Comparisons and Why They Just Don't Measure Up

What do you think about comparisons?  Do you think it's good or bad to compare ourselves with others?  Do you do it?  Does it bother you, or make you feel better?  I think comparisons do have a good and appropriate place in our society, in health care for example.  How else would I have know that my son David is (a little ironically) gargantuan for his age, or that my Dad should cut salt out of his diet because his blood pressure was out of normal limits?  Yes, comparisons can save lives.  But in the wrong context they can also cripple us.

Let me be the first to step forward and be honest.  My name is Bek and I compare myself a lot with other people.  Sometimes it makes me feel better, to the detriment of other people in my thinking, and sometimes it makes me feel horribly inadequate.  I've been challenged in my comparing tendencies on two different fronts lately.  The first was at the recent Equip Ministry Wives conference.

This year's conference was called 'The Fear Factor' and was all about the fears that we face when we're involved in ministry.  This issue of comparing ourselves to other people was a recurring theme of the day.  Phillip Jensen mentioned in one of his talks, that in Australia and I suspect most of the western world, our very society  is built on comparisons. In removing the concept of absolute truth from our frame of reference, all we have left is comparisons.  We are encouraged to judge everything on a bell curve; so long as I'm better than someone else, I'm okay.  This is definitely not a biblical perspective.  God most definitely does not encourage us to seek the world's approval, or even their measuring system.  We are to look to please God only - to play to an audience of one.  In the context of the conference, if there are other women that you find intimidating because of how capable and gifted they seem in ministry, then praise God! We're on the same team after all!

All of this was a great reminder and encouragement not to compare myself with others, but I still found myself leaving with the nagging question of just how do I do that practically.  Enter college Bible study.

Last week I was leading our college Bible study on Galatians 6.  It was the first time that I've led this year, and is so obviously providential in both the timing of the study and also the content.  I sat down on Monday night to prepare and found myself reading,

"¹ Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, ⁵for each one should carry his own load."


How should I stop comparing myself with others?  I should look to God and see how I appear before him.  There is no bell curve.  In the words of Isaiah, "⁶ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."  There is no point in looking around and comparing to those around us, because we all fall equally short, if not for the amazing saving work of Christ.  Safe in his arms we can find a true and lasting comfort.

In Addition: 
This seems to be a really big lesson that God is teaching me currently.  This morning I went to Community Chapel at Moore and the sermon was on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 and not judging others, not worrying about what they say or think about us, or making judgements on them.  Now to put it all into action, internally and externally!

Photograph by bionicteaching from Flickr.