When I Compare Myself to Others
I Lose.
We make ourselves miserable when we buy into the idea that what is being graded or tested is equivalent to human worth.
It’s a lie.
My worth is assigned and irrevocable. I am who God says I am. I am his child.
That may not seem like much.
It doesn’t require my unique skill set.
But this is how I need to see it.
If this isn’t the most important fact about me then my priorities are screwed up. The world’s systems have gotten to me.
To be sure, I have had many roles and worn many labels.
Some have given me power and authority for a season - like the title Dad, for instance.
To the extent that I could remember that I myself am always, first and foremost, a child and under God, my ability to discipline as a loving father was a blessing to my children.
When I forgot this then they suffered under my hand.
Being a child of God doesn’t make me soft. In fact my Heavenly Father is continuing to raise me, which involves discipline.
This is a hard pill to swallow I know, the fact that being the child of the king doesn’t protect me, but it is to grow me up and enable me to do the tasks he calls me to do with him.
Consider [Jesus] who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.
For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.