Don’t compare yourself with others …

Several years ago the Lord showed me the following “picture”.

In this picture I found myself in a car on a very wide freeway that was about 10 lanes wide with all lanes going up hill. I was in a car in the middle lane. I looked to my left and then my right and in front of me and behind me and I remember thinking:

Wow! I’m doing really good (in my Christian walk) because I’m keeping up with everyone. They are not pulling ahead of me and I’m not falling behind.

I found this scene very comforting to me.

The scene then changed and instead of me being in one of the cars, I now found myself standing on the edge of this freeway. Although I didn’t see Him, I knew that I was standing next to Jesus and that what I was now seeing was how He saw things. What I saw horrified me because every single one of the cars, including the one I initially found myself in, were slowly rolling backwards and in that instant I knew that these “Christians” (that is what the cars represented) were all losing ground and going in the wrong direction.

I also knew in that instant that I shouldn’t compare myself to others because it can, and probably will, give a false sense of achievement. Galatians 6:4 tells us:

Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else

Some years ago I had a pastor tell me that he had numerous people tell him that his ministry was twice as good as any other similar ministry and he was wondering why I was suggesting any improvements when things were twice as good. The problem is if the other ministries were only 1% of what they should be, then his ministry was only 2% of what it should be and that is not something to brag about.

Sadly we live in a world, especially here in the United States, where we are constantly comparing ourselves with others. We compare ourselves with our neighbors, family, friends, actors/actresses in Hollywood, or any number of other people and as a result we need the newest car, the best clothes, the biggest house, the largest office, the latest cell phone, etc. and for what? What does it accomplish, in a Heavenly perspective?

So I pray that the Lord will open our eyes to see ourselves and our situations from His perspective so if there is any comparison going on it is comparing ourselves with Him and what He wants us to be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 at 2:44 AM and is filed under Lessons Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.