Comparison is a Punk!

Comparison is a punk. It is the thief of joy, the happiness stealer, the confidence killer. It takes people that are doing great things and makes them feel not enough.

So why am I starting with that? It was part of my devotional readings this morning, and it just hit me out of nowhere that we are in the midst of the season of comparison. It is summer where I am, that means comparing your body to others, your tan to others, your boat to the boat across the lake, your choices of how to spend your free time with how others are spending their free time, your plans for your classroom that don’t feel like they are ever enough because you’ve seen someone else’s and those are amazing.

What really hit me this morning, though, is that not only does comparison do all of those things (and so many more), it also steals our gratitude. It gives us a constant need to look over our shoulder and see what everyone else is doing. It doesn’t allow for us to be content. What is interesting is that even with all of that, I think there is value to watching what is happening around us and being inspired by it.

You see, I don’t think being inspired by what others are doing is bad. I think it is the way that we allow our minds to interpret what we are seeing is bad. I think looking at what someone else has accomplished and using it to make ourselves feel inadequate is bad. There is a difference between being inspired to do something and beating ourselves up because we aren’t already doing it. Maybe it isn’t our time to do that yet. Maybe we need to learn more. Maybe we are spending so much time looking outward that we aren’t realizing what we are actually contributing to the world.

I am by no means a Bible scholar. I still look at the table of contents to find the books of the Bible, no matter how much my Sunday School teachers tried to get me to memorize them. I can’t quote Scripture off the top of my head, and I don’t want to get in heavy theological discussions because I feel like I don’t bring much to the table. All that aside, I realized this past week when talking to a potential colleague that I’m still contributing. Just like you can do anything else explicitly or implicitly, you can contribute to the world in that way, too. For me, I will never be the person that is leading the Bible studies or devotions. Most of the time I struggle to do my devotions without getting sidetracked. For the first time, I don’t feel like that is a bad thing. Maybe that is just my way. Perhaps, just like I am working on a book that gives “permission” to be the teacher you want to be, I also need to adopt that I can be the Christian that I want to be. My journey and relationship with God doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s. That doesn’t mean it isn’t just as important to me.

Perhaps the best way that we can be the person that God intended us to be is simply to be the person that feels right. Perhaps comparison really is stealing so many things from us, but most importantly time. Maybe comparison is stealing time that I could be spending being the person God wants me to be because I am too worried about being the person that I think is “right.” Maybe this is all too deep for a Sunday morning, but it is what just felt like it needed to come out of me today.