It has been said that almost all of our unhappiness is the result of comparing ourselves to others What a surprising thought! Our unhappiness comes from comparing ourselves to others?
In the world around us, everything is judged by comparison We like Fords compared to Chevrolets, we prefer a General Electric product over Frigidaire. We compare one sports figure to another and sometimes argue who was the greatest pitcher, or quarterback or tennis champion of all time. We compare our grades in school, salaries, cars, homes, cooking ability, etc All the time we are comparing one thing to another, ourselves against others.
Comparing ourselves to one another can be very discouraging because we can always find someone who seems to have it all together and we think in our hearts, “I can never do what they do” We may give up and not even try, which can cause frustration and even depression.
We sometimes get a false sense of security by looking down on someone so we can say to ourselves, “Well, in comparison to him or her, I’m not so bad.”
Paul tells us we should not compare ourselves to one another He puts it this way “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”
The disciple of Christ is led astray if he tries to compare favorably with worldly standards, and he is full of pride if he feels smugly self-righteous compared to others Either way the man who compares lacks wisdom.
Another problem is, unlike God who knows everything, we really do not know what is going on in the other person’s mind or life, so our comparisons tend to be superficial The person who appears to have it all together may be struggling with life and having difficulty The person we tend to feel superior to may have overcome something we know nothing about, if only we knew the truth, we would not have felt him to be so inferior Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
The point is that we are not to compare ourselves because we don’t know the whole picture, our fleshly nature tends to admire worldly standards, and these comparisons can cause us to falsely commend ourselves, or, bring unhappiness over our supposed inadequacies.
God has never made two individuals exactly alike, not since Adam and Eve Identical twins are not really identical God looks on our hearts and He knows what we can do and He will never ask us to do more than we are able So let’s get on with life and thank God for what we have and begin to do what we can with what we have right where we are Life is too short to fret about what others have or are doing When Peter asked Jesus about the apostle John, what Jesus told him also applies to us Jesus said to him, “What is that to you? You follow me.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One