The Problem With Comparisons

In this episode of Our Journey to Hope, we explore how comparing our health, success, families, finances, or circumstances with others can quietly drain away our hope. The problem is often the measuring stick. We know our own struggles from the inside while seeing only the outside of someone else’s life.

 Hope doesn’t require us to be doing better than someone else. Instead of looking around to see who is ahead, perhaps we need to look at where we are, recognize what God has placed in our hands, and take the next faithful step.

Transcript

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Hello friends, I'm your host, Dr. Dave Leighton, and thank you for joining me on our journey to hope. This podcast is a place where together we explore how to discover, sustain, and sometimes regain hope. Wherever you're listening, let's take a deep breath, open our hearts, and continue this journey towards hope. And remember, no one walks alone. Today's episode is brought to you by Come and See Publications. I invite you to visit ComeandSe Publications.com. You'll discover devotional books, Bible studies, and other Christ-centered resources to help you continue growing in your faith. That's Come and See Publications.com. Have you ever looked at someone else's life and wondered why they seem to be doing so much better than you? Maybe they're healthier. Maybe they have more money. Maybe their family seems to have fewer problems, and maybe they travel more, accomplish more, or simply seem happier. And before long, without even realizing what we're doing, we begin measuring our life against theirs. We do it with wealth, we do it with money, and we do it with accomplishments, and we do it with our families, and we can even do it with our faith. And comparison can quietly drain away our hope. Well, today I want to think about something that can slowly take hope from us without our ever noticing, and it's called the trap of comparison. Most of us have probably done this. We look at somebody about our age who seems to have more energy than we do, and suddenly we feel old. We hear about someone taking a wonderful vacation while we're watching the budget, and suddenly what we have doesn't seem quite enough. Someone talks about their children or grandchildren, and everything seems to be going wonderfully. Meanwhile, we know the struggles going on in our family. We see someone accomplishing something, and we wish we could accomplish it, and what we've accomplished suddenly seems smaller and less significant. Nothing actually changed in our life. The only thing that changed was the measuring stick. And that's the problem with comparison. It gives us a false measure. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 12, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. Paul was addressing people who were using one another as their standard, and there's something here worth considering when we think about hope. Here's the truth of the matter. My hope doesn't require me to be doing better than you, and your hope doesn't require you to be doing better than me. If my sense of how well I'm doing depends upon how well you're doing, I've chosen a measuring stick that will never give me a reliable answer. There will always be someone with more, someone healthier or wealthier, more success, or whose family seems happier and who appears to have fewer problems. If I have to be doing better than that person before I can have hope, I may spend much of my life feeling as though I'm falling behind. There's another problem with comparing ourselves to other people. We usually don't know their whole story. We know our own story from the inside. We know what woke us up at two o'clock in the morning. We know what the doctor said. We know what's in our bank account, and we know the family problems we haven't told anyone about. We know our disappointments, our regrets, our fears, and those things we wish had turned out differently. But we usually know somebody else's story from the outside. Remember, we know our story from the inside, but when we look at someone else, it's usually their story from the outside. Because we see the smile, we see the new car, we see the vacation pictures, we hear about the promotion, we see them sitting across the aisle at church looking like everything is fine. And then we compare what we know about ourselves with what we can see about them. That's hardly a fair comparison. The person we think has everything together may be carrying a burden we know nothing about. So what's the right measure? Maybe we need to ask a different question. Instead of asking, how am I doing compared to them? Perhaps we should ask, where am I today? And am I moving faithfully forward from here? That changes things. Maybe my progress is slower than someone else's. It's still progress. Maybe my circumstances are harder right now. That doesn't mean hope has disappeared. Maybe someone else has opportunities I don't have. Well, I still have opportunities of my own. Maybe I can't do everything I once could, but I can still ask, what can I do today? Hope doesn't require us to win a race against somebody else. Hope gives us reason to keep walking. Comparisons also have a way of making us overlook what is already good in our lives. When we constantly look at what someone else has or is doing, we can lose sight of what God has placed in our hands. There may be people who love us. There may be important work we can still do. There may be someone we can encourage. There may be a prayer we can pray, a kindness we can offer, a phone call we can make, or a beautiful morning we can enjoy. Those things don't become less valuable because someone else has something different. Their blessing does not diminish mine. I want to say that again because that is very important for us to understand. Their blessing does not diminish mine. Their success does not make me a failure. Their good health does not make my life less meaningful, and their progress does not mean I'm falling behind. My hope doesn't require me to be doing better than someone else. That is a false measure. For those of us who follow our Lord, our hope ultimately rests somewhere much stronger than comparison. The writer of Hebrews describes our hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. That's found in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 19. I like that picture. An anchor doesn't ask how the boat next to us is doing, it holds. And sometimes that's exactly what we need hope to do. When someone else seems to be doing better, when our progress seems slow, hope holds. When life hasn't turned out quite the way we expected, when someone else appears to have everything we wish we had, hope holds. Because our hope was never supposed to depend on being ahead of somebody else. Well here's one last thought before we wrap up. Maybe today you've been looking around and thinking everyone else seems to be doing better than you. Perhaps it's time to put down that measuring stick. You don't know their whole story, and they don't know all of yours. Instead, look at where you are. Look at what you have and look at what God has placed around you. Look at the opportunities still before you, and then take the next faithful step. You don't have to outrun anybody, you don't have to have more than anybody, and you don't have to prove that your life is going better than anybody else's, and yours doesn't require you to be doing better than someone else. Hope has a much better measuring stick than that, and that measuring stick is our faithfulness to the Lord. Well, thank you for joining us on our journey to hope. For more articles, videos, devotionals, books, and encouragement, please visit Come and See Publications.com. That's ComeandSee Publications.com. I'm your host, Dave Leighton, and until next time, remember no one walks alone.