A little food for weekend thought--
From Shauna Niequist: "One of the most important things I've learned from mothering was from my friend Nancy. She told me that when you compare yourself to another person, you always lose, and at the same time the other person always loses, too. Each of us has been created by the hands of a holy God, and our stories and the twists and turns of our lives, the things that are hard for us, and the things that come naturally, are as unique to us as our own fingerprints. She told me that one way to ensure a miserable life is to constantly measure your own life by the lives of the people around you."
Oh goodness, how true is that? I heard it said years ago (no earthly idea where I heard it or who said it) that "All comparison is of the devil."
And in so many ways, I truly believe that comparison destroys our peace, our joy, and our contentment. In their stead, comparison tends to bring along it's sick little buddies of anxiety, pride, and discouragement.
Nobody---and I mean nobody--wins when we compare. Either we swell up with sinful pride or we shrink back in despair. Either way, we lose...and so does the other person.
When we're prideful, we're essentially boasting to ourselves, "Well, at least I'm doing better (or my children are behaving better or my house looks better or my morals are better or my grades are better...) than so and so." Ugh--what an ugly picture.
Pride is a deadly poison. C.S.Lewis says "The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."
Just as deadly, however, is the opposite ugly result of comparison, and that's despair. When we have our gaze fixed on others and find ourselves--or our family or our spouse or our possessions or our whatever--lacking in some way, then we'll quickly find ourselves hopelessly mired in the "pit of despond." Not only does such comparison and discouragement rob us of peace, steal our joy and destroy our hope, it also blinds us. Blinds us to God's extravagant goodness in our lives. Blinds us to all the gifts for which we should be grateful. Blinds us to the needs of other people around us.
Comparison creates selfish, anxious, unhappy, and unloving little people.
And the antidote? Look up rather than around! Mother Teresa once said that "All our problems come from looking around rather than up."
It's so simple but so profoundly life-changing, isn't it?
Stop staring at others...stare at the Savior.
Stop complaining about what you lack...commit to recalling all you possess.
Stop rehearsing the ways that either you, your family, or other people fall short...rehearse all the ways that God has faithfully shown up BIG in your life.
When we feel comparison begin to leak it's poison into our thoughts, let's stop right then and there and say "NO!" Let's ask the Lord to enable us to take every thought captive (2 Cor.10:5). Let's choose to reject that ugly thought of comparison right at the beginning stage and immediately replace it with the Truth of God's Word.
Paul puts it so perfectly: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
We are what we think. How we think will determine how we speak, act, and feel. And comparing is just a negative, dead-end, no good way of thinking!
Comparison leads to pride or despair. But contemplating God's character and His Word leads to supernatural peace, fullness of joy, and happy contentment.
Time to jettison comparison! Let's stop looking around and look up--let's look to Jesus and His Word and renew our thinking and revive our hearts.
To God be the glory.
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