The Shoes Weren't Worth It
Want to go deeper? This blog expands on the message preached on April 12 at GracePointe. Watch the full message at https://gpnaz.church/media.
I used to be a sneakerhead.
Not casually. Seriously. I would drive to FootAction, not Foot Locker, FootAction, and stand in line for the latest Jordans. And if I'm being honest, half the time the only thing that made them "new" was the colorway. Same shoe. Different box. And I had to have them.
Michael Jordan's brand now generates $7.3 billion a year. He earns a reported $250 to $350 million annually just in royalties. The shoes became an empire. And for a season of my life, that empire had a small outpost in my closet.
But then I learned something that changed everything.
In 1989, a 15-year-old named Michael Eugene Thomas was strangled by his basketball buddy for a pair of two-week-old Air Jordans. Left barefoot in the woods in Maryland. That same year, a 16-year-old named Johnny Bates was shot and killed at a Houston bus stop for his sneakers.
Someone died for the shoes on my feet.
That was the moment I started asking a different question. Not "what do I want?" but "what is this actually worth?"
Paul wrote from a prison cell; not a platform, not a green room, a prison cell, and said this: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)
He wasn't describing a feeling. He was describing a reorientation. A moment when the things you used to chase stop looking like treasure and start looking like weight.
Fame fades. Fortune fades. The shoes you stood in line for end up at a garage sale. But what is eternal will not fade.
Here is what I want you to sit with. The gift of the Holy Spirit that lives inside every believer right now is described in Scripture as a down payment. A pledge. A deposit guaranteeing something greater to come. Paul says God "sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge" (2 Corinthians 1:22). Not the full amount yet. A guarantee of it.
Which means every act of integrity at work, every moment you choose peace over panic, every Monday you show up sent instead of afraid, you are not just surviving the week. You are investing in something that will outlast it.
The shoes weren't worth it. But this is.
Not casually. Seriously. I would drive to FootAction, not Foot Locker, FootAction, and stand in line for the latest Jordans. And if I'm being honest, half the time the only thing that made them "new" was the colorway. Same shoe. Different box. And I had to have them.
Michael Jordan's brand now generates $7.3 billion a year. He earns a reported $250 to $350 million annually just in royalties. The shoes became an empire. And for a season of my life, that empire had a small outpost in my closet.
But then I learned something that changed everything.
In 1989, a 15-year-old named Michael Eugene Thomas was strangled by his basketball buddy for a pair of two-week-old Air Jordans. Left barefoot in the woods in Maryland. That same year, a 16-year-old named Johnny Bates was shot and killed at a Houston bus stop for his sneakers.
Someone died for the shoes on my feet.
That was the moment I started asking a different question. Not "what do I want?" but "what is this actually worth?"
Paul wrote from a prison cell; not a platform, not a green room, a prison cell, and said this: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7)
He wasn't describing a feeling. He was describing a reorientation. A moment when the things you used to chase stop looking like treasure and start looking like weight.
Fame fades. Fortune fades. The shoes you stood in line for end up at a garage sale. But what is eternal will not fade.
Here is what I want you to sit with. The gift of the Holy Spirit that lives inside every believer right now is described in Scripture as a down payment. A pledge. A deposit guaranteeing something greater to come. Paul says God "sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge" (2 Corinthians 1:22). Not the full amount yet. A guarantee of it.
Which means every act of integrity at work, every moment you choose peace over panic, every Monday you show up sent instead of afraid, you are not just surviving the week. You are investing in something that will outlast it.
The shoes weren't worth it. But this is.
Devotional Questions:
- What are you currently treating as treasure that has an expiration date? What would it look like to loosen your grip on it this week?
- If the Holy Spirit is a down payment on what is coming, how does that change the way you approach what feels ordinary or invisible today?
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