and secure, something I’m really good at, and moving toward a giant question mark. It’s scary, the not knowing, like walking around in the dark, bumping into objects and longing to latch onto something familiar. 

As I’ve been dreaming about what’s next, I’ve felt so much pressure to be successful both from myself and the world. I worry whatever I jump into won’t be impressive enough. I worry about second-guessing and being flaky in my decisions. I often hear the lie humming in the back of my brain that I’m not a risk-taking person and I have nothing significant to offer. I fear I’m behind. 

Many of these insecurities come from comparing, and the place I compare myself most to others is on social media.

I’ve always had a little beef with social media. I think there are definitely good things about it, but watching the highlight real of other people’s lives multiple times a day has to have heavy repercussions on our psyche (just a thought). It’s a mindless attachment I have such a hard time staying away from, even though my soul feels more alive and free when I’m doing life with my people instead of posting about it. One late night a couple of months ago, a night I was feeling so insecure about my place in the world that it was hard to breathe, I scrolled through picture after picture on Instagram of people I knew and many I had no relation to. I perused pictures of famous people and trendy people and people I thought were living their dream. Instead of feeling connected and understood in my fear, I thought to myself, These people are my age, some younger, and they are killing it in their career. They know what they want, they worked hard for it, they are so successful, and people want to know them. What am I missing? 

The thing with social media is it’s an easy outlet to seek validation from the world. It can quickly send me on a trajectory towards the need to be affirmed and liked by others before I feel worthy of God’s love. I find myself believing in order to have any sort of significant impact on the world I need people to see what I’m doing and applaud me for being great. But looking to the world for validation will never be enough. Our egos are nagging pests that will always ask for more, even right after we feed them. 

The second we start trying to be who we think the world wants us to be, we lose sight of who Jesus tells us we are: holy, chosen, dearly loved, anointed. We forget that success and purpose have nothing to do with likes or followers, business deals or awards, being married or being single, and everything to do with the fact that we are Loved, right here and now. The world will always see success in a certain light, and because I am human, there will be times when I lean into and feed off of that light. When I do this, I feel completely delusional and totally hallow inside. 

I don’t know what will happen with my current job or what I decide to pursue on the side, and the not-knowing used to terrify me. These days, I’m learning to be kind and gracious with my place in this world. I want my security and acceptance of myself to come from the love Jesus freely lavishes. Of course I want to change the world (don’t we all?) but maybe changing the world doesn’t have to mean doing something radical that everyone is aware of and congratulating you for. Maybe changing the world means doing small, seemingly insignificant things with profound intentionality, a lot of heart, and a ton of love. 

Our significance is not tied to what we do - whether we are a CEO of a major company, hate our job, at home with the kids, overseas providing people with bigger opportunities, living with our parents, or without a place to call home, we are significant and worthy of God’s love. And that is something to rejoice over.

That, in my book, is winning.

 

“For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:16-17