A most dangerous game that you should never play
How do you stop playing the comparison game? It’s a game with no winners, only discouragement for the participants.
We’ve often heard, “Don’t compare yourself to others!” “but do we listen?
Just this morning, I heard of a family with another healthy-born child, adding to their number of over five kids. How quickly my mind jumped to the thought, “some people can have a large family, and all their children are born healthy. Why couldn’t we have just four healthy kids?”
When this type of thought enters my mind, I can either tell it to pack its negativity and evict it from my brain, or let it make its little nest, lay its eggs, and hatch its young. Allowing comparison to stay will only produce more comparisons and more discouragement.
What are some things I can remind myself of when I’m tempted to compare my situation with others?
- God has designed the life He gave me for a particular purpose
- I have different blessings and difficulties because my story is different. God writes our scripts as uniquely as He created us to be unique.
- I must focus on my blessings, not on the things I think I lack
- When I recognize all the ways God has blessed my life, I can be happy for others and how God potentially blesses them differently
- God intends good things for me. Things that He knows I need. I may not see the good of it right now, but His good is an eternal good. His ways and thoughts are higher than mine. That is why He is God, and I am not. That is why I must TRUST in His provisions and timing.
Nothing good comes from comparison. It’s a joy killer and friendship destroyer. It blinds us to our many blessings, and its appetite is never satisfied.
My story is not finished. I don’t know all the ways the plot will twist and turn. Maybe in God’s time, I, too, will receive that particular blessing I desire. And perhaps time will show that my desires were misplaced, and I will thank God for prayers answered in unexpected ways.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
