I’m listening to an old convocation message (because I slept in today and didn’t go to church..) from April of 2010 (last semester), of Dave Edwards preaching on “The Invisible Giant of Comparison”. It’s something that I really stuggle with sometimes, which is why I picked this one to re-hear.

He says that our modern generation isn’t the first to struggle with comparison…the Israelites did too. In Numbers 13 & 14, where they sent the 12 into the Promised Land. 10 of them compared themselves/the Israelites to the gigantic people that inhabit the Promised Land. They took their focus off of God and put it on themselves and their enemies. However, Edwards says: “Life is not for competing, but for completing the will of God.” This is true. God had a purpose for the Israelites. And He doesn’t compare His kids to each other. The Israelites got so focused off of God and His plan, that they looked at their future and thought, we’d rather go back to our past, back to captivity in Egypt. You think, this is crazy! God had just saved them from that captivity, and here they are afraid to trust Him to take them further into His plan. THIS is what happens when we take our eyes off of God and start comparing ourselves to others. We get scared, we stop trusting, we become disappointed and think it would be better to return to where we came from (romanticize the past).
Edwards says there are 3 things that will help us quit comparing ourselves to others.
a). Defer the role of God to God. Every time we compare, we say, God why don’t you step over, and I’ll take it from here. We try to take control of our lives, without the help of God. Psalm 37:3.
b). Delight in our uniqueness. Psalm 37:4. You can’t live somebody else’s life - you’re called to live the one God gave you. There is freedom in this, when you start being yourself and quit being like others. Yet it took Israel 40 years to get it right.
c). Deny your right to compare. Psalm 37:7 - “fret” to turn something over and over again. The goal of comparison is to keep you from the plan God has for you. Don’t give in.

A side note (something that Edwards didn’t say)— we must remind ourselves of this every so often…because we will forget (at least I do). C. S. Lewis said “relying on God has to begin all over every day as if nothing had yet been done.” We MUST remind ourselves of it every day, so we will not forget.