When we walk through our day, we are naturally evaluating and comparing circumstances in our heads. Think of going to the grocery store. If you’re like me, you examine the fruit and compare the one you pick up to the whole batch and see which ones are the best. My husband loves avocados and I’ve learned how to find the best ones by picking several up and comparing them. As I shop I always look and compare prices of brands and quantity. I ask myself if it is worth paying a little more upfront for lasting quality or for a lesser price per item in the end. As I go to check out, I compare the lines and the speed at which the cashiers are checking people out to see what line I should walk through.
Just this weekend I heard several songs on the radio and began to compare them against each other forming an inner conclusion of which one was really “the best”. While having a mindset of comparing fruit or songs might be beneficial to us in the end, if this mindset bleeds into other aspects of our life, it can be detrimental.
When we feel as though we are lacking, it’s not because we are looking exclusively to Jesus and His plan for our life. We feel we are in lack when we see our lives in comparison to where others are or when compared to our own ideal circumstances for our lives. When you compare yourself to others, you’re in essence telling God that what He has given to you or created you to be is not enough. It’s so easy in the day we are living in to find a “better” or more ideal situation than what we currently find ourselves in. However when we do this, we are often neglecting who God created us to be.
The comparison game is nothing new, it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. What led Adam and Eve into sin in the Garden was the allurement that they could “become like God”, as Satan told them by disobeying what God had commanded. They weren’t content in being who God had created them to be and they began to listen to the lies of the serpent and compared where they were capable of to what God, their Creator was capable of. Genesis 3:6 says, “When the woman (Eve) saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it”. This act of sin went against what God had called “good” and it caused Adam and Eve to see themselves and their creator in a new way.
God had called the garden “good” and He called the man and woman “good” and asked that they only not eat the fruit of one tree. After they desired of the one thing they were asked not to have, their eyes were open and they stood naked and ashamed. I think when we give into sin and the lies of the enemy by desiring to be in a condition that we were never intended to be, we will resent who we were originally created by God to be.
Comparison inhibits us from being the unique creation that God made us to be. It is an enemy to who God created us to be because it creates insecurities, pride, and jealousy within us to strive and be something we were never created to be. If all we are is distracted and driven by comparison, we won’t have energy to be operating at our potential of who we are called to be. The more we compare our lives to others, the further we drift from fulfilling our God-given purpose. The more we act like Adam and Eve by focusing on the things we don’t have, we miss out on enjoying the rest of life that God has provided for us.
Take a look across your “garden” of life. See ALL that God has created within you and around you for you to flourish in that place. Listen and recognize the voice of the enemy lying to you and persuading you to believe that you are worse than or better than those around you. You can never keep up with the endless and meaningless trail the enemy will lead you down. You can however abide in who you were created to be and flourish in the unique expression of God in the earth.