Show Up to the Table: Be Clothed for the Opportunities God Gives You

When I started out in interior design almost twenty-five years ago, I was young and saddled with a hefty student loan. Even though I was in a fashion-driven industry, I showed up with clothes from low-end department stores and even Goodwill. My shoes were from Payless and my accessories from the Macy’s outlet sale table that had plastic bins in a fluorescent-lit warehouse space. I did what I could. I loved being fashionable, and I thought I made do pretty well.

Daunted by comments from my contemporaries about not being caught dead in last year’s Prada, I showed up to meetings and client consultations in what I had in my closet to wear. I heard lectures about how potential clients size you up by your shoes to see if you are worth working with and caught comments about my unruly curly hair. These comments said to me that women are not enough as they are. They said to me that, in order to have worth, you have to purchase it and wrap it around yourself to cover up your lack of real value.

However, in the end I did not do any worse than those worried so much about their labels that they had second mortgages on their homes. In fact, I outperformed all but one of the company’s entire team of designers.

I showed up in Payless shoes, but I showed up with skill and the assurance I had knowing that I was going where God was leading me. The confidence I had from knowing my identity in Christ and my value as His daughter conveyed that I had agency over my talents and belonged at the table I had chosen. This sense of agency drew people to my side, both as mentors and as those in need of the compassion and grace I could extend them from my heavenly Father.

I was clothed in glory by my Redeemer. The fact that Christ purchased my redemption and wrapped me in His blood was not to obscure my deficiencies but to prove my value is beyond measure and worthy of the price He paid.

Showing up well is showing up with the knowledge that your contribution to the table you chose is valuable, because you are Spirit-led and Scripture-educated and well equipped for every good work, able to draw others to you with the light of Christ.

With great shoes, if you are able. 

1.  Have you ever felt you might be rejected because of your clothes?

2.  Are there places you feel you don’t belong because of what people are wearing?

3.  What action would you take if you had a sense of belonging everywhere you went?

You have all become true children of God by faith in Jesus Christ! Faith immersed you into Christ, and now you are covered and clothed with his life. (Galatians 3:26–27 TPT)

Heather Bise

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