I've talked about before how I always feel less than, incompetent, ashamed, and just plain not good enough. No one tells me that these things are true, and quite honestly, not many have done it in the past either. If anything, I have received more praise and less rebuke.
But something about me wants to look around at everybody around me and wonder what they have that is better than what I have. I don't even really have to look long at their lives without seeing my inadequacies as a person. They are more spiritual - they express their love for God better than me. They are more outgoing - they don't have this inexplicable desire to hide in the corner in big groups. They're married and have children, which must mean that they've figured something out that I haven't.
I look at others and measure myself against them. I'll tell you now that it's a very depressing way to live.
Now, I know this isn't just my issue. Pinterest and Facebook are full of quotes to tell you to do your own thing, walk to your own beat, or whatever cliche thing it takes to make you feel better....temporarily.
There's not anything wrong with that, but it misses the point. If just telling myself that I was good enough, that other people's lives are just different, not better, would fix this problem, then I'd be good. I've dealt with this long enough that it should have worked by now.
Unless I look at what is actually wrong with my heart, I won't be able to see why I keep believing these things.
I believe, and yet every nook and cranny of my heart is full of unbelief.
If I compare myself to others, then I'm saying that God is doing something wrong with me. He clearly is doing something with them, that he isn't doing with me, but he should be. So I beat myself up and push harder and end up disappointed again.
Peter tried this too. Peter is my favorite because he seems to be just as off kilter as me a lot of times.
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”
John 21:21
How many times do I do that? How many times a day do I do that?
I'm processing through what it looks like for me to embrace whatever God has me in. And that means not looking to the right or left, but straight at him. What he's doing with other people isn't better or worse, but it's different. And my story is different than theirs. And undoubtedly, people look at my life and compare and find themselves lacking. I hate that.
Again, God reminds me that he loves me. And that my story isn't the wrong thing. He is weaving a tapestry of stories that are unique and beautiful. All together they form the beautiful picture of the gospel. The gospel in my life. The gospel in yours.
Let us be grateful for our stories. Let us rejoice in each other's stories without envy and comparison. Let us worship a good God who makes us different and loves us the same, unfathomable amount. May he root this comparison-less love for each other deep in our souls. He is good to do it.
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
1 Corinthians 12:14-20
.....Love does not envy....
1 Corinthians 13:4
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