The trouble with comparison

Comparison is a weapon of the Enemy. As much as we like to tell ourselves and others that it helps us to judge "where someone is at" it really doesn't and I'll give you two good reasons why.

Firstly, the problem of our past. People come from different places, they learn different things and they grow in different ways. Whenever we put two people of different past up against each other and measure them not matter what we do, one of those people will out measure the other. Our pasts are unique and they all carry their own misfortune and good fortune. Some more of the former than the latter, and vice versa.

An interesting point that should be made as a beleiver is that in Christ we are new creations. Clean slate. Things are reset to "zero" and we start over. Besides the obvious practical reasons why a naive interpretation of that would cause new believers to fall into a pretty sad state, it's important to note that struggle is required to obtain some things. As Casey Treat is so famously quoted and please feel free to insert his iconic voice "You must renew your mind!" So things don't just change over night. It's a process of renewing, somethings may go away over night but some things take a continual renewal through the Word of God.

Secondly, the problem of our future. No two people have the same future (unless you want to group people into marriage covenant, but even still their unique individuals). Each person has a destiny that is known only to God. It's difficult for us to try and measure people when we have no idea what to measure them with. Our callings and giftings all come out in different ways and different times. It's so important that we understand that.

Moses spent 30 years in the desert before he was able to act on his desire to free his people. Joshua waited an entire generation to claim the promised lane. Paul was over 30 before he was saved, then spent another 20+ years serving his local church before he went around writing 2 thirds of the new testament. Jeremiah was 18-19 when he started preaching to people twice his age. Jesus was running around at 13 telling people whats up. We don't have the luxury of choosing when or how our giftings will come in full. In fact I doubt we'll even realize it when it happens.

It's so easy for people especially us young adults to try to use comparison to determine where we should be at. What we should be doing or how we should be doing it. But if we focus on that we will forget to focus on the most important thing which is What Is God Doing In My Life Now? Our faithfulness isn't determined by some great thing we accomplish or how many people we "save" it's measured (and I think the bible clearly dictates so) by our faithfulness to what God has called us to do. In every little task. Every small word.