Breaking Free From the Comparison Trap

Scripture: Matthew 6:31-34

When Jesus lived on earth during the first century, money created a huge divide. A person with money could afford to pay someone else to do the hard stuff. A person who was not wealthy had nothing. Almost literally. Much like in developing countries today, people didn’t know where tomorrow’s food was coming from or how to pay their taxes. Not paying your bills didn’t increase the interest; instead, you sold yourself into slavery so your new master would pay your debts. These were the people Jesus was speaking to as he sat on the side of a mountain and delivered what we call today the Sermon on the Mount. 

As we think this week about how to overcome a comparison mindset, these words will be our touchstone, the words we come back to again and again. Whether you compare yourself to your coworkers, who seem to be promoted while you still struggle to be noticed; or you compare yourself to the pretty people on social media who seem to have it all (and have it all together); or you compare yourself to people who have reached all the milestones of family, career, and success that you wanted and planned for yourself – no matter what comparison mindset you struggle with, the answer is here, in the words of Jesus: 

“Seek first the kingdom of God.” 

As we read through this week, we’ll see several people who start out with a mindset that compares what they have to the people around them but who end with a mind and heart focused on God. And that makes all the difference. 

Pray: Dear God, you have given me so much. I still struggle sometimes with finances and relationships and disappointments and health issues, but you are faithful. Help me to keep my mind focused on you. Amen.

Scriptures: 1 Samuel 13:3-14, 1 Samuel 18:28-29, Psalms 23

Many people are familiar with Psalm 23 as something read at funerals. It brings us peace and comfort to remember God is with us even in the darkest valley. When David wrote this psalm, he was going through an incredibly hard time. 

David was a young man, loved by the people and especially by King Saul’s daughter. David was a strong warrior, having killed Goliath, a notorious and intimidating Philistine soldier, not too long before. While God has taken his blessing away from Saul, as we read in 1 Samuel 13, God seems to be blessing David right and left. 

Saul is filled with anger and jealousy and is waiting for his opportunity to kill David. Their story goes on for many chapters in 1 Samuel. David eventually has to go on the run, hiding from Saul. He has a small band of warriors with him, but he is separated from family. He has no income, no shelter, no food (except what he can find along the way), and his life is hanging in the balance. 

You can imagine David might be asking God to explain himself, or to get rid of Saul, or to change the circumstances one way or another. In many of the psalms he wrote, David does exactly that. But in Psalm 23, he writes words of peace and contentment. It is God who leads, provides, and shelters him. Saul compared himself to David, and was miserable; David simply sought after God and had peace. 

Pray: Dear God, thank you for providing for me, for leading me, and for giving me a place to rest. Help me to focus on you instead of how my circumstances aren’t exactly like I wish they were. Give me peace through this time. Amen.

Scripture: Genesis 29:31-34

Have you ever been at a school dance with your friends, and your crush starts walking toward your group? You hope that finally, they might be asking you to dance! Instead, they turn to your friend and ask them to go dance. Not a fun feeling, right? 

Leah knows this feeling and then some. When Jacob talked to her dad, it was her sister Rachel he really wanted to marry. Their dad tricked Jacob and made him marry Leah first because he had no expectation she was going to get a marriage proposal anytime soon. No man wanted to marry Leah, her father didn’t want to support her any longer, and now the man she is married to doesn’t love her. 

It’s easy for a person in Leah’s situation to compare her life to her sister’s. Leah is focused on her misery, and we see this in the names of her first three sons. “God has seen my misery.” “The LORD heard I am not loved.” “Now my husband will become attached to me.” Still, her circumstances don’t change. 

But she changes. Instead of focusing on her situation, Leah turns her eyes to God. She names her fourth son Judah, which means “praise.” “This time,” she says, “I will praise the LORD.” 

Are your circumstances difficult right now? Instead of comparing your life to others or to what you wish your life was, can you find a reason to praise today? Let that change your mindset, as you focus on the God who loves you and wants to work all of these circumstances for the good of those who love God. 

Pray: Dear God, you are the one I praise! You are loving and kind, merciful to forgive my sin. I know you are faithful, and I can trust in you. Help me to focus on you instead of on my situation so that my mind is filled with praise. Amen.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, Philippians 4:11-13

The book of Acts tells us what happened to the apostles after Jesus’s death and resurrection. The second half focuses on Paul, a Jew who persecuted Christians and then became one himself. He traveled around the Roman empire, telling Gentiles, people who were not born Jewish, about Jesus Christ. The Jews didn’t like it, and the Romans didn’t, either. He was beaten, spit on, stoned almost to death, shipwrecked, and eventually killed because he followed Jesus. He summarizes his hardships in his second letter to the Corinthian church. 

About six years after Paul wrote the second letter to the Corinthians, he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi, while in prison. A few years after that, he would be killed for his faith. He had seen a lot in his life. He knew what it meant to suffer. But as many people do when death is close, he focused on what was most important, and most on his mind, when he wrote to the Phillippian church. 

“I have learned to be content.” 

