The Comparison Game

The comparison game: we play it all the time.  It started young. It always seemed like someone else had a better toy, more ice cream, got to stay up later, or choose the movie.  In the teen years the comparison game got even more competitive.  There were obvious "winners" and "losers" based on appearance, abilities, and possessions.  Everywhere we looked we were rating ourselves on the coolness scale compared to others around us.  Adults still play the comparison game and the rules haven't changed much.  We still want to be more attractive, successful and talented than those around us and get frustrated when others seem to have it more together than we do.  But sometimes, I think, our area of comparison is just too small.  Sometimes

who we choose to compare ourselves with can make us think way too little or way too much of ourselves.  It's not an accurate comparison.  

I played homeschool basketball in high school.  There are no try-outs for homeschool basketball (at least not with the league I played for). Anyone who wants to play is welcome on the team.  Now, I was pretty good, one of the better players on the team.  Did that make me an excellent basketball player? One could see how I could think that.  I could convince myself by looking around that I was going to suddenly make a career out of playing basketball, when in fact, I had no idea how my skills measured up to other high school players.  I could be the star player on a team with no try-outs and still not even make the team for the local high school. There was no standard for comparing.  It wasn't a fair or accurate comparison. 

The wrong standard of comparison can make us think more of ourselves than we ought, but it can also make us think less of ourselves.  Take for example the Facebook Comparison Phenomenon.  We read our newsfeed on Facebook and suddenly EVERYONE but us has _____ (fill in the blank: a successful career, the new iPhone, adorable family photos, amazing vacations, etc.)  But is it really everyone?  Or just the ones who have something exciting enough to post about it on Facebook right now?  It's such a tiny snapshot of people's lives that it hardly gives an accurate comparison even though it feels like it sometimes. It's just not a fair comparison.  

Sometimes when we get caught up in the comparison game, either thinking we are worthless or thinking way too much of ourselves, God hits us over the head with reality.  Our comparison is too small.  "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" God asks in Job 38:4.  He tells Jeremiah, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches..."(Jer. 9:23).  Then He follows with his own credentials for glory in 10:12-13, setting a new standard for comparison.  "He made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and he has stretched out the heavens at his discretion.  When he udders his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens..."  Humbling, huh?  How can our might, wisdom, or riches compare with that?  

And yet, even though we have nothing to be prideful of in comparison to God, he has chosen to exalt us, care for us, commune with us.  David writes, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you visit him? For you made him a little lower than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor.  You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands..." (Psalm 8:3-6).  In Matthew, Jesus encourages us to compare ourselves to other aspects of his creation to understand his love and care.  "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet our Heavenly Father feeds the.  Are you not more valuable than they?...And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?" (Matt. 6:28-30).  

Of course, the ultimate expression of our undeserved worth in God's eyes is his sacrifice for us.  "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:12).  Let's go back to the passage in Jeremiah.  After telling us not to glory in our own wisdom, might, or riches, God says this: "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am The Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgement and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says The Lord" (Jer. 9:24). Next time you find yourself playing the comparison game, try broadening the playing field. Looking at who God is and what he says about us puts everything back in perspective.  Otherwise its just not a fair comparison.