“Comparison will highjack your gratitude.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – November 20, 2022
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
I’m one of those “glass-is-half-full” people. Got lemons? Make lemonade! Hurting heart? Sing a song! Downcast spirit? Turn to the loving Lord.
I believe there are answers for every problem in life and most of those answers lie in perspective and believing God’s truth. But I haven’t always been a “lemonade-making, song-singing, looking-to-the-Lord” type of girl.
There was a long season in my life when I was depressed, and I felt horrible about myself. I believed the Lord was denying my desire for marriage and I wrongly thought that delayed answers to my prayers meant permanent denial. I looked around at everyone else and it seemed they were all getting what they wanted. What about me?
In my early forties (around the time I cried for a couple weeks because I knew I wouldn’t have children), I walked through the front doors of my go-to grocery store and looked at the left hands of everyone who passed by to see if they wore wedding rings. They had someone to hold last night, I thought. I felt left out and overlooked by God.
Comparing myself to others, along with believing the lie that God had forgotten me had robbed the song from my heart, stolen my joy, and hijacked my gratitude.
Looking back, I recognize I didn’t believe God truly loved me or that He had a special plan to bring me out into a wide, open, and spacious place. How could I have understood at the time that the emotional grief I was experiencing was shaping me to be more open to marriage and becoming part of a new family?
But at the time, comparing myself to others was only hurting me. Maybe you have heard the phrase, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” And where joy is absent, gratitude goes with it. If you’re constantly comparing yourself to others, you’ll most likely feel inferior—and like me, you could feel overlooked and ignored by the Lord. You may feel as if you aren’t good enough and that Jesus doesn’t love you.
Where there is comparison, there is no room for believing God has passionate, devoted love for you and that He won’t ever deny you any good thing (Psalm 84:11). Comparison will cause you to look around with envying eyes and wish you were like them and wonder why God doesn’t love you that way. Comparison makes God into a withholder, a punisher, or a distant deity who doesn’t care, when He is none of those things. Comparison, my friend, will steal the song from your heart and highjack your gratitude.
Maybe you’ve heard that it’s a good idea to rise each morning and list what you are grateful for. While I believe this is a great idea, it takes more to get to true gratitude if you are comparing yourself to others and feel overlooked. You need to combat the lies that Jesus doesn’t care or that He loves others more. Then, a song will naturally fill your mouth and gratitude will once again become a part of your story.
As I write this, appropriately, a song is spontaneously filling my mouth, O How He Loves You and Me.
Oh, how He loves you and me,
Oh how He loves you and me.
He gave his life, what more could he give?
Oh, how He loves you; Oh,
How he loves me; Oh, how he loves you and me.
And since He has given you His very life, won’t He also give you all good things? In His deep personal love, there is no room for comparison.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).
Prayer
Lord, thank you that you see me, you know me, and you know what I need. Thank you for your personal care for me. Help me to keep my eyes on you and away from comparison. Amen.
Application
Talk with the Lord and ask Him if you are believing that He loves others more or that He has forgotten you. If needed, confess your sin of unbelief to Him.
Related Reading
Psalm 34:9-10; Romans 8:35-39; Psalm 5:11-12
Worship Resource
Grace Larson Brumley: O How He Loves You and Me
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