“Comparison always steals joy”
I’ve spent almost a year living in community, and while much of this year has been a blessing and an experience I will cherish forever, the taste of freedom is the motivation keeping me going to the end. And while I have learned so much more about who I am and know that God has changed me to become more like Him, I also question what this year would have been like if circumstances had been different, and if I had refused to allow fear and comparison to prevent me from living out what God called me to.
Because at the end of the day, I still find myself questioning my teammates’ love for me. Despite hearing compliments and kind words, despite encouraging blogs and kind gestures, I struggle to believe that I am accepted, valued, and loved. Instead, I find myself jealous when one teammate pours heart and soul into the planning of another teammate’s birthday, and yet my birthday festivities were minimal. I come to the point of tears when I am not “in the know” because I assume no one cares enough to tell me. Why?
That’s really all there is to it. If I fully trust that God loves me, would I seek so hard to gain acceptance and approval from those around me? If I fully trust that God loves me would I constantly be looking around, seeking equality or better, seeking recognition and expecting those around me to treat me in a certain way? If I fully trust that God loves me, would I be jealous when I see what I assume is others being loved more than I? If I fully trust that God loves me, would I refrain from sharing an encouraging word or speaking Truth?
Joy, however, is…well, what is joy?
Joy is not merely happiness or contentment. Joy is more closely related to pleasure or delight, such as the examples of excited joy over finding what was lost in Luke 15. Or the joy of worshiping God. Or the personal strength that is rooted in the joy of the Lord. But joy is continual, not fading. So when James tells me to consider it pure joy to face trials and hardships – he wants me to be excited and delight in them?
“Comparison always steals joy.”
Sometimes I imagine what God sees when He looks at His creation, those He created in His own image. I imagine that He sees me striving to attain love from any possible location, and as He watches me grasp in every wrong direction, He thinks/speaks “I’m right here! I have so much love for you, love you cannot begin to fathom and love that you will never fully comprehend. I am holding it out to you, offering you everything I have, and yet you don’t see it because you aren’t looking in the right direction – your sight is only on what you see around you. Do not look to the people around you to fulfill what I alone can fulfill. Open your eyes, see Me, want Me, love Me. Because I first loved you.”
To be honest, I often miss out on the joy of the Lord – the delight and excitement of all things that are His, particularly when I compare myself in any way to that which I am not. I know that these struggles and these areas where God is painfully growing me will not end when my feet hit American soil, heck they will probably be heightened. But as Paul said, and I am striving to live out: “I am what I am.” And His joy WILL be my strength.
Ev’ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn’t soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in
