Shopping and a lesson in trust

I’ve been looking for a new shirt or two, but the styles I’m finding are so unappealing. I don’t need a shirt with a zipper or things dangling off of it. It doesn’t need to have puffy sleeves or have a longer tail in the back. But I also don’t want it to be boring.

Oh, and I want it to be easily washed and dried. Is that so much to ask? It might be.

On my quest, I pulled several pieces of clothing off the racks, carried them into fitting rooms, tried them on, and made faces in the dressing room mirror. Then I put the shirts back on the rack before leaving the store.

I couldn’t figure out why shirt shopping was such a fruitless exercise. For a few weeks, I couldn’t seem to find anything I wanted.

Then I walked into a store looking for a gift for someone else. As I passed the women’s shirts, I spotted one that caught my eye.

It was red with a pattern sewn into the front. It was unusual but not too different. It looked like something I might wear—but not like something I already owned.

There was only one issue. I couldn’t try it on.

The fitting rooms in this particular store closed during the pandemic and have never reopened. So, if I bought the shirt, I would be taking a chance. But it was only $10—which is not a crazy amount of money to spend on a shirt I couldn’t try on in the store.

I decided to take a chance on the shirt. And…it’s perfect. Every time I put it on, I think of how much God must have enjoyed surprising me with it—after all the others I tried and didn’t like.

In a world that spews so much information at us, it can be difficult to make a spontaneous, uninformed purchase. We are much more accustomed to reading multiple reviews and polling friends on social media to share experiences with their purchases. We want all the facts before we move forward. And with a big purchase, that makes sense.

But a faith-filled life invites us to step forward without seeing the full picture. A life of faith requires trust. God invites us not to take risks, but to open our hearts and minds to the possibilities of what might lie ahead. He asks us to trust in him, remember how he accompanies us, and lean on him as we take the next step.

Maybe that’s when you’re trying to make your next $10 purchase, or maybe it’s when you’re considering a much more significant opportunity in life.

Whatever it is, maybe you’ll feel confident taking that leap knowing that God is with you. He might be looking to surprise you, too.

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