12 We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves.(A) When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
2 Corinthians 10:12 NIV
Do you ever think it would be easier to be completely happy if you lived in a bubble—similar to Little House on the Prairie where their goal was to build a house in the middle of open acres where they wouldn’t have many neighbors. I think it would be easier to be content and sincerely grateful if I were in the middle of a wide open prairie with no neighbors in sight with whom to compare myself.
When I focus on all the blessings God has given me, I find it easier to be content when I am not comparing my life to others. When I am spending more time at home and less time on social media, it is easier for me to not compare myself to others.
I came across a quote by Charles de Montesquieu the other day. The quote was this: “If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think they’re happier than they are.” It is not enough for us to just be happy; we don’t want just a nice house, or a comfortable income, or maybe a vacation each year. No, we want it all—plus some. We not only want a nice house, we want it to be slightly nicer than that of our peers. We want a slightly greater income than those around us. We want to go on vacation and have it be a little fancier than others around us. We want it all—plus.
We get so focused on looking at what others have that we don’t stop to appreciate what all we have been blessed with. Who do we think we are to tell God that we appreciate His blessings but could He bless us just a little bit more? The tragedy of this is that these same people to whom we are comparing ourselves are probably doing the same thing—comparing their lives to ours! While we sit comparing ourselves to each other, we totally overlook the unique blessings that God has showered upon us.
We have seen examples of this kind of thing in the Bible too. Remember King David? He was, as I said, King. He was ruling God’s Chosen People. He had wealth, prestige, and power. He had beautiful wives. But . . . he didn’t have Bathsheba who was the wife of another man—Uriah. Oh he got her—but he sacrificed a lot. When Bathsheba conceived a child, he ended up basically having Uriah killed. Sadly, this child died. There was a wedge now in David’s relationship with God until he repented. He lost his peace of mind. He lost his integrity. And, the Bible says, the sword never departed from his house. That is a steep price. All because he found something (or someone) he didn’t have and on impulse decided he needed it. Oh what needless pain was caused because David stopped focusing on all he had been blessed with and instead craved what Uriah had. (Read the full story at II Samuel 11 and 12.)
Why do we feel the need to compare our blessings with the blessings of others? We spend so much more time comparing our blessings than we do thinking about the Giver of those blessings. What God must think when He sees us not being grateful simply because He didn’t bless us in the same way that He blessed others in our lives!
It is so easy to get distracted with the things of this earth—especially the things we want but do not yet possess. We can spend our days being jealous and envious, comparing ourselves with others, or we can carry our list of wants and needs before God and then release them to Him, trusting that He is able to do infinitely more than we could ever imagine but He will do only what is best for us.