He is saying this specifically in relation to money. He wants the church to know he is grateful for the money they sent. Prisoners only ate if someone paid for their food; the Roman government was not obligated to treat its prisoners well – but he isn’t demanding anything from the church. He is content, with much or with little, and he tells them he has learned the secret: 

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

This verse speaks specifically about contentment. “I can be content in any situation because Christ gives me strength.” It’s not a scenario of gritting your teeth and pushing through the hardship. The key is to focus on Christ. He has already given us forgiveness for sin; he won’t abandon us in the everyday situations of life. It is not our strength but his that will give us that contentment, which is the very opposite of a comparison mindset. 

Pray: Dear God, help me to be content in every situation. Help me to rely on your strength, which is enough to create and sustain the world, and on your love, which never fails. Amen. 

Scripture: Lamentations 3:16-33

Have you ever felt like everyone is against you? Jeremiah did, and he’d mostly be right! God gave Jeremiah a message to give to God’s people. It was a message to repent from their sin, or else destruction would come when other nations attacked them. But life was good in Israel then, and they didn’t want to listen. They couldn’t make Jeremiah stop preaching, so they threw him in a pit. 

This was a cistern, a big hole dug out of the hard desert soil. When you dig a well, you eventually hit water, and water fills the well from the bottom up. That doesn’t happen in the desert. Instead, it catches rainwater. Which, in the desert, is infrequent. When it rains in the desert, there are flash floods; the ground is too hard and can’t absorb the water, so it runs off, into the cistern. Along with the dung of animals, dirt, and debris. The people threw Jeremiah into this mess. In Jeremiah 38, he writes that he was lowered into the cistern, which had no water, only mud, and he sank into it. Yuck. 

In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah complains about his situation. You can read more about it in verses 1-15. But notice verse 21. “All of these bad things are happening to me.” 

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” 

His circumstances didn’t change, but his perspective did. His focus did. Instead of focusing on the smelly mud up to his chest and the walls he couldn’t climb, he focused on the compassion, faithfulness, and love of God. These will never fail. 

As we struggle through life’s hardships, we can change our focus. Instead of comparing our lives to what we wish they were, we can focus on the never-ending love of God. The love of God never changes, and that changes everything. 

Pray: Dear God, your love and faithfulness never fail! Your compassion is new every morning. I can rely on that. Help me to focus on your faithfulness as I walk through this struggle. You will never leave me. Amen.

Scriptures: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:17-27

Do you ever look at pictures on social media and wish you had the pretty white kitchen, the perfect bookshelves, and the pretty, perfect family to go with them? You want your tablescapes to be worthy of a magazine. You want everyone to rave about your perfectly decorated cupcakes or your spotless new car. And you beat yourself up when your efforts fall short of what you imagined. 

Martha understands. Her brother Lazarus has brought home a guest, this man Jesus that everyone is talking about. She wants to give him her best. There sits Mary, not helping with the cleaning and the cooking. Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help, and instead, he reprimands her for focusing on the wrong things. 

Sometime later, Lazarus died. Jesus comes into town, and Martha runs out to meet him. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to his teaching, but here he gives Martha a beautiful promise: “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe me?” “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah.” The one God had promised. The one who will save us all from our sins. 

She is standing in the street on one of the worst days of her life. Her brother is dead. Not only does her heart hurt from the loss of a brother she loves, but now her very life is precarious; with no one to provide for their welfare, these sisters would be destitute. She believes her brother will be raised to heaven in the future; she doesn’t realize that future is only moments away. In her mind, nothing has changed. 

Except that she knows who Jesus is and that God has kept his promise to bring a savior. Mary did it first, but Martha came to understand it, too: we must seek what’s best, Jesus himself. 

Pray: Dear God, thank you for your forgiveness, for sending your son to die for my sins. I want to know you more. Help me to seek you in every circumstance. Amen.

Scripture: John 21:15-23

If you’ve ever worked with or raised children, you know that even young children understand fairness. Accidentally break Johnny’s cookie, setting two equal halves on the napkin, and Joey will say, “He has more!” Joey sees two pieces, not understanding that two halves equal one whole. 

Here is Peter. Jesus is alive! But right before his death on the cross, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. As they sit on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, eating fish for breakfast, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter replies, “Of course!” Peter denied Jesus three times that night, and so Jesus asks him three times to reaffirm his love and trust of Jesus. 

This could be a moment of sweet joy, receiving forgiveness from Jesus and being given a task to do for God, going forward, and also a warning of how Peter will die. Instead, Peter feels reprimanded, and in his discomfort, he looks around the gathering of disciples. He points to John, the only one who stayed with Jesus as he hung on the cross. “What about him, Jesus?” 

“If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.” 

We look around and see the blessings God has given to others. We feel somehow slighted. Somehow less loved. That’s our insecurity talking. God is completely, fully love. He can’t be less love over here and more love over there. It’s not what he does; it’s who he IS. So, when we compare the blessings God gives to others against what we see in our own lives, we’re missing the point. 

“As for you, follow me.” 

That’s what this life is all about, seeking to love God and to love people. That is the focus that will change our comparison mindset. That’s the focus that matters. 

Pray: Dear God, you are good and loving and kind. Every good thing I have is because you gave it to me. Help me to love you with all my heart and to love others, because that is what you have called me to do. Amen.