The Comparison Trap

Oh man, this week has been BEAUTIFUL here in Colorado!  No more snow, tons of sunshine to run around in, and we even got to enjoy a pretty rocking thunderstorm which reminded all of us of home.  Seriously, my kids ran down the stairs squealing and yelling, "Thunder!"  It was great.  We sat on the porch like we used to when we lived in Texas and watched the storm roll through.  I actually sucked in a giant lung full of humid air and sighed with delight.  It's been a dry winter.

It's been a dry winter here, but I don't feel like it has been dry spiritually.  I feel like every single day, Jesus is knocking me over with something else I desperately need to GET and I can't even keep up with it all.  Like literally in the past three days I have had three different posts rolling around in my brain.  Don't worry, I wont yap at you forever today.  Theres a chunk of Galatians that I want to dig into with you but first I want to share something that has been CONVICTING my guts out this week.

Oh man, 1 Samuel is such a great book!  This week as I was reading through about 17-20ish, Saul really stuck out to me.  I mean, he started out so well.  Super humble and stuff.  I mean, the guy was hiding when Samuel wanted to anoint him.  You could basically feel that he knew he wasn't worthy.  But then you walk a little farther through the book and he begins to think pretty highly of himself and stops waiting on the Lord and taking things into his own hands.  Bad news bears right there.  Then, they come back in from battle and 1 Samuel 18:7 says:

"Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands."

And Saul just sort of loses it here.  Like, he is a complete nutcase after this.  He is tossing spears at David.  Telling people he is going to kill him.  Taking it back.  More tossing of spears.  Eventually, Saul ends up tossing a spear at his own son!  WHOA!  What happened here, right?  Well, as I was praying this through, the Lord smacked me gently and said "Want to know what happened to Saul?  He got caught in the COMPARISON TRAP."

I totally know there was some other stuff going on here for sure, but this is an area that the Lord is trying to grow me in, and it was just such a beautiful parallel.

Saul couldn't hear the praise that people gave him, because the praise that those same people gave someone else was bigger, louder.  Saul didn't just want to be praised, he wanted to get the biggest best praise.  None of what he did mattered unless it was more than what David had done.  And so it ate away at him.  Everything was under suspicion.  It affected his relationships with others besides David.

And here we are at the point where I pour out my guts in personal application.  Promise you'll still love me?

This is so my problem, too.  Ouch.  There.  I said it.  We live in a very comparison based society.  Our flesh longs to compare.  And it's something my heart struggles with.  I'm okay with not having a perfectly clean house, as long as it's cleaner than most of my friends.  I'm okay with not being gorgeous or having great hair or a perfect figure, as long as everyone around me isn't too much better than me.  I'm okay with making mistakes in the spiritual side of things, as long as everyone else has made these same mistakes and won't judge me.  And if I fall short in one of these areas, my mind immediately goes to "okay, so she's better than me in this area, but I've so got her beat in this one."  Now, I will say that I don't usually think these thoughts out in such a clear way.  If I did, I would have to deal with myself and I would probably sin less.  HA!  But these are the quiet thoughts roaming around in the background noise of life and it STINKS.

I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THE COMPARISON TRAP!

When someone points out an area where I am weak, I don't want to immediately find their weak point so I feel better about me.  When someone else is praised for doing something awesome, I don't want my first reaction to be to find something great that I have done so I don't feel intimidated.  Isn't that what a lot of this is about?  Feeling intimidated.  Saul felt intimidated, that he might lose his throne.  He didn't know the character of David.  David was not after dethroning Saul!  But Saul lived the rest of his life defensive and intimidated and angry and boy that does NOT sound like a fun life to me.  But DUDE!    I live way too often in fear that I might lose my throne too.  BUT JESUS BELONGS ON THE THRONE, not me.  Don't we do this too? (Am I the only one?)  Have you never in your life shied away from a friendship with someone because their good qualities were so intimidating?  I have!  I am so thankful that Jesus has been working on that in me for years or I so wouldn't have been able to be friends with so many of you sweet ladies that I know.  But the part that really got me this week is this:

Can I rejoice when someone else rocks it?

Without comparison?

Without the need to see if I also measure up?

Without the need to point out to someone that I too am great at that?

Can I live with my eyes off of myself???

Isn't that really the issue here?  Saul was all about Saul because he had lost the closeness and dependency on God.  When it's all about me, its totally an indication that I have lost that closeness and dependency on the Spirits work in my life.

Which totally ties into our section this week in Galatians!
Galatians 3:10-25...go read it!
I love how this all ties in.  Basically, Paul is saying here that we have never been justified by the works of the law.  The law isn't bad. (vs 21 Certainly not!) but justification all the way back to Abraham, before the law was even around, has always been about HIS PROMISE and HIS WORK.  Verse 25 says "But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."  I didn't have time this week to listen to a study on this, so this is just me and my brain, but I think the point here is that now we have the Holy Spirit to guide us instead of the law.  And the Spirit is way better than the law ever was.  I left some meaty verse there for you guys to dig into, so let's hear your thoughts.  :)