We do need to compare, we just need to compare ourselves to the right person. We need to look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. But that’s not what I do, most of the time. I look at somebody a little more, oh, down to earth. Somebody not perfect. Somebody I can find fault with.
Two things can happen when we compare ourselves to others. Either we will find somebody who is struggling in the areas in which we are strong, and we will mentally pat ourselves on the back and think something like, “Well I’ve got nothing to worry about… I’m way ahead of that person…” And we feel self-satisfied and we become prideful and we are headed for a fall.
Or we find somebody who is very strong in the areas in which we struggle, and we mentally berate ourselves and see only our failure and think something like, “Well I’ll never even come close to that… I might as well give up…” And we feel discouraged and we become disheartened and we are already falling.
Neither scenario is the way Jesus wants us to live. Comparing ourselves to others is deadly, and when we start extending that bad habit to how we parent, we bring our children into a situation without any good options. This is not of Christ, my dear sisters. This is not freedom. This is not truth. This is not joy.
I have three antidotes to offer, ones I’m learning to apply in my life as I try to drop this comparing habit and start living the way God wants me to live.
1. Quit demanding too little of yourself.
Okay, so I’ll just be honest here. I feel best about how I’m doing as a parent after a trip to the mall, or Chuck E. Cheese, or even the grocery store. If I get the privilege of watching another family whose children are clearly out of control, I walk away feeling pretty confident about my own parenting skills. After all, my kid didn’t shove that little girl off the slide in the play area. My kid didn’t scream and refuse to eat because the pizza had pepperoni on it. My kid didn’t grab boxes of Mac’n'Cheese and launch them across the aisle…
But my kids do other things that require my vigilance, attention, and loving discipline. My bad habit of comparing makes me apathetic to those other things.
Colossians 1:10 tells me to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.” That’s my standard. That’s where I need to look and see how I measure up. Am I walking worthy of the Lord who gave me these children? Am I being fruitful in every good work as I raise them? Hmm.
2. Quit following the blind.
You’ve heard the adage about the blind leading the blind, haven’t you? That’s what I do when I base my values and decisions on what other Mommies are doing. They may have clear leading from the Holy Spirit, they may have based their decisions on Biblical principles… but I don’t know that. And what if they didn’t? What if they, like me, are often just stumbling along, looking around, and making random decisions based on what other people are doing? Is that really the foundation I want for the way I raise my children?
No, it isn’t. And even if the woman I am watching is following Jesus, what He directs her to do may not be what He directs me to do. God is very personal.
Colossians 2:2-3 tells me that it is in God that I will find “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:8 tells me that I should “beware lest any man spoil [me]… after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” People may not mean to mislead me, but they might anyway. Why would I take chances when I can go to the source of perfect wisdom?
3. Quit feeling inadequate.
It is such a temptation to just wander into the forest of self-pity and stay there for days at a time. I can get lost there so completely that I lose my vision, I lose my joy, I lose the knowledge of who I am in Jesus Christ.
It’s the first step we need to avoid, and it usually starts when I start looking around at other women. Then I ask myself impossible questions: “What does she have that I don’t? Why is God blessing her finances/work/relationships/ministry and not mine? Why doesn’t my house look that good? How does she have it so together? She has so much more. She has better this and that. She has an easier situation. I can never get there…”
I allow the frustration to make me feel inadequate, unable, defeated, and then I just settle into this swamp of selfish self-pity. What a horrible way to spend my precious days!
Colossians 2:10 tells me that I am “complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” Colossians 3:9-10 tells me that I have “put off the old man with his deeds. And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him…” I never see the complete picture of another Mommy’s life; that’s why I shouldn’t try to compare myself with the part I do see. My vision is imperfect; that’s why I look to Jesus, who has perfect vision.
Don’t fall into the comparison trap. No one else looks like you because no one else is supposed to.
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