Do you ever just find it so easy to compare yourself to others? For a while now I have found it easy to play the comparison game. By a while, try my whole life. And recently God has really been speaking to that.
A leader on my squad came to me during worship at launch and said that she felt as if God was saying about me, “Him. Him. He is the one that I love and am pleased with. He doesn’t have to look like others around him. He doesn’t have to be what I didn’t create him for, he can be himself with me. I love Him and how he worships Me, even if it is different than those around him”. And this was just a huge burden lifted off of me, because I play the comparison game and boy am I good at it. Like, first round draft pick good.
Henri Nouwen said, “Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be”.
I think this quote is really good at face value but also if you look at it a little more intricately. “As great as each of us CAN be”. Notice it doesn’t say each of us IS.
As an RA a popular thing that our RDs (bosses) and other res life leaders would tell us is “We ask that you give all that you can that day for our job. There will be days where 100% will not be able to go into being an RA, and that is okay. Just give us all that you can”.
The wonderful thing about spiritual living is that it is not blind to the ebs and flows of life either. There will be days where the greatest you can be in that moment is a short and simple prayer. The spiritual life is not an expecting life where God is telling us that we have to always be in the mood to jump up and down at worship, or to wake up every day at 6am to do an hour long bible study each morning. The spiritual life calls us to do what we can. Look at Mary Magdalene washing Jesus feet, or the woman who gave what seemed so little tithe amidst those who were giving so much, but in that moment was giving her all. That is what the spiritual life is about. It is about doing what you can even when it isn’t much. So often for me I get caught up in this comparison game. I look at others in worship and I see them always jumping up and down or dancing. And there are days where I am just not able to give that. (That also is not much of who i am to begin with). When I get in this comparison game I find that I don’t get a lot out of worship, especially on the days where I just need to have my discussions with God and I feel as if the voice of comparison, and sometimes others, are trying to tug me in this direction to fit in and worship like the majority, or fit in to look the part and blend in.
Just recently I have had the realization that with my personality, finding out how to be accepted and fit in is quite the strong suite of mine. This is not always good because I can suppress who I am and who God has created me to be to try to fit this mold. God did not create an apple tree to have pinecones, or pears but to have apples. No matter how much you want to be this other person outside of your place within the body of Christ, that is not where God has equipped you. You will not become another part of the body.
Now this is not an excuse to look at growth and say that is not for me. Everyone can grow. Growth has to be a part of the spiritual walk. But the way we grow does not always look the same. If it did, talk about putting God in a box.
I have come to realize something with me. When I am worshipping, it is not about what other people around me are doing. It is about what am I going to do with God. How am I going to connect with Him. I can’t connect with God if I am in a place where I am acting and uncomfortable because of it. (Also, being uncomfortable is a great thing for growth, please don’t hear me say it isn’t). But when you are trying to be intentional and intimate with God, God wants you to feel welcomed.
Not only is this post one to say, “stop comparing yourself and looking down on yourself”. But it is also a call to stop looking at others as not as spiritual because they are different. The person who sits down for worship is no less valuable than the one who jumps and runs around the room. That would really be contradictory to the Kingdom of God that values people who physically can’t stand if they wanted to. The beautiful thing about the Kingsom of God is the vastness of ways people express worship. The vastness of different spiritual walks. The diversity! God created humanity in His image. All if humanity! How diverse!
Be sure to keep me in your prayers in this aspect and that God would continue to make me into who He wants me to be and not what others want me to be or what I think others want me to be!
Hopefully I will be able to get some pics and videos out soon! Those will be a lot more touristy looking for the sake of safety and because I want to publish those a lot more publicly. But, be on the look out!
