Playing the comparison game

This blog post has mostly been inspired by a talk entitled ‘Stay in Your Lane’ by Robert Madu at the HTB Leadership conference. It was a very challenging talk, but also spoke to a number of us who went so I really suggest you give it a listen.

Comparision.

It’s all around us, just a “natural” aspect of our life, and it’s relatively harmless right? I mean everyone does it, and unless you start being jealous of someone because of who they are, it’s not ungodly, or is it?

Whenever I used to receive marked work at Uni, my first response wasn’t to praise God for the mark, but to compare it against my friends. I’d judge myself academically against them, but that would also lead into comparing their lives against mine and then just comparing myself up against anyone. I’d question God why I wasn’t like X, or have Y’s character or look like Z. Suddenly, comparing myself against others wasn’t just a mental comparison between me and them, but me questioning, doubting God about who he made me to be.

Let's put this in prospective, this is the God who designed the Universe, and I’m trying to tell him that I think he made me wrong!?!

A lot of us are probably familiar with Psalm 139, but it’s good to read the words again.

“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!

Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

The days of my life all prepared

before I’d even lived one day.”

I love the line “Body and soul, I am marvelously made!” I find it really hits home for me. Why? Because God designed us to be exactly how we are. There are no mistakes, no missing pieces. Yes we can and should grow in character and spiritual giftings, but God designed you to be you so stop trying to be someone else.

You are God’s masterpiece, so stop complaining about the pieces you don’t have and praise him for who God has made you.

(This blog was originally posted on www.belfreystudents.org/blog)