Humans are the only thing in nature that  compare themselves to each other.

Flowers are okay being different sizes and colors and shapes from one another.  Some prefer sun and some prefer shade, yet they don’t bicker over who’s right.  They don’t try to be like something they’re not, they just thrive with their own unique form of beauty when they are planted in the right environment.  In that place where their roots can absorb what it is they need to grow.

As I look out across my yard and all the various trees, I see that each one has a different type of leaf and bark.  They even have different sounds as the wind rustles through them.  Some are great for shade, other’s house various types of birds.  But not once have I seen my maple tree try to look like my palm tree.  They simply each stand in their own form of beauty and do what they were meant to do.

But humans?  We’re different.  More “evolved”, right?

Then why can’t we grasp the simplest of concepts that even animals and foliage live by? To live out the life that we’ve been blessed with by being who we were created to be without comparison to others?

So many things in our culture fight against us in this, enticing us with prefab ideas of how we should look or think.  And when we don’t fit the mold, when our ideas or way of doing things or the size of our bodies or the money in our pocket doesn’t hit the standard, we panic.  We look at magazines, watch shows and spend countless hours on social media sites that leave us feeling guilty or lacking or completely discouraged and depressed.  We compare us to them.  We compare us to us, for Pete’s sake.

And instead of us being who we’re supposed to be, we are weighing in on how we rate next others.  How we believe others see us or want us to be.

But even if we people please, we don’t fool ourselves.  We know our own failures and shortcomings.  And so we try harder to look and act and sound like everyone else on Facebook or Youtube or at Starbucks so that we can appear as “perfect” as we really want to be.

If you’ve ever seen the show Catfish you know what I’m talking about.  People begin a relationship online only to find out months and even years later that the person they have now fallen in love with was not who they claimed to be.  Identities and pictures and stories are stolen in an effort to keep someone interested and connected.  And every time it’s done by someone who was not happy and confident with their true self.  They desperately want to be someone they’re not, and the fallout of heartbreak and confusion and anger is tragic. Friendships and relationships are destroyed and self-confidence takes a fatal blow.

I’m just so tired.  Aren’t you tired?  Tired of the wasted energy and years of our lives spent trying to squeeze into a mold that was never meant to fit us?  Tired of the pressure and angst and discouragement that comes with the comparison game?  Tired of the sense that we need to look or act or think or talk or pray or play like the person next to us?  Or, in reverse, tired of trying to make people fit OUR blueprint?

Whenever we do this we are going from ALIVE to SURVIVE mode.  Unnecessary weight, toxic air, ugly lies.

But…

What if we go back to the beginning of time, that time when we were CREATED IN GOD’S IMAGE and God breathed into our nostrils the breath of LIFE.  A time when we were surrounded by the beauty of nature and the presence of God without the option or thought of comparison.  When, for the first time (and unfortunately, the last) we only knew who we were in the eyes of God and not in comparison to others.  It was clear to us then, as never again, that we had been made in the image of God.  There was direct, eye to eye contact with Him, so that when we saw Him, we also saw our true selves in His eyes.

Satan really started this whole comparison thing.  He wanted to be who God was.   He wanted His power, His glory.  Which is sad, because Lucifer (his name before he was thrown from heaven), which means “light-bearer”, had position and purpose in heaven when he was who God created him to be.  He enjoyed the presence of God Himself and the company of angels.  But he wanted more.  He wanted to be more.  And that jealousy, that pride ended up becoming his doom.  He went from being “light-bearer” to the father of darkness.

Comparison comes from a very ugly place.  It’s not from God.  It steals the breath of God that should fill our lungs, choking out our originality and blinding our eyes to the fact that we were UNIQUELY created in the image of God.  It deafens our ears to the music of possibility that comes with looking into the eyes of our Creator for our worth and identity.  It numbs every sense in us that tells us that we were meant to not just survive, but to THRIVE in the life He has called us to.

I’m done with this game.  I. Am. Out.

Join me?

Psalm 139:13-18 – For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Genesis 1:26-27 – Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

2 Corinthians 10:12 – When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.

Galatians 1:2 – For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:4 – 6 – There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.