Luke 18:11

“God, I thank you that I am not like the other people…”

Last nite, as my yoga session at the gym was ending with quiet stillness, lying upon my pink mat with hearts, I was convicted. The Holy Spirit exposed to me, in clarity, my sin of comparison. That I’ve fallen back into my default nature of comparing myself with people when I see them, instead of simply loving them via seeking their flourishing and looking to encourage, affirm, and call out anything positive.

Ruach showed me how much it’s been pervading my thoughts and captivating me. Being a 4 on the enneagram, I so want to be the most specialest person in the room! Therefore, to size everybody up, to judge if I am indeed the special of the hour, is a great temptation to me. When not keeping this in check, it is quite destructive and confining.

Comparison requires and eats so much energy that could be used for more constructive applications. How love desires to use that available fuel to celebrate others and call out their positive attributes.

So what if someone is awesomer than me. Great! When I’m in a healthy place in this fight, I see people and naturally look to encourage them and call out whatever greatness I see, hence, championing them as Jesus has championed me. He always encourages. The Spirit always comforts.

I read somewhere that, upon entering a room of people or having people enter our area, that it is in our human nature to automatically judge them as a threat or an opportunity. A threat to extinguish, or an opportunity to exploit. Or even worse, the third category of “inconsequential”-neither threatening or exploitable. A nobody. But in the kingdom of God, with a regenerated heart, new nature, and cultivated spirit, I believe we can see everybody as opportunity–for blessing. For encouragement. For affirmation. And, thus, for joy-building. It transcends comparison, freeing up all of that would-be wasted energy to see others more clearly, and to be a conduit, rather than a dam, of God’s love.

To hell with comparison. It robs me, and even more so, others, of way too much.

To heaven with celebration, blessing, and joy-building.