You know what I am tired of?
C O M P A R I S O N
Not the comparison that pushes me to be a better Jesus follower. No. The comparison that steals, kills, and destroys. The comparison that plunges bitterness right into the heart and spreads resentment all throughout the body. The comparison that eats away at someones real identity because it is trying to tell them to be something they are truly not. The comparison that causes so much confusion it sends logic running out the door and makes way for the lies to march on in.
The comparison says you are not worthy of love. The comparison that says you will never measure up. The comparison that looks you dead in the face, and makes you question who you really are.
The comparison that screams you are not good enough.
It is that comparison that drives me nuts. The one that leads to death. Leads people to question their worth because they are placing it in hands of jealousy, or pride, or selfishness, to insecurity.
And I am so mad because you know what it does? It robs people of their true identities. It tells them that they are not good enough and need to do something or be something other than who the Lord has called me to be just to measure up. To be good enough. To make a mark. To meet an imagined standard. It takes their eyes off of the Father, and onto other people.
It fuels this anger in me and it is not because I do not understand it, but because I fully understand and had lived in it for so long and let it dictate way too many of my decisions and thought patterns. I let it dictate who I was. I let comparison tell me who I was rather than let the one who actually created me tell me who I was.
Now I am not saying all comparison is bad. There is comparison that leads to life and back to Jesus. The comparison to older, wiser people who have walked with the Lord longer than us that can lead to desiring to have a strong faith as they do. The comparison to those who have self-discipline and boundaries for themselves that make others want to set their own boundaries and take ownership. The comparison that makes others want to follow Jesus more and more. I like that comparison.
But most of the comparison we do leads to death because it is usually rooted in something deeper. For me it was not believing in my identity and being insecure in who the Lord called me. For me it was looking at all my prettier friends and devaluing my beauty because I was comparing mine to theirs. It looked like resentment and bitterness being created in my heart towards those I loved most because I wanted “what they had” They apparently had something I did not have because I believed they gained more attention than I did and were more loved. And I felt needed that something. I needed it, and I was willing to do anything to get it. To get something that was not even there.
And my comparison was rooted in lies. Lies I didn’t know I even believed until the Lord told me and revealed to me how I was living them out. The lie that I have to be externally beautiful in order to be liked by men. The lie that I would only be desirable if I was likeable. The lie that all my other friends had this something that made people want them, and I was missing the “it” factor. And these lies created resentment in me towards them. It made me resent something the Lord intentionally created and put in them. I resented the Lords creation. Mmmmm. Ouch. I never wanted to resent something the Lord made, but I was.
But the Lord set me free from that. Back in the Philippines in my eighth month of my race I called a house meeting with the other six girls I was living with. Read scripture over them, and then proceeded to go to each individual girl and spoke truth over their identities in the Lord. I would not necessarily go on and on about how their features are beautiful, but about how their hearts are beautiful in different ways and how they each embody a characteristic of the Lord. It was honestly one of the most freeing things I have ever done and now I struggle very little to not at all with comparison….in that area.
Do I still compare in other ways? Oh yes. Are my blogs good enough? Are my pictures on instagram and the captions good enough? Am I a good enough team leader? I compare all those things with other peoples and it makes me feel less than, but those are things I am still working on. But reality is I am still trying to meet an expectation that I have made up in my mind. So why not ask the creator of the universe what he thinks? Why don’t I walk out my identity as enough rather than strive to be something I already am?
If you struggle with comparison, you are not alone. Ask the Lord how he wants to set you free from it and reveal to you the lies you believe and use comparison for good rather than letting it continue to bring you death. I believe with my whole heart he desires that for you and will give you an answer. May not be one you want, but he’ll give it to ya. Thanks for listening to my heart on this. More to come.
-Kyla Cal
