Do you ever compare yourself to others? I do. I’ll go ahead and admit that I sometimes try and size up people in the first few minutes with one standard-bearing question: Are they better than me, or am I better than them? It’s all very subjective, I don’t literally wonder if I’m a better person than someone; but I do wonder if my house is bigger, if my salary is larger, if my church is more heavily attended, if my marriage is healthier, and any other way that I could possibly walk away with a win in this dangerous “compare game.”
Now that you’ve lost total respect for me as a human being, let me say that I believe when you are left to your own human devices, that you are the exact same way. Think about it, how do you feel when you come back from a mission trip where you saw children without adequate clothes and housing? You feel terrible and sad, and leave with an appreciation for NOT being where they are, doing what they are doing. And how do you feel when you leave the dinner party of some fabulously rich medical professional? You feel terrible and sad, and leave with an appreciation for all they have that I do NOT have yet. If you’re not this person, then thank God for people like you.
As I’ve matured and grown to accept my place in the world (cue the Michael W. Smith song), I’ve learned to rise above this stupid “Compare Game.” I’m grown tired of trying to measure myself against the things and people I have no control over. As I read 2 Corinthians 10:12 from The Message Bible, I’m reminded that to compare myself with others is totally missing the point.
2 Corinthians 10:12 “But in all this comparing and grading and competing, they quite miss the point.”
Here are four reasons why the “Compare Game” is a losing proposition:
- I unfairly compare myself to others. I can’t compare my 2 year journey through Bible College with the Doctor that spent 10 years in medical school. Apples and oranges my friend.
- I compare the GAINS of others and not the LOSSES. We do such a great job sometimes of covering the losses of others, and only seeing the positive. Some people have much more than me, because they’ve given up much more than me.
- I tend to overlook my own personal success. I have been good at some things, but when I play the compare game I’m often leaving my own success hidden in the background.
- I disapprove of my own choices. When I fail to take ownership of my own choices in life, then it become easy to be the loser when playing the compare game.
On this great journey of being myself, may the Lord help me to see myself in the light of his wonderful grace and never-ending mercy. I’m striving to only compare myself with the perfect one, Jesus. In this game I always fall short, but it has never kept me from Him.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Hey JC! Good to see you over here on JavaGina's blog.
Great post. I'd be really interested to hear from a woman's point of view. I know us men are competitive in nature and it's so easy to compare since our lives are one big competition. You know what I mean.
I always felt so awkward at CM conferences and meeting Children's Pastors I didn't know. I know that in the back of my head I was comparing, but I also felt this overwhelming sense that I was being compared. I felt like the first question I was asked by a new CP was, “how big is your church?”
I know that this is something we have to surrender over to God, but I'm just curious if this is primarily a guy thing or not. Being that there seems to be a larger number of women in the world of children's ministry, maybe this comparison issue is isolated to just us men.
Good stuff Jonathan.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:49 am
It's always been a dream of mine to post on a blog with the word Java in it…
March 30th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Wow. Now I feel like crap. I always seem to be comparing. You're a better person than I. See, there I go again.
This is a great topic. When I see others that seem to be loaded financially, I have to remind myself that I drive my kids to school often, take my daughters to breakfast once per week, have a wife willing to let me reorganize our lives to introduce people to Christ. I wouldn't trade any of these things for a BMW. However, I'm not saying I'd turn you down if you'd like to donate one to me. Of course, knowing Pepper and I, we'd probably sell it so we could some stuff away or something.
I have a two friends that were from different circles and didn't know each other well and I remember one time friend #1 was dogging friend #2 to me because friend #2 drives a porche. What friend #1 didn't realize was that friend #2 may drive a porche but gives away enough to buy a new porche every year and probably a higher percentage of total income than friend #1.
We should be happy to see others being blessed, then look at how God has blessed us. He did, just in a different way.
Sorry to ramble. this is your blog, so I'll shut up and get off now. BTW miss working with ya
March 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
A woman's perspective, Kenny? Well, I doubt it's much different from a man's. We compare, but using different criteria. How well does she juggle home and work? I think women tend to take the Proverb 31 'scale' and compare our progress with other women. For those that appear to be better at the balancing act, we admire and secretly wish we could be more like them. For those that appear to be worse… well, we internally pat their heads and pray for their progress.
Male or female… we all agree, it's a dangerous game.
March 30th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
JC,
You guys set the standard for rearranging your life to do what God asks of you. You can ramble all you want.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
The Compare Game – well I never suffer from this at all – it's too bad you guys have struggled with this
… Honestly though the compare game is one of the reasons why I read the book by Andrew Murray called Humility, every year… In student ministry, it seems there is a big “compare game” at times. Everyone is looking to see what the other guy is up too and wondering how big his or her youth groups is. When we have students go from our youth group to the other guy's for certain events and such, we ask the student to tell us “Insider info” so we can compare and see if we are bigger and better… It seems we all do it and I hate the fact that I do it too.
This even happens within departments i,e middle school -vs- high school. What's funny though is that since I'm the middle school pastor I benefit from a bigger cm because that means I will have a large incoming class. And I get satisfaction when the hs ministry is bigger, because that means we did a great job of building anticipation and transition with our outgoing students – which means I have a healthy ms ministry. So for me, at least from an internal standpoint, the compare game can be a positive thing at times.
Recently, I've been filtering through the compare game, because I'm taking over our cm and also becoming the family ministries director. Our old cm did an awesome job, but she is resigning because she is having a baby. Her (my) staff is worried about a lot of things, but it has been brought up that since I'm not a woman, how will I change things, or will I be sensitive to the things that women are sensitive to (I'm the first male cm that our church has ever had). I'm not even really thinking about that stuff, I'm thinking about the fact that I haven't been in cm for about 3 years, or the fact that I'm going from a staff of four, to a staff of 18 and etc… I really don't have the luxury of the compare game at this time, but I can see both the positive and negative of it…
Sorry for the long post, but I was just comparing my long post to that of JC…
Awesome topic!
Joe